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Sewing on Leaves

2009 July 5
by 5 Orange Potatoes

The weirdest thing, I went outside to water our shade garden this morning and low and behold I couldn’t believe my eyes! Did the fairies do some stitching in the moonlight?



Ok, so you know it wasn’t the fairies. The Little Ladies and myself had something to do with this. I was inspired by resurrection fern’s embroidered leaf post for this sewing activity. I knew the girls would love this so we picked some hosta leaves (or any thick skinned leaf), grabbed some pretty craft floss and the sewing needles.


The plan was to press the stitched leaves when we were done, in hopes of preserving our creations. I had pressed a hosta leaf about a month ago, so we were able to see the color our leaves would turn after being pressed. We had this in mind when selecting the colors of floss to stitch with.


Araina stitched inch worms of various colors on her leaf. I was so surprised with how gentle her sewing was, I put more holes in my leaf than she did!


Fauna free-handed our dog, Denali, onto her leaf. She poked holes in the leaf for Denali’s eyes. She stitched in silence until she was done. Such concentration!

I love it that she stitched this without drawing it first. She is such a free spirit; my motherly influence over her must never inhibit that! Here is her finished product.

Araina told me that she used the hosta’s natural veins to guide her stitches. Here is her finished product; that’s a lot of inchworms inching on her leaf!

I made french knot polka-dots on my hosta leaf. The french knots were a tad challenging to do on the leaf’s delicate surface. Here’s my finished product.


We will press the leaves for about a month, then possibly frame them if they press well. We had to pull out the big press for this pressing!

This was really fun for us all! It’s another way to get kids sewing and appreciate nature at the same time! We will be trying another leaf sewing activity later in the week. Enjoy!

from → activities, leaves, sewing, tutorial

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My designs and creations are made by my daughters and me. I love to share but my ideas and designs are for non-commercial use only. If you post an activity or photo from my site please give me credit and a direct link to 5 Orange Potatoes. Thank you for playing nice. :)