Back to School

K's back to school outfit

First, a shout out to welcome Judy to reading my blog. Thanks Theresa for sharing a post about my chicken project with Judy. Come to find out, Judy is married to Bert. I knew Bert when I worked at the Red Cross more than a decade ago. Bert was my role model because he always accomplished much with such an assortment resources and always gave credit to his team for making it happen when I knew he was more a part of the success than he was sharing! What a small world!

Remember, I love comments and love followers!!! Now, back to the subject matter for the post today!

On the school grounds for the first day of school!

Headed to the classroom

For many parents, September and the first day of school is filled with much excitement and anticipation. I was not one of those parents. The first day of school filled me with sadness as I was losing my playmates (daughters) to the rigors of education--homework, swim and water polo practices, yearbook, leadership and newspaper activities.

Consequently, the last day of school filled me with so much pure joy to have buddies back! My daughters didn't share my feelings though!

This year, the oldest grand, K, is a kindergartner. She has been excited for this day to come for at least a year! (She is so much like her mama, A!) She and her mama shopped for just the right lunch box and backpack. They even found the perfect first day of school outfit. K has talked about learning to read, making new friends and going to the new school. (Hers is the first class to start in the brand new building.)

I hope K has a wonderful year. She spent the day with us after her first day of school so we heard about what a fun year is ahead of her.

Pattern and fabric that K chose for her dress

Mondays and Wednesdays won't be the same here without her.  I thought being a grandparent, school wouldn't have the same effect on me. Well, I was wrong. Of course, K, thinks I'm silly! :) Last week, I asked her what she wanted to do during her last week with us. She said that she wanted to sew an outfit. So, I pulled a pattern--which

Stitching the trim to the hem

was more summer-- and a piece of fabric. K liked the pattern right away. The fabric? ahh. . .not so much.

So she chose this piece of pink (not surprised since pink is her favorite color) with a print of the Eiffel tower (not surprised since she wants to visit Paris someday!) She wanted to know not if I had purple fabric for the trim; but, where was the purple fabric for the trim! I loved that she "knew" I had the right stuff!

Finished dress

The first day, we prewashed the fabrics, cut out the pattern and stitched the ruffle. She gave me permission to stitch a few of the pieces together so that we could fit it to her the next time she came. (This pattern doesn't have chest or waist measurements so scheduling the fitting was important.) K likes the fitting part.

The leftovers

The second day, we stitched the halter dress. When we were working on the skirt, she wanted purple on the hem instead of plain--this was totally her idea. When I took a piece of the strap trim and folded it around the hem line to give her an idea of what purple trim would look like, she said it
wouldn't work.

What she meant was that the piece was way too small and yes, the purple trim was PERFECT! I had to chuckle to myself and then remind myself that it is important to continue to ask questions because what I think is being communicated isn't necessarily so!

Usable bits

She liked using the number 10 foot on Joyie (the Bernina) to stitch her trim. She thought threading the elastic with a safety pin as a bodkin was hard. She liked pressing the straps and the best part of the whole process was when the dress was ready to wear! Pinning is a hard task; but, pin removal is easy and it was fun to raise Joyie's pressure foot.

She told me that the best part of this dress were the pockets!  We are having an unusual Fall season in that temperatures are in the upper 80s and 90s so she'll be able to wear this dress for a few weeks. Once the weather cools, she can wear a t-shirt and tights underneath.

I like how well the pattern fit. I really like how K made this her own when she added the trim to the hem.

There was a pile of leftovers. I trimmed them into usable units ala Bonnie Hunter's scrap saving system. Doing this task while the bits and pieces were still on the cutting table, meant it was one step to put the 1 1/2" and 3 1/2" strips; 1 1/2", 2", 2 1/2" and 3 1/2" squares, into the storage bags for a future scrap project. That pile of bits sure takes up less space than the pile of leftovers!

Sister went to school; I can play in the park!

Since I won't be seeing K as often as I did last year, we talked about setting up one day a month so that she can come and sew more outfits.

I didn't realize how much she liked sewing clothes; but, now that I know, we will figure out more projects where she can play and create. I think her mom will support some Gran time!









While I'm sad that one playmate is in school, I'm ecstatic that I will have one on one time with Miss J! Hmmm. . .I wonder what we will be creating??? Time will tell!!!!