Recuperating with crafts

My kids have been sick this past week, and on Sunday morning my sweet Audra (7) was not feeling well enough to go to church, so I got to stay at home with her.  We lit some candles, built a fire in the fireplace, made some tea, and listened to Ellie Holcomb.  I brought out some embroidery hoops, needles, thread and felt, and we sat side by side on the couch, crafting together while everyone else was at church.  It was quite delightful.

Audra embroidered her name and some flowers, and then she decided she wanted to make a pillow, so she whipped out a kitty on another piece of felt and sewed the pieces together, turned it inside out and stuffed it and then sewed it on up.  Cutie.  (It reminded me of learning to embroider with my Ella, years and years ago.) 

Apparently crafting is something we do when we're recovering from sickness, because it was when we were recovering from the stomach flu that we learned to finger-knit.

When the other kids got home from church, they wanted to try it, too (with the exception of Isaac).  I'm always amazed at how much time the kids will spend doing such handwork.  (I just had to stay somewhat nearby to thread needles and knot ends!)

This is what I came up with during our crafting session:

~

Finger-painting for Christmastime

We all had fun doing some (super easy, super cute) finger-painting today:

I think this would also be cute on some brown kraft paper for gift-wrapping!  [Thank you, Pinterest!]

Handmade

I've started working on a little handmade Christmas gift for my girl...  (Shh!)

 ... and having so much fun.  I can't wait to make some dresses! 

{Inspiration here and here.}

This and that

A couple of changes on the sidebar of the blog:

>There is now a section on the right with links to every book lists I've posted.  I think that will make it easier for all of us to access them now.  The lists for girls start at age six and go right on up through eleven.  And there's a list for boys up there, too.  (I will keep adding lists as long as my kids continue to read, so keep checking back.)

>Every single year I read a passel of books but never keep track of them.  This year I am attempting to keep track of what I read through Goodreads.  In order to do so, I've joined their 2014 Reading Challenge.  There's a widget on my sidebar for that.  I really have no idea how many books I generally read in a year, so I picked a random number of 75 as my goal for the year and we'll see how I do.  If you click "view books" at the bottom of that widget, it will take you to a list of the books I have read.  (I'm also trying to review them as I go.)

***

Audra and Ella play so well together.  They rotate between playing dollhouse and playing babies together.  Lately, it's babies.  So I have two little mommies toting their babies around and acting out all these little story lines.  It's very sweet.  Usually one or both of them are pregnant, too- with pillows or blankets stuffed into their shirts and a dolly on their hip.

A few times over the past week, I found them bickering over the one doll quilt that we have- one I made for Ella years ago.  Audra wanted it for her baby but it belongs to Ella, so while Ella was very generous to share it, she wanted it sometimes, too.  So I offered to make a quilt for Audra's baby.  She looked through all my fabric and chose these two and told me she wanted "little squares" and this is what we ended up with:

***

A friend gave me a sourdough starter, and I am tentatively excited.  Tentative because I don't know what I'm doing and I don't want to screw it up.  Excited because I love bread- especially sourdough, and I think it would be amazing to have the ability to make some. 

So I have this little jar that I'm "feeding" daily and then I don't really know what to do after it's fully fed, but I'm researching it.  I'll let you know how it goes.  It's sort of my own little experiment.  

 ***

We finally started school again today.  After TWO full months off.  (The first month was planned, the second was not.)  We had influenza at the start of this month, then the miscarriage, and then we ended the month with a round of the stomach flu.  Serious.  I.cannot.wait.for.spring.  Even though we're smack in the middle of winter, we do see tulips poking their heads up in our flower garden and little buds on my hydrangea bushes.  So it's coming.  Really.

***

I'm memorizing some Psalms for the year.  I love the Psalms.  I casually decided I'd pick 3-5 of my favorites and memorize them, so I pulled out my Bible one evening to find my favorites, and I ended up with a list of seven.  So we'll see.  Maybe I'll end the year with only three memorized, and that will be fine.  Or maybe I'll be able to take on all seven and that would be great, too.  I've already memorized Psalm 1 (but then again it's only six verses, so it was an easy start.)  The ones I'm working on are: Psalm 1, 19, 27, 34, 71, 103, and 145.

