My eight year old grand daughter has taken to the sewing machine like a duck to water... I've been meaning to do more sewing with her but there are never enough hours when they visit but this time..with the little one completely engrossed with the play kitchen - endless cups of pretend tea and plates of weird combinations of plastic food - we were able to sit at the sewing machine and have some time for a proper lesson. My new machine has a speed control and with it at its slowest we practiced really boring stuff like straight lines and joining fabric together. My personal philosophy on learning new skills is make something you want right at the beginning and incorporate the learning into that project. That way you get a sense of achievement and a skill at the same time. This is particularly important if you are 8 years old with the attention span of a gnat!!! So we did straight lines to hem a bit of calico and then did a few more staight lines using fancy...