maple leaf mini

Fall has definitely arrived in Colorado! The weather turned today and there may even be some snow flurries in Saturday's forecast. Or it could be 80 degrees...you know how reliable those weather guys are ;)

Yesterday I got out our few, but beloved Fall decorations. This year I have a new one, though!! I've been seeing these maple leaf blocks here and there and recently pinned this one. I was inspired to create a mini quilt of my own and came up with this:

 It was so much fun. I've been wanting to make a Fall quilt for a few years, but a mini quilt was actually doable, so I went with it :) I tried my hand at organic line quilting and really love the effect.

 It looks great over my little teacher desk!

A few other favorite Fall decorations:
My basket of fabric apples...

 And, that's right, I have Pilgrim Cupies! I know you're jealous ;) My Ganny made these many, many years ago. She signed their little tooshies. Love them.

So, happy Fall to you!! If you'd like to follow my quilting board on Pinterest, you can find that here. There's some super inspirational stuff on there! And here's one more for the road, of us in the mountains last weekend. So glad we carved out time to do that!

costuming

I love making my kids' Halloween costumes!! We start looking at patterns online the day the Fall pattern catalogs come out and the kids all have so much fun deciding.

This year I will have one Egyptian Princess...

 One Belle (Natalie has wanted to be Belle almost since last Halloween--she has the next several years' costumes already planned out too. Ha!)

 And one cute, cuddly, green T-Rex! I think I'm most excited about this one. I don't get all that excited about the princess dresses anymore, to be honest, but they sure do make my girls happy :)

I cut them all out yesterday and today so I can get started sewing! As I was cutting out that Belle dress, though, I was lamenting the recent demise of my serger (long story, with this lesson learned: do not buy a used serger on Ebay). I've been saving parts of my allowance for a new one and have it all picked out on Amazon and I've saved quite a chunk. I was hoping to use my b-day money (in November) to complete my stockpile, but after telling Casey I was a little bummed about the prospect hemming all those ravely, slippery layers of princess dress, he generously told me to just order it a little early. YAY! Happy dance. Let me tell ya, once you get used to having a serger, it is hard to go back!!

Anyway, back to why I love making costumes! I am not the kind of mom who stores the Halloween costumes away in a basement box for future Halloweens--no way, my kids like to wear them as dress up clothes all year long! Which makes it that much more worth my time :) I take extra care with the seam finishing just for this reason. The dress-up clothes I have made have outlasted even the "real thing" Disney Princess dresses that we've owned (which are crazy expensive and thus, we have only owned them via hand-me-downs or the result of some oober clearance at the Disney Store, haha.)

As for me, I'm hoping to be Jane Austen for Halloween, because what woman doesn't want to wear a Regency era dress once in her life?? We'll see if I have time, though ;)

What are YOU going to be?? Or your kids? Are you making costumes??

Busy Blogger

Okay, I may not be busy at blogging lately, but I have certainly been busy :)

Busy reading good books...

 Busy writing poetry...

Busy playing with oil pastels and symmetry...

Busy instructing little minds and encouraging little hearts.

All while sipping tea, of course...

Somehow the phrase, "Who's turn to choose our morning tea?" completely averts the school time whinies. I don't know why it works, but I'm thankful. Thus, tea has become our morning ritual.

So, while I don't like how little I've been blogging, and would like to blog more because I love it and it's good for the spirits, I feel good about my reasons for the sparse posting. However, I have a few goals for October--one is to exercise every day this month (while this habit was easy peasey over the summer, I'm finding it harder to fit in during the school year) and the other is to at least take photos of something every day, because a big reason for not blogging is not having the needed pictures. I have sewing projects that have been done for weeks! And one great little Fall mini quilt that I'm almost done with. And two cute little hats I crocheted for my two cute little girls!

What have you been busy with??

Chores

It's time. These kids need to start helping out more around here! Since we started our home schooling year, I've been feeling pretty behind when it comes to house work. So I've been mulling over some chore chart ideas and it finally came to me this morning. Most of the ideas I have seen involve complicated spreadsheets, charts, envelope systems, or generally time-consuming and elaborate scrapbooking-style projects. I'm not into any of those things. I just needed something easy and the solution occurred to me when I found my baggie of large popsicle sticks behind a cabinet today.

Similar to our "Prayer Pail", I wrote chores on the sticks (with the kids' help) with a different color of Sharpie for each child's jobs. For example, they each have a stick in their own color that says "make bed", but only Natalie has one that says "help empty dishwasher". You get the idea. Then I used a 4th color for jobs that anyone can do whenever they need done, like tidy the TV room, and also several sticks that just say "extra". We put the sticks in a cute green pail. Whenever one of the kids complete a chore, they move the correct stick over to their Mom Bucks jar. At the end of the day, I exchange the sticks for Mom Bucks.  (You can read about both our Prayer Pail and the Mom Bucks Store in this post).

Since the kids were involved in the creation of the system, they were pretty excited to do their chores today. When school was over, my house got cleaned and I didn't do it--how nice!! I know the novelty will wear off and they will not always be so motivated, but their colored sticks will need done every day and chores done with bad attitudes will not earn Mom Bucks! They love Mom Bucks. Seriously, they love Mom Bucks. When they do the extra/optional chores, they can opt for a couple M&M's or candy corns (I usually keep some small treats on hand). So there's our simple new system!

