Sewing Classes

Sophie and her friend Hunter are taking sewing classes at our local fabric and paper crafts store each Wednesday night for two hours.

Their instructer is amazingly patient and is teaching about 7 girls how to make around 6 projects.  Each week they sew a new thing that they complete in the two hours.  The first night it was a pillow case and tonight it was a cute little bag.  Next week it is PJ pants.  The class has some sewing machines, but she brings in mine to use.

Sophie seems to be enjoying it - so great to see her learning a traditional, useful skill.

The Weekend Lens

It's been a busy few days.
Vic and I made it up to Silver Star for ski day #8 on Thursday. So happy that we went since the snow was nice and soft and we had a great time.

I erroneously sewed Sophie's ballet ribbons on the wrong way (I had the dull side of the ribbons facing out) so I needed to resew those yesterday. She has been doing a few extra ballet classes in preparation for her exam this Friday. She and Fynn also got interested in sewing when I brought out my sewing machine.

Sophie's activities continue to keep me busy. She had a birthday party today. Tomorrow I am working on getting a study date arranged with her and another little girl in her class to work on the homework their teacher sent home with them due to the teacher's strike.

fabric again

Sophie wanted some mom time today and asked if I would sew her a little dress for the spring. We picked up some cute fabric and what appears to be a very easy pattern.

Christmas fun

December goes by so quickly, so I'm taking an idea from another blog I love to read and we are going to try to do 1 special Christmas thing everyday.

Tonight we watched this movie with the kids. Ugh. Terrible animation and a some liberties taken with the original story.

Here's the rest of our list:

Make a holiday craft
Watch Elf
Assemble/address holiday cards with music and cocoa (almost done)
Wrap gifts by the tree
Read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas
Visit Santa (done that)
Bake/decorate cookies
Take a drive and look at holiday lights
Donate toys to a family in need
Cut out paper snowflakes
Go ice skating
Watch a holiday special
Make breakfast for dinner and eat in our pajamas
Make party mix (tomorrow night - I have 31 orders to make for our daycare fundraiser!)
Go to Christmas Eve church service
Attend a holiday concert
Take a family photo
Watch the snow fall
Go sledding
Leave cookies/milk for Santa
Go to Leavenworth to see the lights (this weekend!)

On the sewing front, I finished up skirt #6 for Sophie. I think I'm officially done sewing for 2009. I've done WAY more than I thought I ever would and I'm pretty pleased with how this one turned out. It has a little bit of style and I like how the grosgain ribbon came out on the bottom hem.

burda 9826

I'm branching out a bit and trying a Burda pattern. It's a very cute and appears to be easy pattern. I'm sewing the skirt (of course) for Sophie. The only thing a bit different about this is that you cut the pattern pieces out on the bias so you get a chevron effect with the centre back and centre front seams.

This is new territory for me, but I think I can handle it :)

I really like the fabric. Again, all very inexpensive with my Fabricland membership card. Honestly, the ladies in that store must wonder since I'm in there about twice a week.

skirt #5...the go to pattern

I picked up some very cute fabric at Fabricland on Friday. I had intended to attach some grosgrain ribbon on the bottom, but forgot and finshed the hem before I could attach it. Oh well - I think Sophie will really like it.

I stitched this up to tonight after I got Sophie and Fynn tucked in. Sophie had a little French practice. Not official homework, but they are encouraged to practice their reading from these little booklets they get every 2 weeks. I think she is recognizing the words at this point (not sure if she is actually reading the words), but it's all good with us and she still seems to be happy with her class.

the wrap up of the skirt

I finished my skirt on the weekend. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. I learned many things:

- how to insert a zipper
- how to sew darts
- how to stitch a blind hem-stitch (thanks to my mom)
- a size 6 in RTW (my normal size) has no correlation to pattern sizing. I should have made the skirt a size 8 and it would fit better.

I'm wearing a longer cardigan in the photo because it skims over the part of the skirt I'm not all that happy with - the hip/waist. It pulls a little bit because its a bit snug. Oh, well. Live and learn.
I got the cardigan last week as part of their birthday deal where you get a discount if you buy something within 3 days of your birthday.

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Speaking of learning, Vic gave me the Nikon 6B-600 for my birthday and I'm in a steep learning mode. It isn't just a matter of slapping on the flash (at least I don't think so anyway). The photo of the kids in the bath is the best one I came up with tonight after doing a bunch of different shots in manual mode.

skirt #4

We had a crazy night Tuesday. Sophie woke up about midnight throwing up. All of her bed linens needed to be laundered. She had eaten blueberries as her bedtime snack (along with a few chocolate chip cookies) so you can imagine the mess. We think she picked up some sort of roto virus. It worked its way through her system very quickly. By morning, she was able to go to Kindergarten and on to daycare.
That poor kid hasn't gotten a break since September on sickness.

