Hot Pad

Paul's cousin gave each of my girls a craft kit for weaving hot pads, suggested age 6+. I thought this was rather ambitious and figured I'd wait for the excitement of piles of Christmas presents to die down a little, then put the craft kits away for a few years. Ada's 3 and Ellie's 7 but her dexterity isn't quite the same as most of her peers.

One day, while Ellie was in school, Ada brought me the kit. She really wanted to weave a hot pad. So we gave it a shot. I helped a little: keeping loose loops from sliding off the loom, lifting tight strands so she could slip the weaving strand over/under, and binding off the edges at the end. But designing and maintaining the pattern plus weaving the pieces through was all Ada.

She proudly presented her finished craft to her Daddy, who uses it under his coffee mug:



The hardest part for me was to allow mistakes to happen without correcting them.