Sewing has been minimal for several days, but I hope to have a few things to show you soon. I also have some fun homeschooling ideas to share this week! We've been studying Madeline in our Five in a Row curriculum, so France and England have been on our brains. Fun stuff!

music week!

After studying Lentil last week as part of our curriculum, we took this week to have a little music unit in our home school. It's been super fun so far so I thought I'd share some of the things I've found that we've enjoyed.

Surely you've heard of The Piano Guys, right?? They're SO COOL! This is one of their latest videos and we have watched it multiple times since yesterday. So creative and incredible. Natalie especially could watch them all day.


We've talked a lot about the different types of instruments and the kids are getting good at identifying strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion. Yesterday we listened to some Lord of the Dance music, some Mariachi music, some polka, pointing out where on the map these genres originated, and today some Sousa marches and blues harmonica. We have a Mexican restaurant in town called Tequila's that has a live Mariachi band on Friday nights, so we are going to take the kids there for dinner on Friday. They can't wait!

Youtube is a home school gold mine, but surely you already know that if you home school. I find videos of all kinds on there, but it's been especially useful for music week. The kids really enjoy watching the music.

A book we love and have checked out several times from the library is I Know a Shy Fellow who Swallowed a Cello.

It's a funny story with lots of instruments and must be sung, not merely read ;)

Since we've been talking about sounds and vibrations, tomorrow we are going to try these "What's the buzz" toys from Familyfun.com

Also on the schedule for the rest of music week is Fantasia 2000 (on hold for me at the library) and then we are going to try illustrating and animating some songs of our own. Should be fun! I'm open to more fun musical ideas!!

one skirt, many ways

I am SO happy with how my latest project turned out!! I have an Ann Taylor skirt that I picked up at a thrift store last year and just really love the fit of. So, when I got some yellow corduroy on clearance at Denver Fabrics, I set out looking for a pattern to copy that skirt. I wanted a skirt with a waistband and I wanted it straight, not a-line. I found it in New Look 6030. I love all the pocket variations on this pattern and that it has belt loops!

Since versatility is my wardrobe sewing goal lately, here's my new yellow skirt, worn 4 different ways:

After taking these photos, I kept finding more things in my closet that this skirt will go with! I took a bit of extra time in getting the fit perfect, so it is super comfortable to wear. I really love the ruffly pockets:

 I decided to add a lining after I had the shell complete. I tried it on and could see my undies right through it, so I grabbed this cute cotton pin stripe and lined it.

I have plans to make at least two more of these in the coming months, but with some of the different pocket options, so they'll look totally different. Can't wait!

I've been pretty inspired by a few sewing bloggers' posts on creating more practical sewn wardrobes. One is this post on Ten Thousand Hours of Sewing. I love the idea of creating pieces that mix and match with at least 3 other things in my wardrobe and that can go with some things I already made that I have nothing to wear with (the plaid jacket in the third photo above is a case in point).  Also, I'm loving this series of posts on A Fashionable Stitch. The gist is to sew more everyday clothes and things comfortable and cute, that can be worn around the house or anywhere. I don't know about you, but I need to feel cute in my clothes, even if no one sees me all day but my kids--it just helps me function at my best! I know some home schoolers love to stay in their p.j.'s all day occasionally, but I'm a mean mommy and make my kids get dressed for school--I even do the girls' hair, because how we look affects how others treat us and how we feel about ourselves, there's just no way around it!

Another Vogue winner!

I can't believe I only just recently started using Vogue patterns, because seriously, they're a cut above. When they go on sale for $3.99 at JoAnn's, I usually grab one, just to start building my collection. I bought Vogue 1152 awhile ago and finally got some fabric for it a few months ago.
Here's my result:

 I love all the great details on this dress! The front gathering and piping are unique and the sleeves are puffy, but not too puffy. I actually finished this a month ago, I just needed to get a cami to go underneath, which I finally did. The neckline is pretty low, so this was a necessity if I want to wear this anywhere other than a date with Casey. The hem, though, is one of my favorite parts!

I was nervous about that hem, cause nothing can ruin a dress like a wonky hem, but Vogue's instructions were amazing. I've never had a curvy hem turn out so well before!

We don't have much planned this weekend, which is unusual, actually, so I may get some more sewing in! I can't wait to show you the yellow corduroy skirt I've been working on!! Things take me a bit longer now that I only sew in the evenings, but the results are still so worth it. It's also making me think more carefully about prioritizing projects. Anyone else have Christmas sewing on the brain already? Just me? Okay, then.

Til next time!

I dunno

I bought Vogue 1315 right after the new Fall line came out and they went on sale at JoAnn's. Then I started keeping my eyes peeled for a good knit to make it up in! Last weekend when the clearance fabrics at JoAnn's went and extra 1/2 off, I took a quick look and found a Project Runway rayon knit, which I got for only $3.50 a yard (normally $12.99)! I snatched it up, even though I knew there wasn't quite as much as the pattern envelope suggested. I shortened the sleeves out of necessity because of my fabric shortage and here's how it turned out:

I was pretty excited about it while making it, but in the end, I'm just not sure it's me. It's an edgier look than my usual vintage, softer style, but that's not really the problem. I don't know that it flatters me very well. It's a little too blousey up top. I like it styled with the belt and boots, but I wish it were a more versatile piece, I guess. If I made it again, I would take in the side/underarm seam in a little so it fit closer on top. It will definitely get worn, but maybe not as often as I wanted, since I have to belt it.

What do you think? I'd appreciate some honest opinions!