First, she must learn to sew on a button!! My DIL can't even do that and doesn't want to learn. Good luck. Slow and easy is my suggestion.

Once the basics are covered find out what direction she wants to go. Let her pick the project, with your guidance regarding level of difficulty.

How awesome for you to mentor this young woman! I know there are books available for beginning sewing...I also know that JoAnn Fabrics offer sewing classes...they may even have books that would be helpful to you. I was fortunate to have a mom who sewed (and SHE was self-taught!), so I learned my love of sewing from her, but moved away from home before she could teach me...I took a beginner's sewing class at the Singer sewing machine store in the city I worked in at the time...Well worth the money!

it's so good you're teaching her. she might be a natural

I would love to be in your shoes -- mentoring is such fun! You have the opportunity to give an individual the skills for a lifetime!

I am teaching my DGD to sew. We started with some thing very simple...a can coozie. She is 14 and was so pround when her dad (my DS) uses it. We are going to make pajama pants on Saturday and she is looking forward to it. We learned the basics first...how to thread the machine, how to change the needle etc. I drew some lines on paper and she stitched that first. Some lines were wavy and some had corners so she learned to put the needle down and raqise the presser foot and turn. You have to start with small things first and work up to a quilt. My DGD is in 4-H so we may make a quilt this summer.

When my grandniece wanted to learn to sew she and mom's fiance would just sew pieces of scraps together. He would thread the needle for her. Then she insisted on threading. She's pretty good at that. I gave her some scrap material that had a pattern on it. Some of the patterns were plaids, stripes and couple paisleys. The solid scraps I put a line to be sewn on to square up the scrap and she was to do a 1/4", 1/2" and 5/8" seams. Hadn't seen her for about a month then I stopped over at their house and they including mom's fiance showed their progress. It was really good what they did with the samples. They ended up sewing all the pieces together. Had to laugh and then realized it looked like the beginnings of a crazy quilt. They decided they would make a pillow out of it and give it to my sister for Christmas. Showed them how to sew a button on and they are just all over the place with a needle and thread.