First stitches

I'm not the sort of mother who gets all teary eyed and gushes to everyone she meets every time her child accomplishes something. I don't call everyone in my address book when she learns to spell a new word or gets a good progress report from school. Of course I am proud of her and I tell her that, but it's not often that I feel the need to brag to others. I'm just not that mom.

But this? This I'm going to brag about.

Autumn is embroidering. Embroidering! The craft nerd in me is rejoicing. We owe this in part to Amanda Soule, who gives some excellent tips for teaching children embroidery in her book, The Creative Family (highly recommended book, by the way). She suggests using burlap and a blunt needle, which worked out perfectly. All I did was thread the needle and hand her the hoop and she took to it like a natural. I figured she would just make a few practice stitches to get the hang of the process, but instead she decided to make a picture.
It's a car! Oh, I'm sorry, not just any car, but a Jeep, according to Autumn. Aside from asking me to change the thread and tie knots, she did this all on her own. I plan on framing it and hanging it in my craft room.

In more than four years of being a parent, I can honestly say this is one of my proudest moments. The other proudest moment involved vigilante justice and plastic flatware, but that's a story for another post. My kid is so awesome.