My Little Helpers

She sits on my lap. She plays with the pins on my sewing machine. She’s finally learned to resist the temptation to play with the dials . . . most of the time. I pause to let her remove a pin before I continue sewing. Her hair tickles my face.

My projects take a little longer because I have two little helpers. When I cut my fabric, I have two little girls standing by me saying, “trick or treat.” I give them the scraps I don’t need. When I pin the fabric in place, I have small hands wanting to hand me each pin, while I listen to a constant chorus of “here you go, Mommy.” We settle arguments over who gets to sit where to watch me sew. My oldest takes the pins from me and puts them in the box. When they aren’t watching, they are playing close by.

I try to keep things balanced. I try to make sure they still have some of my focus. As they get older, I hope to help them do more than remove pins. I hope they remember these moments, and I hope they learn to value the feeling of making something. I want to teach them all these things I know how to do, and I hope they will feel love in my teaching. Most of all, I want to remember these moments, when she is small enough to sit on my lap while I sew, when her older sister is sitting nearby, peppering me with questions about what I’m making. I want to remember them just like this, because as much as I love watching them get bigger every day, I know I will miss the smallness they leave behind.

Look What I’ve Gotten Myself Into

I’ve been having way too much fun on the internet. I’ve been finding so many great tutorials and ideas, and with Christmas right around the bend, I’ve been thinking about gifts. And the more I think about gifts, the more I’ve been thinking it would be really fun to do a homemade Christmas this year. I always tell myself I’ll work on Christmas all year long, but then I don’t do anything. As soon as Halloween is over, I go into a Christmas panic, knowing all too well how quickly that last time flies.

I sat down with my husband the other evening to talk to him about some of the ideas I had, things I could make for different people. I love bouncing ideas off my husband. He has great taste, and he’s way better than me at making decisions. After I showed him several options I had in mind for many of the people on our Christmas list, we narrowed things down to actual decisions of who would receive what. With the decisions out of the way, I could get started making.

I thought I was doing pretty well. I bought fabric and got one project out of the way. When my husband asked me what I was making next, I told him I would have to go pick up supplies for the next project. See, I thought I would take a safe approach, buying things I needed for one project, finishing that project, and then purchasing for the next one. That way, if we’re getting too close to Christmas and I just don’t have time, I can go buy something instead of making the gift I had planned.

My ever-supportive husband had a different idea. He thought my “safe approach” would make it too easy for me to back out. He wanted to help motivate me. So he said I needed to make a supply list. For how many of the projects? All of them. I made the list, the very, very long list. We left in the late afternoon to hit the stores. Considering the time, I figured we could make a good start on the list, and I’d at least have supplies for a few of the projects. We started at the fabric store.

And we stayed at the fabric store.

I made decision after decision after decision.

My daughters ran amok.

I think we gave everyone a headache, including ourselves.

It became quite clear that we weren’t leaving that store until I had fabric and most of the notions for all the projects on my list.

My daughters bickered.

I made some more decisions.

I got nervous every time we picked up fabric that cost more than $6 a yard.

My daughters got fussy.

I broke out the snacks.

We soldiered on. We kept that cutting counter quite busy.

After three grueling hours in a fabric store, we came away with these fabrics and some other supplies for me to make gifts. Then we went to Costco for dinner.

I had used a coupon which helped quite a bit with the supplies, but I still had sticker shock from the whole bill. What had we done? I had never spent that much in one trip to the fabric store. I thought my husband surely was feeling the same way, but it turns out, he was thinking more rationally. He told me to take the total price and divide it by the number of projects for which I had all the supplies. I did, and it turned out to be less than $10. He told me to take the total price and divide it by the number of people to whom we will be giving the projects. It still turned out less than $10 per person. Maybe we will save money this Christmas after all.

Now I just have to deal with the matter of getting it all done in time and trying not to become a basket case in the process. I guess you could say I’ve got my work cut out for me (pun intended). I’m nervous and excited. This will be some really good sewing practice for me since most of the projects are sewn. What a great opportunity to get plenty of practice! Still, I think I might be in over my head. Wish me luck! I might have to wait until after Christmas to blog about it all, since they are gifts.

Are you working on anything for Christmas? Is this a big Christmas or a small Christmas for you this year? What do you do to make gifts feel more personal, more special?

Getting Closer

I’ve been preoccupied. On the bright side, this is the first year I’ve been able to work it out so my girls are in coordinated Halloween costumes. The difficult part is that means this is the first year I have to try to make costumes (or portions of the costumes, as you can see in the picture that I purchased what I could make work).

I’m really a beginner when it comes to sewing, and this has been a whole different realm. I’ve been winging it on these costumes, sketching things out (and I really don’t draw), and hoping it will all work. I’m finally nearing the end. I don’t want anything to do with satin for a long time after this. There are just a few more details that I hope to have done in the next couple days. I hope it will turn out. There are already spots that look pretty wonky from my sewing. Oh well. As long as the kids have fun and the costumes hold out for one day, right?

I’ll take pictures once things are finished. What are you/your kids going to be for Halloween?