***

The women's Bible study at my church just recently started studying the book of Colossians, so I've joined that and am working my way through each word of Colossians, and loving it.  If you've never done a Precept study, I recommend it.

***

Recently we watched North & South on Netflix, and we thoroughly enjoyed it.  And now we're watching Season 4 of Downton Abbey.   I always look forward to Parenthood, too.

It's quiet time at our house and I have already eaten some chocolate, but I have some reading to do in Ruth, some Colossians homework, and I'd love to journal if there's still time.

I hope you all have a wonderful day!

Audra loves to finger knit

I was sitting by the fire (!!!)  [Fire!  We get to have wood-burning fires in our fireplace now that our chimney is fixed!  I adore sitting by the fire.  I am positively giddy about this recent development.]  Anyway- I was sitting by the fire knitting and Audra wanted to join me.  She REALLY would like me to teach her how to knit.  With knitting needles.  Which I tried earlier this afternoon but it was a little tricky.  But this evening I decided to teach her how to finger knit.

And Audra likes to finger knit maybe more than I even like my fires.

Once she got going I picked up my own knitting again so that we could knit together, but then she was delighting me so much with all of her exclamations that I started writing them down.  So join me for a couple minutes of knitting with Audra.  (She said these things about every ten seconds.  For nearly an hour.  Truly.) 

"It's SO long!"

"I can't believe I'm doing this."

"I'm happy to be doing this color.  It's a fun color."

"This is SO fun!"

"I can't believe that it's getting SO long.  See?  Look how long it is!"

"I LOVE this!"

"Mama, look how fun it is!"

"I'm doing so great."

"Mommy!!!  Can you IMAGINE?"

"It's just so amazing." 

"Mommy, can you believe this?!  I cannot believe this."

"Mommy!  Isn't this SO FUN?!"

"Mommy:  Can you believe this, or not?  Me neither.  I can't even believe this."

 ***

She's pure delight.

Ella's quilt progress

I've been working on Ella's quilt, which just last night Mark affectionately dubbed Ella's Story Quilt. 

Aesthetically, this hasn't been my favorite quilt to make~ because it's a bit too scrappy (not quite matchy enough) for my taste.  But I keep reminding myself that Ella chose every piece and placement and that it has more meaning than any other quilt I've made, and I know that she loves it.  And that's what's important.

This is the first time I've tied a quilt, rather than machine-quilting the top.  (Jodi~  I kept thinking of our on our girls' retreat, with your cute quilt and you, there- cutely tying away!)  I used embroidery thread and I love how it turned out.  I might just do it this way every time.  It makes the quilt less stiff overall and more cozy, I think.

Stitching the binding is always my favorite part.  I love the cozy, quiet, sewing-by-hand that it requires.  I think I like it best because it can be mobile (I no longer have to be at my sewing machine) so I get to move to the couch and happily sew while Mark is reading aloud to the kids in the evenings.  [Current read-aloud: Carry On, Mr. Bowditch.  And we all love it.]  Having the quilt laying across my lap while I do the finishing work gives me the opportunity to admire it-- not my sewing, by any means.  There are lots of little flaws I see where the pieces don't meet up just so!-- but the fabrics and the colors and how it all looks as it comes together in final form.  I think things like:  Oh!  That blue fabric for the edge that Ella chose looks so good right next to this particular piece of fabric!  And I secretly choose my favorite fabrics next to one another or the best set of four.  Kind of silly, I know-- but it is so satisfying to see it all come together as a finished piece. 

Here's a view of the back.  The fabric on the back is from a sheet Ella had on her bed back when she had a double but now she has a twin-sized again.  Ella loves it because the back is so much lighter than the front, so she feels like it's reversible and she has a Spring/Summer side and a Fall/Winter side.  (How cute is she?)


