homeschool forum

Homeschooling Life

A forum for homeschooling parents. It's a place for hs peeps to hang out and discuss all the areas of our lives, not just the educational stuff. It's so NOT just a place to discuss curriculum and homeschool ideas. Posting off topic is encouraged and there are several forums for just that.

Recycled skirt

For now I am just going to link pictures in here. It's not worth the frustration of only being able to upload pictures when Blogger is in a good mood.

I had this shirt in my donate pile. It was too big for me now, and looked frumpy on me. My dd took it out of my donate pile because she loved the stripes. I cut it up, did a bit of sewing, stuck some elastic in it, and handed this skirt to my dd. She loves it. :)

If you'd like to see exactly how I did it, I posted the tutorial at my Homeschooling Life forum. You have to register to see it.

Lake Tahoe

Whaddya know! Blogger decided to let me upload pictures again. We played at Lake Tahoe yesterday. We had a great time. :) Gorgeous aye? Those heads at the bottom of the picture are my hub, the baby, and the big two monkeys. My toddler was at my side.

See that SNOW behind the boat?? Speaking of that boat, it has a glass bottom so you can look down into the lake. It would be over $100 to take our whole family on it for a 2 hour trip. My kids had an absolute blast just splashing in the lake and admiring all the boats, for free. We parked at a school and walked half a mile in, didn't even have to pay for parking that way.

Afterwards they begged to check out the yuppie mcdonalds, though they didn't use the word "yuppie". It had walk through windows on the sidewalk. So the trip up there wasn't completely free, paid for burgers and gasoline. But the smiles on their faces were worth it. There were happy, tired, and lightly pink faces in the back of the SUV on the way back down.

boxer short sewing tutorial

Well dangit, blogger is having issues letting me upload the rest of the pictures to finish this. So here's the last half or so of the tutorial. I'll get the first set of instructions included when I can.

****************************************************

Now tuck the right side out one inside the wrong side out one, matching the seam and corners to each other. We're going to sew the rise now, see my orange line? That's where we'll sew the rise seam. This is what it looks like tucked together.
This is what it will look like after sewing. Flip it all right side out.
Now it looks like this:
Next is hemming the pant legs. Option 1: fold under 1/4 inch, fold that 1/4 inch over again, pin or iron in place, and sew it down. Option 2: serge or zigzag the raw edge, fold over, pin, iron, or just hold it, in place, and sew it down. You can see I've chosen to serge. Then, either finish (finish means zigzag or serge the raw edge of the fabric) the waist edge, or fold over 1/4 inch and iron it down. Now it looks like this:
Ok. Now you have two options to finish the waistband. Option 1: Stitch the waist down all the way around, leaving a one inch hole open to slip elastic through. Put a safety pin on your elastic and slip it through, pull both ends out, sew the elastic together, then sew the one inch hole shut. Option 2: Sew elastic together, hold it in the folded down waistband making sure it's away from the needle, and stitch the waist down this way. I use option 2, it's just less fuss and is done much quicker. To decide how much elastic I need I held it around my 2yo's waist unstretched, then cut it the exact length of his waistline. I overlapped half an inch and sewed it together, then sewed the waist as option 2 describes. I use cotton braided elastic, and this will seem loose right after sewing, but the elastic will shrink after washing and drying and then fit nicely.
Sewing the waistband down with the elastic held in in it. By the time I get halfway around I will have to adjust the elastic a bit to get it right, and on the last stretch I will have to pull the elastic out to hold the fabric straight for sewing. If you're uncomfortable just winging it around like I do, go ahead and pin it in place, stretching the elastic out before placing each pin, then sew.

Yippee!!

order status

Can you *believe* I *have* such a thing?!

orders in the order they came in:
CB~ 10 7.5" moon pads with snapping straps- 9 are serged, all straps are made and ready to be sewn on, then I'll put snaps on them. Need to cut one more out.
~ 6 little boy boxers. Two are assembled short of elastic, need to cut out one more.

FM~ wants baby wipes and moon pads, is mailing the materials she wants me to use so this is not started yet.

R~ 6 10" moon pads with wings, fabrics set aside, need some more before I can start though. When I get these I'm working on done I'll tinker with the wing pattern.

