Sewing Report

Yes, you have been wondering if I have been a good girl with my sewing, hugh? Well, yes, mostly I have been very good. We decided to move the home school room to the basement about two weeks ago since it was too much chaos in the dining room. I originally did not want to be in the basement and did not want to share my sewing room space. (Nice, she's 33 and has not learned to share!) But it has turned out to be a wonderful decision for many reasons. We do have two windows down there which lets in quite a bit of light during the day. We can turn the gas fireplace on which warms it up really quickly and makes for a very cozy school room. (Just like the olden days... one room school house with a fire!) It is much easier for certain students and teachers to concentrate down in the basement away from all of the other distractions (like sinks full of dirty dishes!). And the best reason for moving school to the basement... I am getting to sew! Wah-hoo!

What happens is when Emelia has a worksheet or something that requires her to work on her own, I leap over to my sewing desk and put the peddle to the metal! It may even be only a few seams I get done, but a stitch here and there and look at what I have completed: (okay, so some of this has been done in evenings when the chillins are in bed)

Finished two half done flannel bags

Finished an adorable mini diaper bag (girly colors)

Sewed 8 pouches for a certain birthday gift for a certain Father-in-law (hopefully he doesn't see this before his birthday!)

Sewed a mini quilt for Hannah's preschool play area (she has since retired from preschool, but that's another story and I have to keep my promise that I'd make the quilt!)

Sewed a mini pillow to match the quilt (just needs stuffing and its done!)

Almost finished with a tiered skirt I have had cut out for 2 years or so for myself

Started a baby boy quilt for a friends baby who will be born next week!

Finished sewing a small tablecloth for the play table in the girls room

Sewed a really fun flannel quilt for my biological father, who I just met last weekend for the first time in my life (another long story!)

So, are you proud? And the only fabric I have purchased is for the baby boy quilt for my friend, which I promise you was a need! How is it going with your new years goals?

In case you are curious about this quit I made for my bio father, you cut two 9 inch squares from flannel (cotton works too) and then a 7 inch square of batting. Place the batting in between the two pieces of flannel and sew an X across the four corners. Make a bunch of these and then sew them together in rows, making a 1 in seam with the raw edges facing up. Sew the rows together and then start clipping all the seams. (Don't forget to sew a one inch seam all the way around the outer edges too) Then wash the blanket (yes, wash it!) and be careful to make sure you watch when the water is draining (the pieces coming off the fabric from "fraying it" totally filled up my drain sock!). Then dry it on hot and check the lint trap often as well. It will turn into a chenille look on all the seams. Click on the pics to see better details of before and after.

The final product! Very fun, he loved it and now I want one for our three season porch or for a picnic blanket. But I'm out of flannel and better get some more projects on my list done first!

Redeemed... sort of...

OK, so just a few mornings later I awoke and could hear the girls talking in their bedroom. Emelia was teaching Hannah to memorize the words of John 3:16. How sweet! For about 5-10 minutes I could hear Emelia saying, "Hannah, say, For God.... so loved... the world...." and Hannah would repeat, "For God... so loved... the world..." My firstborn was hiding the word of the Lord in my second born's heart... how precious! Just making sure her little sister knows the way to heaven... what a tender loving sister.

Oh, thank you Jesus. My sweet big girl has redeemed herself... Sort of!

A few days after hearing such sweet words to my ears we went to the local ice skating rink for some gym time. The girls had a blast and we had the rink all to ourselves. But then on the way out we were walking down a long hallway to the exit. All of a sudden a door opened up and all of these huge (stinky) hockey players started pouring out of the doors, one after another, after another. And what did my sweet daughter say? "Oh MOM, LOOK - HOCKEY PLAYERS!" That's it, she's gonna be locked up for the next 20 years minimum!

Lord, Help Me!

Yeah, so we were driving home from dance lessons tonight and the girls were happily conversing (mostly) while I was tuning them out listening to music or just thinking....

