Works in Progress-Sewing and Potty Training

Mid-week!  Hoping to get the boys outside for longer today because it is supposed to be so nice out.  Tomorrow it is supposed to be cloudy/rainy plus I have a dr appointment and my 4 yr old has his first dentist appointment.  He is a little nervous but my husband got him excited/okay with it, at least temporarily.  So, we'll see how it goes.

Anyway, today is work-in-progress Wednesday So hopefully the pictures will load.

My two main projects are both pink.  The first is my friend's spring bag.  I just need to figure what I am using for the lining and straps.

My second project is for a quilt challenge-a square in a square in a square.  The quilting challenge comes from Kim over at Persimon Dreams and this is the first week's challenge.  I know I said in the last post I was going to do a set of potholders but I couldn't resist going bigger and doing a table runner.  I am thinking I am going to add white inbetween the squares and around the edges as a border. 

I was hoping to actually finish the squares but am happy with what I accomplished yesterday given how many times I had to get up for my non-nappers during nap time.

Speaking of one of my non-nappers...my two yr old could be considered a work in progress with potty training.  He keeps his pull up dry all day and has even conquered number two.  But, when he has big boy underwear on, he has accidents.  With my older son, once we made the switch, he was good to go with no accidents.  So, this back tracking is kind of new to me.  I think the main thing with him is he doesn't feel like taking a break from playing to go potty and is not bothered by wet underwear.  Oh well, I guess I'll just have to make sure to have him go on a more regular schedule.  He will get it eventually.  I was just hoping for a nice, quick, and easy transition.  :) I will be linking up to Freshly Pieced so be sure to see what others are busy creating and have a great rest of the week!

Creating and Playing and Friday

Happy Friday!  Except that I'm so confused from the holidays on what day it is :)

Well, it's been a pretty productive week, even with the hubby home the first half of it.  I love when he is home of course, but definitely don't get as much done. 

I finished the heart towel and found and listed a pink crochet snake that I had made for a relative that changed her mind on color.

I have squares cut and ready to make a spring bag for a friend.  You can see the cut out squares here.

I apologize for the links instead of direct pictures, but for some reason my uploader isn't working :(

Another friend reminded me about making animal shaped potholders and I found these cute squares so we'll see what I come up with.  You can see pictures here.

Finally, I may be making a bag for my aunt; hoping she can find the perfect fabric for the project!

So, yeah, lots of planning, now to get doing :)

With the spring bag, I was able to stick to using what I had on hand and am happy with the color and design combo.  I am not sure what I am going to do  for the handles and lining yet, but I'll decide after I have made the outer shell. 

My aunt originally wanted to use a birdhouse fabric I had from Fabric Central's Aerie bundle for the bag.  Unfortunately, I did not have near enough of it and it is no longer carried at Joann's.  I am really bummed they do not sell that line anymore because it was such a pretty group of fabrics, and it could have been used in so many projects.  You can see my scraps from the bird fabric here.

Anyway, I have had a pretty good week with the kids.  They have still been adjusting to being back at home and getting into our very loose routines.  With all of their new toys, they have been bouncing from area to area and toy to toy-generally being messier.  So, we are working on remembering to clean up again.  My older one got a good deal of Playmobil and that has kept both of them pretty busy. 

He also got some starter science kits-a fizzy foamy one and a color mixing/crystal growing set.  We did the fizzy foamy set the other day.  The kit has about 7 different activities and I jumped right to the volcano one.  It hardly bubbled up so I tried the activity labeled "More eruptions".  That one bubbled up more but neither really fizzed up and spilled over so while the kids thought it was cool, I was a little disappointed.  Looking at the other activities, I realize that I probably should have done them in order because it goes through acids and bases and what makes it fizz and all that.  But, at the same time, I feel all of that information would be lost on a 4 yr old and 2 yr old.  The ingredients are basic and are all kitchen friendly-vegetable oil, baking soda, citric acid, etc.  So, even if I run out of something from the kit, I can easily replace it.  We haven't tried the color mixing/crystal growing set yet-hopefully today or tomorrow.

I have been struggling with how to structure their day and at times I have even tried to plan activities and lessons for them because I worry about them missing out on learning while being home.  But, I have come to realize (which I already somewhat knew and just needed to accept) that they will learn just fine through playing and experiencing each day.  My mom did not plan out activities and lessons for my brother and me and I do not think either one of us went to preschool and we did pretty well in school.  Right now, my boys just need me to play with them and enhance their play experiences.  They usually help me bake and I hear my 2 yr old saying he needs a teaspoon while playing in the tub.  We count while playing games and lining up cars; we find shapes and colors all around us.  If my 4 yr old draws a picture of a fish or cave, I have him write the word on the paper.  Seeing what my boys are capable of doing, reassures me that they are on the right track.

