Handmade
Celine has been sewing up a storm these days. To hear the sewing machine humming, to provide feedback for her design ideas and to see the quality work she's producing is such a blessing to this mama's heart. I feel a sense of deep satisfaction as she makes this learning her own, knowing that the way we've chosen to homeschool has given her the time she needs to pursue her own goals and dreams.
Sigh... I am a happy homeschooling parent.
One of Celine's recent projects was to sew a sock monkey for her cousin, who turns two years old the beginning of next month. This was a paid commission from her aunt to create a handmade toy that the parents (Celine's aunt and uncle) could give to their son as a gift.
I am so proud of Celine for accepting this project and following through. Damien and I encouraged her to take on the project and offered whatever help she needed. But ultimately the choice to make it and the work was done by her.
We took her shopping to buy an appropriate pair of socks, helped her find a pattern, read through the instructions with her and at the very end helped her sew on the eyes and mail the finished product. But that was it, the rest was her doing.
In case you are interested in doing a similar project this is the pattern Celine used, found at Craftbits.com. The instructions are straightforward and Celine was very pleased with the end result.
But more importantly Celine was pleased with the process. This girl loves to sew and I couldn't be happier for her. These are Celine's own words for how she feels when she's sewing, "I'm in my element!" Music to a mother's ears.
I'm tired of writing three sentence-ish posts. I made the rule to keep my on-line time in check during these last couple hectic weeks of February but I'm almost through the worst of it and I'm ready to break the rule a little early. My blog, my rules. I can break them.
After our fabulous weekend together backpacking, hiking and camping in a log cabin together my parents came to our house for a work visit. My mom brought the hat that she finished knitting me for "Christmas". I love it! I chose the yarn and pattern. A new hat for me, made to order. I feel so loved.
During this week while mom and I manage the home and kids together (she does laundry, helps cook and has even done a little sewing for Damien - she rocks!) my father has been working at an amazing pace to paint the girl's room and attend to other home maintenance miscellanea. Give that man a tool and watch out. Dad's a builder by profession so my home is in good hands, the best.
The bedroom is almost done. The guys are out with the kids tonight picking a pale pink for one wall (we finally caved to Brienne's request) in an otherwise celery sprig green room. I hope to show complete before and after pics sometime later. Later when all this mess is cleaned up...
Last year around this time I wrote a guest post for Small Notebook titled Three Steps to Less Clutter in Kid's Rooms. Ha!! Removing all the junk from under Brienne's bed and closet and seeing it piled up in every other bedroom has shown me I am woefully remiss in following my own advice. My bad. I thought I was on top of it, I really did.
The upstairs floor of our house with our three bedrooms is a disaster zone right now and it literally pains me to think about going through all that "stuff" before putting back together the girls room. But part of me also looks forward to it; to give the girls a "new" bedroom with fresh green (and one pink) walls and cleaned-out toy and creative bins in time for spring.
So, all in all things are well. This hectic month of tenant upheaval, sickness (which I am all recovered from, thanks for asking), winter camping, home renovations and Laurent's 9th birthday is almost through. I'm so enjoying having my parents here. They are staying for Laurent's birthday and my mom has even offered to bake the cakes.
It's all very good. Very good indeed.
(Photos and a few words about our simply wonderful weekend trip will be forthcoming. Promise.)
You may have noticed that green and blue are two of my absolute favoritist colors. Inspired by those colors I decided to make a "new" blanket (out of an older fleece blanket, some goodwill sheets and hand me down buttons) for our "new" guest/sewing room. Both the blanket and the room remain works in progress but just being able to play with these buttons has been fun.
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