CHRISTEPHI

The biggest item on my mending list for the week is a quilt my grandma made me almost 30 years ago.  I am her first grandchild and I think it'll be very nice to repair it and give it to my son, her ninth great-grandchild, especially since it's nicely gender neutral (unlike many of the other items I've saved from my childhood). I think I have all the pieces. It has been repaired in the past, by machine. But even those stitches are coming out now, so I decided to do it by hand this time. The cat should be completed by the time I go to bed tonight. I also have a few buttons to sew on, two pairs of my own jeans to patch (or cut off for shorts), and a few small rips and tears to stitch shut.

Yesterday Miss M had a lesson on The Gingerbread Man.  We've read the story before, so she retold it to me and we made our own gingerbread man. Before I let her eat him, I asked her to tell me the story one more time.  She forgot a few parts in her haste to finish, but it's mighty cute nonetheless! I used the same recipe as I did when I made dog bone shaped cookies , except again I used real butter, doubled the cinnamon, and halved the cloves.

I ran across a post about Mending Week at Making More with Less.  Since I'm not in the middle of much, it might just be a good idea to get my mending knocked out before diving into any more projects. (There's just one in the works right now).  I'm not quite sure what mending I have to do, but I'll go find out and let ya know! Care to join in?

This lovely, round, eggy fellow showed up  in our house over the weekend.  It may have something to do with Miss M's school lesson tomorrow that includes boiling an egg and memorizing a well-known nursery rhyme! Be sure to check out the free pattern offered by ikat bag !

Today marks the completion of our first section of Calvert's PreK curriculum! We took almost three months to complete our first 20 lessons, but that's because I took a two-month hiatus while sewing dresses for the wedding.  Since the wedding, however, we've been happily completing a lesson a day!  We're having so much fun! Some of the material is quite a ways below Miss M, but since this is preschool and I'm really only interested in getting her used to the routine and concept of "lessons", I don't mind much.  She wrote her first word the other day...MAMA!  And since then has been writing all sorts of words.  This weekend we were at Books-A-Million * and I bought her the first set of Bob Books 'cause this child is ready to read!  She may not quite get the hang of it till closer to her 4th birthday, but she's well on her way and definitely has the interest. But I digress... In honor of completing her 20 lesson review, I made her a certifica...

The folks at Ottobre generously held a drawing for some sewing goodies if you made one of their Herbie hats from this year's summer issue.  I wanted to make one from the first moment I saw the sneak peek back in March!  But with the wedding sewing, there was no way I would be able to make that May 1st entry deadline.  Lucky for me, they extended it to May 10th! I probably should have used a slightly heavier interfacing, but lightweight was all I had on hand.  Still, it's mighty cute and will look just as darling on Little Guy when he's a bit bigger! Miss M's picture was one of the ones featured on the Ottobre blog, but I wasn't one of the lucky 10 winners. However, the Ottobre staff generously offered a back issue free to everyone who entered. Score!  I picked the Autumn/Winter 2009 issue of Ottobre Women.  I'm excited to give it a try and make myself some nice things for once.

While I was working on my sister's wedding dress , I watched a lot of Netflix movies.  Among them was the 1993 version of  Heidi with Noley Thornton.  I decided that as soon as the wedding dress was done, I needed to make Miss M a Heidi dress and pinafore. I used Butterick 4054 view C for the dress.  I've used this pattern before and know it runs very wide for my girl, so I used size 1 width and size 4 length which worked out perfectly!   I made it of some light weight quilting cotton Hubby helped me pick out at Hobby Lobby. For the pinafore, I used Ottobre 1-2009 #8 the "Babushka" pinafore dress.  I left off the shoulder frill, placed the front and back pieces 2 inches away from the fold to increase the amount of gathering and split the back pieces up the middle to have the pinafore open in back.  I am absolutely in love with the effect!  Of course, the finishing touch is the jacquard ribbon I purchased at Jo...

My little sister is now a Mrs.  The wedding was lovely, not too big, but not pathetically small either.  A bunch of people were up way too late decorating -- including the bride who did not sleep at all the night before! -- but I bowed out with the excuse of getting my own kiddos bathed and off to bed at a decent hour. In addition to the bride's gown, I sewed my (matron of honor's) dress, the flower girl's dress, the ring bearer's vest, the flower girl's basket lining, and the ring bearer's pillow.  I finished sewing buttons on the dress at our hotel the day before the wedding. The poor little ring bearer didn't get enough sleep the night before and wasn't in any kind of mood to cooperate -- we even tried bribing him with M&Ms, but to no avail.  He ended up doing his own thing.  It could have been worse! It was actually quite charming and as it didn't stress out the bride, no one much minded his antics.  Miss M was ra...

Miss M (age 3 1/2) has discovered the anatomical difference between boys and girls.  She told me very seriously this morning, "Mama, I know why boys and girls are different.  Girls have eyelashes and boys don't." P.S. The wedding is over!  It was beautiful!  I have a big post coming with pictures of all the wedding sewing that has consumed my life the past few months.