***
My go-to links for the binding, each time I'm making a quilt, are here:
How to attach the binding to the quilt
How to sew a blind stitch (video tutorial)

Things I love: (making) Quilts

Ella has been hinting that I make her a quilt.  I made my first quilt for Adelia when she was a baby.  Then I made this one for Audra:

(this might be my favorite part of the whole thing)

While I knew Ella wanted a quilt, I didn't really have any ideas.  But then recently I was cutting off the bodice from a dress of Ella's (that my mom had made her) to transform it into a skirt.  I thought it was a shame to toss the whole top away, so I cut up some square pieces from it and decided to set them aside.  A couple days later I was hunting through my fabric scrap bin for something else and kept coming across other pieces of fabric from things I've made over the years.  My stack of squares grew and then I talked to Ella about her quilt.

When I told her I didn't have a lot of any one piece of fabric, but just lots of random scraps from different projects, she was super excited and informed me that it could be like a "crazy quilt". 

view from my sewing machine

So that's what we've been working on.  Ella's quilt.  With scraps from:

*the prairie dress my mom made her
*two dresses I've made her
*the curtains in the girls' room
*Audra's quilt
*Adelia's quilt
*doll dresses
*an apron my mom made for her
*a shirt I made for the little girls a few years ago
*other random pieces of fabric that Ella chose, just because she liked them

Ella set out all the squares and determined where she wanted everything to go.  She's delighted with the whole process.  (I'm happy to have a project to work on, too.  There's something about Fall that always makes me itchy to start something with my hands- either a knitting or sewing project.)  Right now I'm going to work on this, and in the meantime, I'm collecting fabric to start a quilt for our bed.  I'm inspired by Posie's log-cabin quilt.  We'll see if I can pull off something so- um, large.

Laundry room makeover

I think the key to living in small spaces is being able to re-examine your space, over and over again, and be willing to change it up. (It's why I'm constantly rearranging furniture, and pulling that table from the other room to use here in this room, or using that dresser here because it fits better or suits us better for this season, or... you name it: the options are endless.)

Our three girls share a small room.  We've got two twin beds and a trundle (that is always pulled out) and there is not much additional space.  We had a bookshelf and two dressers in their room and Adelia's clothes were in bins beneath her bed.  It was all rather squishy.

Then there is our laundry room, which is a fairly large room (for our home) and where I have my sewing stuff and where we keep our printer.  The laundry room had also become a sort of catch-all for All Other Random Things (gift bags, yarn, photo albums, bins of clothes the kids have outgrown, bags to consign, a chair that no longer fit in our playroom, etc).

A few weeks ago I decided to clean up the laundry room and get rid of stuff.   In preparation for that, I was talking to Mark about it (Where do you want me to put the chair that's in there?  Where else can I move the shelving?) and suddenly an idea occurred to me: What if we moved the girls' dressers and clothes out of their room and used our laundry room as a changing room?  That would solve our other problem about the girls' room being too crowded!-- and if I'm going to be cleaning anyway, I might as well rearrange the space!

So... that's what I did.  We ended up deciding to move ALL the kids' clothes in there, boys and girls.  We bought some closet shelving (one for hanging up the clothes, another for my sewing area) and some bins, and this is what we came up with:

The bins at the top have labels like: CONSIGN, KNITTING PROJECTS, YARN, FABRIC SCRAPS, and PATTERNS.

Bonus for Audra (and us, since she changes 5x a day): she can now reach her dresses!

(To the left: our printer, then sock and pajama bins for each of the boys, and on the bottom are shelves containing some of Adelia's clothing.)

My sewing table now also doubles as a folding table.

My sewing area all tidied up, which should inspire me to sew again, right?

Now that we have all the clothes (except ours) in one room, there is no more carrying hampers of laundry from one level of the house to the other, nor are there hampers of clean laundry sitting on my couch waiting to be folded.  (!)  All of the washing, drying, sorting, folding, and putting away happens in that one room. 

Also, to cut down on time spent sorting, I made a new laundry schedule:

Monday > girls
Tuesday > towels and sheets
Wednesday > boys
Thursday > daddy and mommy
Friday > girls
*Saturday > one load of boys clothes

*recently added, because the boys' dirty clothing was piling up fast

Now- why I didn't have that system before (only certain "groups" of clothing on certain days), I don't even know.  But it has been WONDERFUL in terms of cutting waaaaay back on time spent sorting.  It's sort of revolutionary to me- still- to only be dealing with girls clothes on Mondays: only sorting, folding and putting away girls clothes!  And!-- their dressers are just steps away!  I LOVE IT!  We all do.  It's been such a blessing already.