With that I'm good for moon pad testers! Once I get these done I will make up some boxer testers too, though not sure who for yet.

By fall I hope to be able to offer hemp inside the moon pads, it's just as absorbant, if not more so, than a layer of terry, but less bulky. I don't really want to try overnight style pads until I get my hands on some hemp.

This is what working hard looks like people.

We were at a big patriotic outdoor bbq/potluck/party type thing yesterday. There were big bump n jumps for the kids, an obstacle course one, a water slide one, and the regular just jump around kind too.

I was so proud of Rj. The water slide bump n jump had water spritzing from the top, and a shallow pool you fell into at the bottom of the slide. To get up to the top you had to climb a ladder or a rock climbing thing. She'd tried the ladder and slipped back down twice. I saw the second time and ran over to cheer her on. Kids were being kids and making cutting comments. One boy told me she'd fallen already and expected me to get her down. After falling off the ladder for the second time whe went over to the rock climbing side, curled up her fists, and went after it. 3 times she froze up and had to refocus, and nearly panicked near the top, but she never looked back or gave up. A couple of the kids started copying my cheers for her. She got to the top! In spite of water spritzing her face and the failures, she did it!! I ran around to the other side to see her come down, she did absolutely awesome. After climbing out she stood next to the pool, sopping wet, in a daze, with a goofy grin on her face. She didn't try that one again, but she was so proud of herself. She didn't even demand being taken home for dry clothes (we were very close to home so we could have), she let them air dry as she ran around and did fine with them. This from the girl who as a toddler and preschooler, would be nekkid in two seconds when three drops of water touched her shirt, regardless where we were. She's come so far.

decision

I *think* I've decided to use the name Tread Lightly Threads. I won't be opening a hyenacart very soon though. I have some current custom projects for friends that need wrapped up, and I want to build some instock to open with first. For my first stocking I hope to have some felted wool bags, baby sundresses, serged wipes, moon pads, some baby toys, and I don't know what else. Maybe some of those boxers I've been working on for my Moose? I could use another tester for the boxers and moon pads if one of my friends are interested. I would sell them for just slightly more than my costs if you promise to give me as much constructive feedback as you can. The boxers are meant to be undies, and are not cut full enough for a diaper to be worn underneath.

another soaker

This was knit with the Curly Purly pattern, using Targhee wool yarn (as I previously raved about in a lower post). The colors are a smidge brighter than this picture shows. The orangy looking color is really a bright yellow, and the green isn't quite so neon.I'm very proud of this one! It fits baby like a glove.

Grr!

Why are people so DUMB! This fire season. It's common knowledge that this is fire season. Looking at the cheet grass cross eyed can start a fire. The last fire, right here IN TOWN, was human caused. We have an awesome fire fighter team and it was put out before any buildings were damaged. Unless the person fesses up the odds of them being caught are slim to none. &#%*#^$.

Back to my regularly scheduled craft ramblings.

I did up 6 of those little boy boxers yesterday, 3 of them still need elastic. Moose is running around in the dark blue ocean waves print one this morning. Some of them were french seamed, some were just serged, which is much faster. The boxers for the boy that's not mine will be french seamed. A boxer is something that will be worn a lot, so I want every raw edge serged. But the other little guy has some sensory sensitivities so I don't want serging against his skin. Thus the french seams to hide the serging inside a seam. I'm using thin elastic enclosed in a hem as well, instead of the thick waistband elastic. 100% cotton fabric is the only thing that will be touching his skin. The reason his mom asked me to make him some is because the waistband elastic on skivies is wigging him out. She didn't ask me to french seam the whole boxer, but I know SI kids. Therefore, I french seam.

And to occupy my brain with something other than stress, I started a soaker last night. Using Targhee wool yarn. Oh my goodness do I love this yarn!! It's very soft. It's also very strong and sturdy. Usually those two quality traits are exclusive of each other. That soaker is over half done now. The top is completely done, I've split for the legs, and am two rows from having the bum side finished. Then I'll need to finish the front side, kitchener it closed, and put some leg cuffs on it. I hope to have it ready for her to wear by tomorrow. Since this yarn is so scrumpciously sturdy I'm using the Curly Purly pattern that doesn't require a drawstring. This yarn doesn't have a lot of stretch to it so it should hold it's shape well in the snug ribbing.