Lowly (and Lola) Worm

My girls have been asking to do a sewing project for a while now and after reading some of our favourite Richard Scarry stories one night, we decided to create our own cuddly version of Lowly Worm.

 

For variety, we also decided to create a female version. Meet Lola Worm:

There isn't too much to say about these creations. Basically, you just sew together two pieces of fabric - one colour for the shirt, one for the trousers, then attach it to the head (my girls found an old pair of socks that they deemed "worm color") and the foot (we used an old baby sock and shoe). 

I sketched the outline of the worm head on the sock before cutting.

Then the kids stitched on top of the pencil markings.  We carefully trimmed away the excess fabric.

For the worms' clothing, we chose fabric from my bottomless bin of scraps.

I turned the sewing speed down to 'low' so the needle moved slowly no matter how hard the kids pressed the pedal.  They learned how to follow markings, sew a straight stitch and backstitch.

Out came the polyester fiber-fill.  This kept the kids occupied for a while.

Once stuffed, we just needed to hand-stitch the socks onto the worm bodies.  The 7-year-old did fine with this; the 4-year-old required much assistance.

The eyes, mouth, hat, bows, skirt, etc. were all created with scrap fabrics and hand-stitched into place.

Sewing worms turned out to be a great beginner project!