I found some cute purple corduroy fabric at lunch time on for 40% off so I whipped her up another skirt tonight. I think I finished this one in under 2 hours. That is a new record. Super easy and very fun. I've learned a trick or two and its making them sew up much faster.

skirt #3

I sewed up the purple fabric I bought at Dressew. I love it - super easy to sew with and I used my old stand-by pattern. I hope Sophie is surprised when she sees it ready to wear tomorrow.

The two little peanuts also had a two man band tonight, until Vic couldn't take it much longer. He was trying to cook dinner so can't say I blame him.

I had a busy night as it was our daycare's AGM. Great organization to belong to and I do feel like they value the contributions of parents who volunteer.

pausing on the skirt

I've taken the front and back facing out twice. My fusible interfacing does not look pretty after being taken out twice. I can't stand that, so I've recut the facing since I had enough fabric and redone the fusible interfacing, too.

I really do want to wear this skirt, so I'm not going to settle on it looking sew-sew (pun intended). I've done what I can: cutting, sewing, darts, zipper, etc. I'm taking a break and bringing the last leg of this skirt marathon to my mom's next week.

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How can two small children suck the living breath out of me. Exhaust me more than anything I've experienced. We took them to the mall today for the tail end (I hope) of our Christmas shopping. It was a frenetic zoo. To top it all off Sophie has been having stomach cramps for about 3 days. She's been checked out by our GP, but when she again refused to drink a smoothie for dinner, I called my friend Kim, who is also our GP. She assured me that from the symptoms Sophie has (no fever), she is likely fine and that kids can survive on very few calories provided they are drinking liquids. She suggested some popcicles to get her hydrated and some glucose in her. She happily ate one and is playing with her Barbies now. I have no idea what was causing her tummy pain or if it will reappear again.

For now, they are both content.

Last night when I was ordering their drinks at Boston Pizza, I was so zapped from the day that I asked the waitress for "two kids' applesauces." She looked at me funny. "Did you mean apple juice?" "Oh, yes, that's what I mean." 10 years ago I would have been embarassed by that. Now, I just shrug my shoulders, and reorder.

Our good friends Bryan and Patti are coming over tomorrow night to watch Fynn, so Vic and I can take Sophie to this. I'm as excited as Sophie is. I've heard it's a little bit scary for little kids. Sophie is the crazy child who walked through our creepy downtown Pawn Shop when it was done up for Halloween. I say, bring it on.

the zipper...again

I took the zipper out. It needed to come out. I also trimmed it down so I didn't have the little gap at the bottom and it fit in much nicer this time. I also sewed up the side seams tonight and tried it on. A little tight. Then I realized that my seam allowance was too big, so I took one of the side seams out and it fit much better.

Tomorrow interfacing and the waist. Sewing really does make you appreciate the clothes you have in your wardbrobe and how they are constructed.

a zipper

The skirt I'm making calls for a zipper. This is my first attempt at putting in a zipper. Thank goodness for YouTube as I found a video on how to insert a basic one.
I also had to Google my Kenmore sewing machine because I didn't know what the zipper foot looked like and fortunately someone had posted a photo of one.

The zipper isn't too bad considering this is my first go, but I have a little gap between the base of the zipper and the back seam of the fabric. I need to figure that out.

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Parents are encouraged to volunteer every so often at Sophie's Kindergarten. I suggested to her teacher that we do a craft and she was more than game! So in December I'm going to go up and do some of these with the kids. Madame Styles said that they had some uncut foam at the school, but I thought it would be MUCH easier to pick up a couple of kits that have them precut!!

manic mondays and mastery oriented kids

This is how my day rolled out:

1. Get kids' organized, take Sophie to school. Speak to principal about "what to do when Sophie gets incredibly frustrated with tasks" (e.g. yesterday she had a fit when she felt she couldn't draw a butterfly that we were working on). He explained that children like Sophie are incredibly mastery oriented. They feel the need to do things "right" and are perfectionistic. We need to let her chill out and take a break when she starts feeling this way. He was very kind and helpful.

2. Get to work. Do work stuff. Get a call just before noon that the hospital can fit me in for my ultrasound on my foot. My orthopedic surgeon has referred me there to see if there is anything visible that is causing my foot to be sore (suspected Morton's Neuroma).

