The Kids of Integrity Challenge is finished!

Christmas character mittens

While we’re having a blast doing the Contentedness lesson (especially at this time of year), we also didn’t want to miss out on the new Christmas lesson that was just posted. So we’re taking a wee break to do the mittens and the “review” that goes with them. We’ll head back to Contentedness in the new year.

I was highly amused at Ben’s reaction when I explained the sewing activity that accompanied the Christmas lesson. Never did I expect my boy to dance down the hallway squealing with delight at the thought of making mittens! He was SO excited to work with the fleece and decide which mitts represented which character trait.

We started out by choosing the attributes we really wanted to highlight this Christmas. I suggested we limit it to nine traits so we wouldn’t be sewing for weeks! (We can always add more next year.) Our selections came from both the fruits of the Spirit and any of the KOI lessons, whether we had done those particular lessons or not. Here’s what we came up with:

• Contentedness
• Generosity
• Faithfulness
• Joy
• Kindness
• Love
• Peace
• Self-control
• Patience

I pilfered fleece from my mom’s sewing room to expand our own stash but also checked out a couple fabric stores. One place did minimum 10 cm cuts but the other would sell no less than 20 cm. Had I bought fleece on sale, I would have paid about $1.00 - $1.50 per piece. If you live in a larger area, you might have access to a re-use or recycle centre where you can pick up fabric scraps for cheap or even free. Does anyone have any other ideas for getting your hands on small pieces of fleece? Feel free to leave a comment!

Our next task was to each choose our three favourites. That was quick, fun and easy. Then came the part where Mommy wasn’t organized enough. It would’ve been nice to have had a simple mitten pattern included in the lesson. I ended up loosely tracing Jessica’s hand and then fattening the thumb so it wouldn’t get too skinny once sewn. We also made the cuff longer than normal so the finished product could be folded back. I added a 1/4” seam allowance all around and then cut our “pattern” out of a cereal box. After that it was simple to trace onto the fabric using a permanent marker.

The kids had a bit of difficulty cutting two layers at once if the fleece was thick, so I explained how to flip the pattern over when tracing individual layers so we would end up with the correct side of the cloth on the outside of the mitt. With two of the patterned materials, we also wanted to get specific parts of the “picture” centred on the back of the mitt so it would be clearly visible and fairly even on both mittens. It took quite a bit longer than I thought.

We’ll do the sewing another day and while we’re working on that, we’ll assign a character trait to each pair. Hopefully I won’t be too engrossed, so we can actually have a “re-cap discussion” about the various attributes and how we, as a family, might live them out for Jesus this Christmas season.