And then all of a sudden what came out of my eldest daughter's mouth perked up my ears really fast. I heard her say, "...Look, it's teenage boys..." and she starts knocking on our windows!

Oh, mercy me, my heart almost stopped! I looked to my left and there beside me was a car with (sure enough) two teenage boys sitting in it! UFF DAH! UFF DAH MAYA! Ummm, is my daughter 8 1/2 or 16 1/2? I immediately said, EMELIA! STOP THAT! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

Hello, I thought I was homeschooling and that my children were going to be nice sheltered kids... And we go to a baptist church for heaven's sake! Somebody help me, please! Honestly, I am not ready for that phase of my life. And she is 8, as in EIGHT, as in sweet, innocent...

OK, yes, I am starting to hyperventilate and I can hear you all telling me to breathe. That's right, breathe in and out, slowly. And while I am breathing Ted, lock that girl in the closet. O.K. dad, now I know what you mean about "You can't date until you are married". I like the sounds of that. Or, "You can't date until you are 30!"

Oh, what is this world a comin' to? Come soon, sweet Jesus, come soon! And to my dear sweet hubby, maybe we should get that girl a horse as soon as possible! (Some lady told us in a tack store once that havin' a horse for a girl helps keep her mind off the boys...)

I have a disease...

I am not really sure what it is called, but maybe Fabric-itis. Or maybe a more accurate (humbling) diagnosis would be to say I have an addiction... to fabric. Thankfully its a legal addiction as far as I am aware. (Emelia did inform me this morning that it is illegal in Kentucky to have an ice cream cone in your pocket...) I love to walk into a fabric store and dream up the possibilities of what a particular set of prints could become. My beloved husband was the one who helped me to see this love sometime last year when he pointed out that I "like" to take pictures (a lot), but that it does stress me out when I do it as a "business", but that I love to sew and it does not stress me out. Wow, what an observation! Yes, it does not stress me out, except when I want to buy more than I should...

So, as I was reflecting on last year and looking forward to this new year I had to come to a point of confession. I have a lot of fabric and I am really not getting much sewed these days with all the homeschooling and just life. So, I decided I should make a master list of all the projects that I have fabric for and maybe make some sort of rule like, I can't buy more fabric unless I get x number of items completed. Well, with the length of my list, I probably should not buy fabric for several years... but I tell you it's my disease...

Part of me does not want to tell you how many items are on my list, but the other part wants to just so I can have some accountability out there. Maybe a support group, you know, like AA? Fabrics Anonymous, here we come! Yep, I have 73 items on my list and a list of 15 more chunks of various fabrics that don't have a specific project assigned to them. And what makes it worse is that many of the "projects" are not single items... it's it like, "sew Felicity costumes for Emelia and Hannah or sew bed skirts for their beds... I could not separate them out, that was just too depressing.

On the positive side, you will be happy to know that the fabric is all organized and stacked neatly in a nice shelving unit with doors. And now I have a master list, which I will prioritize and post in a prominent place. And another lady and I have started a monthly craft night at church and you can guess what I will be bringing each month. It works out great that there is a fabric night this Friday... hallelujah!

Here's a couple of things I finished for Christmas gifts recently. This is a quilt for Emelia's BFF who lives in Iowa. She loved it and Emelia did help with cutting and sewing a few squares. I still need to make matching pillow cases to send her, but these could be next years gift or for her birthday!
And my "little buddy" nephew got this cowboy quilt for his cowboy room. It is hard to see the prints, but the cowboy print was sooo adorable and the red fabric had little horse shoes all over it. I tried to do the quilting in a lasso design, which I think turned out pretty well.
I can't tell you what the agenda is for Friday's sewing, because some of you will be the recipients of Christmas gifts next year. I will try to post some pics of items as I complete them. Well, now it's on to the next item, sorting through the paper stack that grew huge over the lat two weeks of celebrating Christmas. So, now its your turn - what is your disease?