Organizing and Planning

The past couple of weeks I have been focused on gathering, organizing and planning.  I have been trying to get my sewing/craft room organized, which I am still working on but it is coming along nicely. I am waiting for Papaw to finish up my one needed shelves to go behind my sewing machines to put jars of notions and spools of ribbon and trim on. I can’t wait for that to go up.  I can’t wait till I have it all perfectly organized.

I have also been working on trying to come up with a good solution for a homeschool work area for Doodlebug for this school year, instead of just being spread out where ever. Last year much of our class work was done kicking back on the loveseat in the upstairs den area. Our upstairs den area connects with our kitchen and it seems to be the hub of the house.  It seems to be where we gravitate to the most. The space is a good size space but not huge and trying to come up with a workable solution was a bit of a challenge. I had run across an old fashioned desk ages ago in a little antique shop in a town that my mom and I meet at sometimes for lunch. I went back a couple of weeks ago in hopes that the desk would still be there. It was but with a big sold sticker on it. Needless to say, I didn’t give up. We went through several of the antique shops and I found this old drop side table that works out wonderfully for a work area. Doodles can pop up one side of it easily when she needs to sit down and get to work and pop it back down when she is finished for the day. I also like the idea that she has a creative space to gravitate to when we are just in there in the evenings. She already seems to love to pop up the table and pull out her drawing pad or grab a book.  I also think the table will be great for the holidays. Being able to use it as an extra table in our dining room, when our table in there will be wonderful. 

Over the past several months, before we finished our last school term, I had been reading, researching and collecting the school books and materials we were planning on using this school year. I am so glad that I planned a bit ahead. It helped take some of the pressure off when getting geared up this school year. We have had several weeks of just summer fun and down time and the pre planning sure helped there.

We are all signed up for enrichment classes. I think Doodles is going to have a great time on fun Monday’s with our homeschool network group. I never knew how wonderful being a part of such an active group could be. Signups for the enrichment classes were pain free. The group of parents that organize and arrange the classes, field trips and activities for our network are awesome. I am in awe of their commitment to make sure our group is one of the most well organized groups in the area. I feel so blessed that our family is a part of this group.  We were even given a piano for Doodlebug from one of the families in the group. Doodles will be starting piano lessons on the 24th. She is so excited about learning to play. She loves her piano.

We officially start back with school lessons on the 22^nd. We have been doing so many things throughout the summer that is still focused on learning but most of the time, didn’t involve a book. We have read quiet a bit this summer but have enjoyed outings to historical locations in the area. We have also focused on the goodness that summer brings, gardening, taking care of our chickens, catching lightening bugs, fishing and staying up late, just because. 

She loved the pigs at a homestead farm we visited. Now she wants pigs too.

Doodles learned to make fried green tomatoes this summer.

So, we will have to work on getting back on a bit more of a schedule this next week and we are looking forward to all the wonderful things that fall brings.

Hope you all have had a wonderful and blessed summer!

Scrap Box Skirt Project

In May of last year, Doodlebug got her first sewing machine. Since then, I have been trying to find ways to get her excited about sewing. She likes to sew but if it takes a bit too long, she passes it over to me and asks for help and the next thing you know, she is gone. So, I thought I would try and inspire her to practice her seams by sewing together blocks to make a funky little scrap box skirt. We had so many bright and colorful scraps in her box and I had quite a few scraps left over from a few summer outfits that I made her this year. Doodlebug loves bright, jazzy, mix match clothing so, I had great hopes she would be excited about this project.

We dug through the scrap box to pull out pieces to cut. Our only requirement was that the pieces were big enough to cut a rectangle from, color was not a consideration. We decided on a basic size and stack cut blocks using the prior block as our pattern. We did not concern ourselves with making sure they were a perfectly cut block, as long as they were close that was good enough. After all, Doodles is only seven and the project was for practice and the seams will not be perfect anyway.

When we finished cutting, this is what our stack looked like.


We didn't want to cut too many blocks of the same piece of fabric and we had very little of some of the fabrics, that wasn't a concern.

To make it more fun, I decided to add a bit of randomness to the project and we tossed all of the pieces into a paper bag, shook it up and started pulling our blocks out without looking and stitched them together however they came out of the bag. It was fun. Doodlebug seemed to enjoy it too.


I sat her machine up beside mine and I sewed some too right along with her. I figured if I helped her stitch blocks it wouldn't take too long or she may lose interest.

We stitched the blocks together to make rows. We had no idea how many we would need so, we just stitched until we felt as if we had enough, keeping in mind, we would be gathering each row. After the blocks were stitched together, I went over them with the serger to prevent them from fraying.





Once we felt we had enough to make a very full skirt and would be long enough, we gathered the sections and sewed the rows together. We folded over the top section to form a casing for elastic and stitched it around, leaving an opening for the elastic. We added the elastic and stitched the casing closed, made a very narrow hem and we were finished.

I am going to see if in the future, I can inspire her to think about all the things she could make by stitching together her scraps and mine as well. It was a great opportunity to talk to her about how many years ago folks had to stitch together scraps and such to create useful things they needed such as, patchwork clothing and quilts.She said she really wants to make a quilt sometime. I think that would be a fun winter project.

Blessings!

DoodleBug Makes Her First Skirt

Wow, OK before I start let me say, I am getting behind here since I bought my serger. My blog is not the only thing that has gotten behind since the serger came home, laundry, sweeping, mowing...OK, I must stop or I will be on a huge guilt trip and I really don't want to go there. Pleasure trips are more my cup of tea.

Well, Doodles finally got a chance to make a skirt for Fluffy and try out her machine. She is counting down the days of her last couple of weeks at school. She has big plans to spend a lot of time with Mamaw doing a bit of sewing this summer. I think that sounds like a fun way to me to spend some of those hot summer days, inside sewing with my best friend.

Well, here are a few photos of her process with her little sewing machine.


She first took a few measurments of Fluffy.


She cut a strip of fabric allowing a bit for gathering around the top of the skirt.


We were very careful with her using the iron. I wanted to teach her how much better her sewing would look if she got into learning to press her fabric and even showed her to fold under her hem and casing and pressed before we went to the machine. She needs a small iron of her own. I do wished I could find her Papaw's travel iron. That one would be perfect for her.

She did really well for her first sewing project. She has been drawing and painting since she was very small and I think because of that fact, she has very good fine motor skills for her age.











She did well making her seams and it was a simple little plan of sewing a casing and a hem then closing the back seam, adding ribbon through the top casing and wah la! Fluffy has a new skirt. She wants to make a purse next. This should be fun.