[Credit for this brilliant idea goes to my friend Amy, who moved shelving and clothes into her laundry room years ago.  If she hadn't done that I don't think I ever would have even considered our laundry room as an option for housing clothing, too.]

Bunting and a birthday gift

Our little girls have their birthdays coming up, and that inspired me to sit down recently with my basket of fabric scraps and make some bunting. (I love bunting. Isn't it so cheery?) This was a quick project and reminded me all over again how much I love working with fabric.


[Quick instructions: Draw a triangle on some cardstock, pin it onto various fabric scraps, and cut out some pieces. (Mine has 14 pieces). Iron the pieces onto some fusible interfacing and cut them out again. Thread a needle with some string (I used bakers twine but you could easily use embroidery thread or regular thread) and draw your needle through the top corners of the pieces. Hang it up and you're done.]


I was up late last night working on this, for Adelia...


...which, when finished, will be her very own Pencil-and-Notebook case to take to church. I think she'll be quite pleased and feel very grown-up to have one just like her older siblings.

Ella's "rag doll"

Ever since we read the Little House books, Ella has wanted to make a "rag doll" like Laura's Charlotte. She has talked about it from time to time, saying things like, "Mommy! I want to make a rag doll just like Charlotte!" or "Mommy! For Audra's birthday, I'm going to make her a rag doll!" But then the idea kind of fizzles.

On Sunday, Ella came with me to the fabric store to find the fabrics for this quilt, and apparently she must have received some fresh inspiration, because she came home full of enthusiasm about making a rag doll.

And then she set about to doing it!

She got white paper and a pencil and started drawing a pattern. Then we cut out the pattern and pinned it to some white fabric. Then we cut out two pieces of that. Then she embroidered a smile and sewed on two carefully selected button eyes. I showed her how to put the pieces right sides together and then I gave her a needle and thread and had her sew her doll together. By Monday night she was stuffing her Charlotte.

I helped her a little bit with each step, but she did most of the work herself. (ie- ALL the sewing, save for some sloppy stitches we discovered when it came time to stuff the doll)and today she did the finishing work. We added hair and Ella made a dress {which is pretty unfinished, but Ella doesn't mind!} For the dress, I let her use the sewing machine because she had already done so much hand stitching.

There were some tears on Ella's part: Her timeline was a little unrealistic and she was hoping for a finished, dressed doll in one day, and she was disappointed in herself for the rushed stitching that made for stuffing coming out of the seams, but I am so pleased that she began with an idea and followed it through all the way to completed {and cute!} product!

My view this afternoon

{Audra's quilt}


This quilt has been well over a year in the making.
(I guess it's been a busy year?! :))

I've had the quilt top made for several months, but have had such troubles finding the backing and binding fabrics. Granted, I haven't taken too many trips out to look, but... still. Today, though, I scored at the fabric store and found both fabrics, and just like that I'm highly motivated to finish.

Finger knitting

:: The perfect activity for children recovering from the stomach flu ::



Every stuffed animal in the house may have a new scarf by the end of the day!


Of course, I had to try it, too. It's a lot of fun!



Go here for the finger knitting picture tutorial Ella learned from,

or...

Go here for the finger knitting video tutorial I learned from.

Enjoy!

Quilts

I love to sew. I don't have a lot of time to do it, but I do try to catch snippets of time~ every couple of weeks or so, to get in a bit of sewing. It's good for that creative side of me that can so easily get buried.

Here is a quilt I finished in the fall:



and this is the one I'm working on right now for Audra:



Now if I could just find the perfect fabric for the back, I could finish it!

Birthday surprises

One of the many cute things about my Ella girl is that she loves Little House on the Prairie and all things prairie-ish. I said to Mark the other night, "How blessed am I that my daughter loves Little House as much as I do?!"

