14 January 2014

rough start

We're now about halfway into January - my family has spent the whole of it so far being sick. So I'm slow on getting going with my goal list. I've been wanting to sew - just haven't been able to because of taking care of sick kids or a sick husband, or wanting to die myself. And since getting better, I've been cleaning up from The Plague (that nailed everyone but SM). I've knocked out about 15 loads of laundry - mostly bedding and towels - just yesterday and today.

Not that having a goal list has ever done me much good. I just looked over the sewing target lists I wrote for 2013 and 2012 and HA HA HA. Not a single thing lasted more than a month.

But now, I have a sewing buddy! My sister Mindy (who also posts on this blog, so watch the name at the bottom of posts) learned to sew this past summer, got a sewing machine, and is tearing it up sewing lots of things. She's already done t-shirt dresses and skirts for her 1-year-old, a skirt for herself, and a bunch of tote bags. So my goals this year will hopefully have MUCH better follow-through because I have someone I'm sewing with, even if we're in Hartford CT and Calgary AB. It's an international sewing group! For the year, Mindy and I are talking about giving ourselves a challenge to keep us moving forward - I'll talk about that in another post.

I also have 5 sewing buddies here at home. SM got a sewing kit for Christmas from us, and an embroidery kit from our neighbors. She works just a little bit at a time, but she's putting together a hand-stitched headband with felt and ribbon. She's doing a great job. And she did the smackdown on me. I commented to her that she should finish one project before she abandons it and starts another, and she looked me straight in the face and said, "You have stuff that's not finished." Touche'. Indeed I do. I'm working to remedy that.

Little sister's nightgown that didn't make it for Christmas is done. Pictures coming. I also spent some time over the weekend on some finishing touches - my mom made identical shirts for all the girls for Christmas, and ironed in little tags with their initials so we can tell them apart. One of the tags came out before the shirt was even all the way out of the package on Christmas morning, so I confiscated the shirts until I could add some anchor stitches to the tags. Done, and shirts are in their drawers. Next up is to finish digging out the sewing room from the piles o' stuff to see what I even have to work with. Everything is in just a big tangled mess right now because, well, I'm not sure how it got that way or why. But there it is for me to deal with.

ANYWAY, I just caught these posts on teaching kids to sew (which are not on blogs that I normally read) - A Jennuine Life and Welcome to the Mouse House. I linked over to them through No Big Dill to read stuff that wasn't even related. It was fate. I now have them bookmarked to check back on their series(es) semi-regularly to get advice on teaching small kids to sew, as young as 3. SM is 7, RG is 6, and JE is almost 4 so there's 3 sewing buddies right there. TA at age 2 loves to be with the big girls so we'll see how that goes with her in there as well. And JK is 10 months and a chatty little underfooter. These sewing "classes" could be interesting.

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