For those that do more structured days with their young children-I admire you and appreciate all of the hard work you put into it.  For me, my day just gets away too quickly and when I plan activities they almost never go the way I planned.  So, I let them decide how they want to sped each moment of their day (within reason) and try to enhance it.  They both have Mobigo's which is a game system for children 3 yearsto about 7 years.  The cartridges are well known tv and movie characters, except the generic one that comes with it.  The games help them with shapes, colors, math, letter and word recognition, etc.  Every game has an educational purpose.  The boys do not play them every day and when they do, it is not for hours on end, but I think it is a fun way for them to learn the basic skills while giving them some quiet time. 

Anyway, enough rambling...Hope you have a great Friday and weekend!

My First Experience with Hexagons-Machine Sewing

My mom keeps me in business all by herself, from requesting items to buying fabric that she really likes but gives to me to use. To be honest, sometimes making things for my family is more stressful because I just know they'll say they like it even if they aren't completely satisfied with it. They are just that nice.

This past November, I was commissioned to make a bag for my cousin, with no specifications other than general size. I decided I wanted to try a hexagon flower, pieced together, not applique. My google search quickly taught me that there was more to this flower than just sewing it together. Paper piecing sounded too frustrating and time consuming at the time. I just wanted to be able to put it all together, ideally without trying to conquer too many new techniques. Fortunately, I found a blog called Sew Many Ways that had a simpler version of how to sew hexagons. And, it was designed to be machine sewed, which was a big bonus for me. Between her easy to follow instructions and clear pictures, I could picture what I needed to do just by reading through the post. Find the tutorial here.

So, I didn't have many problems cutting the hexagons in half besides the occasional, I'm too tired to be using a rotary cutter and just veered off my intended path. With the pieces sewn into rows and the rows put together, this is what came together:

The blue stripes were not in the original design and were added when I realized the bag was shorter than I planned. I didn't take into account that cutting the hexagons in half and then sewing them back together would make them smaller. Duh, but I was being hasty. But, that "fix" ended up adding to the design, in my opinion. Anyway, I'm sure you experienced sewers, and probably even beginners, can see some irregularities and mismatching. I had some rows come out not so straight and instead of ripping out seams and redoing, I just kept going, hoping I could hide it.

The next issue I had was the blue stripes did not line up when I put the two sides of the bag together. Hmmm, wonder where that problem stemmed from... maybe I should have taken out the uneven rows and fixed them. So, I decided to add a blue mock binding to the edges to distract from the unevenness.

Pretty effect...except at the corners where it folded in funny. Grrr. So, at this point, I'm feeling horrible but am still too stubborn to start over or scrap it. Through much texting with my mom about these issues and if she thought it would be okay or if I should just say forget it; I went ahead and finished it, errors and all.

Sorry for the bad photo quality, I took it with my phone with no intention of ever needing it besides sending to my mom.

So, my cousin said she loved it and my mom said it came out very nice. I'm still undecided because I feel like I just kept trying to hide a mistake that kept growing. Kind of like lying. Honestly, I think at a glance it looks nice, but I can't just glance, my eyes automatically look for bad spots-which, to me, are everywhere.

So, what was the point of posting this? Well, I wanted to point out the excellent tutorial I found. I also wanted to share some basic lesson I learned/relearned:

• Nip mistakes in the bud-there are very few that can be hidden along the way. More than likely, that little oops is going to come back as a bigger issue.



• TAKE YOUR TIME-Proper piecing is really crucial and mismatched seams can be very distracting when it comes to the finished product.



• Have a plan, but be prepared to wing it-my spur of the moment additions actually ended up adding to the design-I just wish I had been more of a perfectionist from the beginning.
  

Now, I promise I am not a sloppy sewer, I only sell items that I am happy with in my Etsy shop. I just wanted to share my experience in an attempt to help other avoid this issues. It's nice to have family and friends to try new things with. This way, if I decide to make something similar to sell, I'll be more aware of the challenges ahead and where I need to pay closer attention.

I recently purchased tiny 2" hexagons from another Etsy seller, Spring Water Designs, and already have a plan for them. Since they are so small, I will not be doing the cut-in-half technique I used for the bag. I'd like to try the paper piecing, but may end up just appliqueing. Either way, I'll let you know! And with better pictures (hopefully)!