Ella regularly wears her bonnet with her hair in braids. She also wears dresses almost every day. Notice I didn't say "a dress". She wears dresses. Sometimes three of them. All at once. Sometimes three of them plus capris or pants underneath. Or a skirt. In addition to the three dresses. Her response when I've asked about all the garments? "Those are my petticoats, mommy."

Her birthday is coming up in a few weeks and she has repeatedly told me that she wants a nightcap. That's all she wants. She has a white nightgown (which was her birthday gift last year), and now she'd like a nightcap to go with it. Just like Laura and Mary Ingalls wore.

So I decided to make one. And I decided to sweeten the gift a little and make her a petticoat. I haven't begun the petticoat yet but I did try my hand at the nightcap.

I have no pattern and took no measurements of her head (because she'd know something was up) so I guessed.

I guessed too small. And I am positive it won't fit Ella because it fits this girl quite nicely:


Not that she'll ever be wearing it. The only reason she wasn't pulling it off her head for this picture was because I bribed her with my latte cup.

I tried it on Adelia, too:


but it doesn't quite fit over her hair.

Oh well. We'll hang onto it in case Ella wants to try it on one of her dolls.

In the meantime, I'm making a bigger nightcap and still planning out my petticoat strategy.

Sundress

Mark had the day off today, and because of that, I was able to sneak off for about an hour to do a bit of sewing.

I used lil blue boo's Sundress Tutorial to make a little something for Audra.

About sixty seconds into the tutorial I realized that I really should have measured her. But she was sleeping, so that was out.

Oh well. I was going to carry on, anyway. I figured if it was too big for Audra it could become a shirt for Adelia. Then I got all excited about that idea: How practical! One sewn item that could fit both girls, but as a dress on Audra and a shirt on Adelia!

Success.











Were I to make this again, I would make a few changes:
1. Add elastic to make stretchy straps instead of the ties. (Yes, the ties are cute, but then you have to tie them, every time.)
2. Add about an inch to the chest measurement. (It works for Audra but it took a little squeezing to get Adelia into it.)
3. Add an inch to the length.

Odds and ends and links

After two failed department store purchases for a swimsuit for Ella this year, I finally conceded to paying a little extra money and buying this one from Lands End. The perks? This swimsuit comes in a slim size and it's modest. I'm glad we bought it.

I think this is the cutest blanket I've ever laid eyes on. [Click on that link and then scroll all the way down to see the finished product.]

I've been itching to make one of these tea towel aprons ever since Cutzi made some.

Also on my list of things to make:
Randi's laundry sack, for the girls' room.

Little match-y dresses for my girls made from this pattern by Sandi Henderson of Portabellopixie.

But since I don't have time to sew all of those things, I'll bookmark those for a later date and choose something even better to do: nurse and cuddle my sweet nearly four-month old Audra (and kiss those smooshy cheeks again and again!), tickle Adelia and giggle at all of her antics, be silly with my boys and encourage them to do right, and pull Ella into my arms just as often as I can before she gets any bigger.

Oh, I am *thankful* for the joy of being mama to these five. I am trying to cherish these moments; these days.

Pencil & Notebook Cases

Here's my latest sewing project:

Pencil & Notebook Cases for the kids to bring along to church.


I made up the pattern- purposefully sizing them for the Composition notebooks (because they're cheap and always available!), and this was Attempt #1:



Problems:
*It was too big, so I adjusted the pattern to make it a bit smaller.
*I also made adjustments so that there would be more room for the pencils to peek out.
*This closure method is clearly not going to work: Isaias can't tie, and I don't want to be doing it for him every week. Next up? VELCRO!

Attempt #2: (Isaac's)


Attempt #3: (Ella's)


Isaias' is the only one I'm not happy with, but I'm still debating if I'm okay just leaving it as is or adjusting it, size-wise and closure-wise. (Who am I kidding? I'm a perfectionist. I'm sure I'll be doing it entirely over.)

They can hardly wait to take them to church tomorrow. We'll see how it goes. If it ends up being too distracting- all those pencils going in and out of the case, we'll make them Nature Notebooks instead! ~smile~


[Inspiration: Hilary's Zoo Wraps.]