I’m lucky that my children seem to enjoy sewing as much as I do. I’ve been introducing some simple sewing crafts so they can get used to using a needle and thread confidently. Sewing is a great activity for encouraging fine motor skills and hand/eye co-ordination. With Irish ancestry we are keen for our children to learn more about St Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. Our stitched shamrock craft for kids is a fun way to start the St Patrick’s Day celebrations.

List of supplies:

Coloured paper
White or cream paper
Green embroidery thread
Needle
Scissors

Stitched Shamrock craft for kids instructions:

Prepare the white paper (or any light coloured paper of your choice) into a square shape. Use a pencil to draw a shamrock pattern on the square paper. Prepare a needle with green thread and tie a knot at the open end of the thread.

Draw the needle through the square paper, along any point of the shamrock outline. Pull the thread all the way through.

Now simply stitch your way along the outline of the shamrock pattern. I’m doing running stitch for the first round.

Continue to stitch until the whole pattern is covered.

When the needle reaches the first stitch again, draw the needle to the opposite side of the paper.

Now draw the needle under the stitch next to the current position; draw the needle under a stitch from left to right (or right to left). Pull the needle all the way through.

Continue to do this stitch. Make sure to keep up with the sequence, if you started with left to right, continue to do so. Do not stitch right to left in that case. But if you started the stitch from right to left, continue to repeat that.

Keep drawing the needle under each stitch from the previous round. This will create a solid outline of the shamrock pattern.

Stitch until the whole shamrock pattern is covered. When done, draw the needle to the back of the paper. Tie a knot and cut off any excess thread.

Cut out a square paper from a green coloured (or any colour of your choice) paper, make sure it’s 1 cm extra larger than the size of the stitched shamrock. Attach the green paper to the back of the stitched paper.