This week, we’re participating in the Kids’ Clothes Week Challenge led by Meg of elsiemarley.com.  We’ll be back to our regular posting schedule next week.

Wendy’s Update

Another slow night for me.  I cut and pressed three more patterns in a little over an hour and then took an honest look at how tired I felt and decided to wait until tomorrow evening to cut any more fabric.  I’ve made enough errors when tired or distracted in the past to know that I’m so much more likely to make mistakes (that then have to be fixed) in that state.

Pattern cutting is neither very exciting nor photogenic, but I find it to be somewhat meditative.  Since I made the impulsive decision to commit to this project, I’ve given a lot of thought to the structure of my days and the things that, for better or worse, fill the hours between waking and sleeping.  I don’t know that I’m ready to write about any of these revelations, but I do know that even if I fall short of my finished-product goals for the week, I will consider the endeavor time very well spent because of the time to think that the process has allowed.

Jo’s Update

I’m with Wendy on the introspective aspect of the challenge.  I really enjoy sewing, and I take a lot of pride in creating items for my girls to wear.  But right now they are both at an age where they require constant supervision, so after their bedtime is the only time I have for sewing.  This is also the only time I have for cooking, laundry, email, phone calls, and paperwork.  So tonight after the girls went to bed I cleaned the living room and kitchen, did today’s dishes, cooked a pot of soup and made biscuits and cinnamon raisin bread, started a load of laundry, rocked a cranky baby back to sleep, and then, at 10:30, I started my hour of sewing.   It’s fun and I’m proud of my work, but I’m trying to balance the satisfaction with the fatigue, and right now I’m not sure which one is winning…

On the plus side, I was digging in my fabric stash today, and found a pile of half-finished clothes I had started for Scooter that now might fit Skeeter – I cut out some things two summers ago and then got hired on a big freelance project and totally forgot about them.  (And by the way, if any of you ever hear me talking about buying fabric in the near future, please hit me on the head with something heavy, because I do not need fabric.  At all.)

I picked the three dresses that I found to finish tonight.  Two of them had the sideseams already stitched and the neck edges finished, and one was just two pieces of fabric cut from an old sundress of mine – I love to recycle fabric.  If there were ever facings or bindings cut for these dresses, they have since disappeared, so I serged the edges and turned them under.  On the blue floral (pictures are on our flickr page), I found some fold over elastic that I could use for binding.   I also had some iron-on patches that I used on the blue floral and the smiley.  I used my snap setter to close the shoulder seams.

Tomorrow – (hopefully) two new skirts!