3. More work stuff. Go back to the daycare and bring the kids' their dinner. I had an after work meeting today and our daycare was able to provide childcare so Sophie and Fynn were able to stay there. Sophie suddenly launched into an "I'm sick" routine when she saw me. She was a bit warm, so to be on the safe side I zipped over to the drugstore and got her some Tylenol. Gave her a big dose to knock it out of her (since her HSP occurrence, the doctor's have reassured me that a generous dose can't really hurt her).

4. Back to work. Work. Back to pick up kids at 7:30pm. Fynn has done a big poop for daycare and Sophie is back to normal. Small miracles. Then I head home do snacks, bath, stories, get lunch ready and sew the back seam of my skirt together.

How was your Monday?

hand sewing at lunch...

I saw this movie poster from 1959 on another sewing blog and it made me think of the "career gals of the 50s". I think I always knew that I would have some sort of career and that it would likely be in the business side of things. I hadn't really factored in the whole "mommy" side of things, however. The other blog asked the question of how others fit in sewing with the challenges of a full-time job, not to mention motherhood.

Right now my solution is to do little bits of sewing or scrapbooking in bits and pieces, usually after the kids are in bed. I have done a little sewing on my lunch hour at work. I find the light in my office is excellent plus my desk is at the exact right height and the office is pretty quiet over lunch so I can stitch uninterruptedly.

I pinned and cut out the the pieces for my skirt tonight and the I think the zipper I picked up at Dressew is the right length.

Right now Sophie is my little muse, so without her, I wouldn't have even considered sewing.

dressew

While I was in Vancouver for my work conference, I walked a few blocks (okay, several blocks) towards the 300 block of West Hastings into the Heritage section of the city (still the good part of Hastings) and hit Dressew. It is a huge fabric store that has just about everything, include thread, zippers, ribbon and some very quirky things too -- crazy Halloween wigs for instance.

I was very restrained - mostly because I had to fit whatever I bought home in my suitcase. Here's a photo of what I bought and a few photos of the store. The prices were very good - fabric for less than 4.99 a metre, buttons for covering at .99 (they are over $3 in Fabricland), zippers for .79 cents, Gutternman thread for 1.49, etc. They don't have many patterns - just some Burda.

My work conference was pretty jammed packed with sessions, but I did manage to make some time to do a bit of Christmas shopping and check out the Vancouver Art Gallery. I think after our super ambitious schedule that we had on our NY trip, everything seems really easy now as far as city sightseeing!

a simple little skirt

I sewed this little skirt up for Sophie. She picked out the fabric herself.
It is a very easy pattern but I was swearing at the waistband when I was trying to insert the elastic. I think I made one little part of the casing a bit too small and it was a royal pain to try and insert the elastic through that section smoothly.

I hope Sophie enjoys it :)

For myself, I went into our local fabric store today and picked out some suiting fabric for the "easy" skirt I'm going to sew for myself. We shall see how easy it really is.

a couple of projects

Ah, Sunday night - Halloween is packed away for another year. We got our photos processed today and I bought Sophie a really inexpensive little album that she could put them all in. It`s her little book and she wants to take them to daycare tomorrow to show the highlights of Halloween to her friends.

On the project front, I finished up a layout the other day of some photos from the summer of Sophie and our neighbour Maggie. The supplies were from the September Cocoa Daisy kit - which I really love.

I am also almost finished another little skirt for Sophie. I`m using the same easy peasy pattern. Just have to insert the elastic and I`m done!

pattern review

This is the little skirt I sewed up for Sophie this weekend.

It was pretty simple apart from the ribbons that I sewed on every 3 inches! Those were a bit crazy, but I'm glad I did it because it worked out nicely. I'll probaby try this pattern again, maybe closer to Christmas (I might kick myself for saying that).

I have my eye on this skirt, but it will have to wait until we are back from New York and things have settled down here a bit.

more sewing

Sophie caught me in a weak moment and asked if I could sew her a skirt now that Fynn's pjs are complete.

We found this pattern and some cute fabric on the weekend.

finished!

I sewed in the elastic for the waistband today and now these are done! I tried them on Fynn, and while they are a little big now, I think by Christmas or so, they should fit him fine. (sorry for the blury photo).

Sophie had a flare up from her HSP condition. We were in Vernon yesterday at the mall and she started complaining of having a sore back. When I checked it out, I noticed a big lump or swelling next to her spine. We took her over to the Vernon Hospital and had her examined. The doctor suspected it was just another effect of the HSP and after taking all of her vital signs and contacting a pediatrician, she said she was okay to go home. Our friend Doctor Grieve stopped by the house today and also examined her and thinks that the swelling (which has now disappeared) was also the same weird part of her condition. She was riding her bike today, so she appears to be on the mend. Honestly, if something strange medically is going to happen, it seems to land here.