My sitter took on the task teaching her 4 year old charges to quilt. She borrowed a hand crank machine from the local quilt shop. The kids loved it. Unfortunately, the machine 'jammed' before they finished their blocks. They finished up on her machine. Now my son thinks he can quilt on my machine! He is very good at picking up material. When we go to the fabric shop, he generally picks up three fat squares and the colors work so well together. If I get a camera working, I will post what he and my sister worked on one afternoon.

That is so awesome :D:D:D

My daughter started learning when she was 5 before starting kindergarten. Her first several projects were pillowcases she made on the serger and then the machine. Her daddy still uses them to this day. This past summer at 7 she made her first quilt from start to finish by herself on my machine and took first place at the local county fair, all the kids were in the 10-12 age category she went up against. Since she is not old enough to use the rotary cutter I did it for her. We used a rail fence pattern so that it was easy for me to square up the squares without it looking odd.

I highly recommend teaching them young.

I learned to sew on mom's machine at 3. DD said, "Uppy, Mommy, my do." at 18 months so I put her on my lap, held her hand and let her guide the fabric through the machine. DGD wanted, at 19 months, to help make homemade noodles. All she could say was, "Roll roll roll"
I believe that kids should be taught when the show an interest no matter what age.