Summer ambitions

Our school year is almost over and summer beckons to us. I know that we will be taking it easy with lessons. Mainly the Pillowfight Fairy will continue piano lessons and the Adrenaline Junkie will be practicing reading and writing. But beyond that the possibilities seem endless. There are all of those craft projects that we never got done during the past year but we still have the supplies. The Pillowfight Fairy is contemplating a business plan of manufacturing scarves to sell come fall. The Adrenaline Junkie wants to paint and play computer games. And Mommy? Mommy just promised the girls homemade dresses today.

I may be nuts, but I've missed sewing and I had some fabric set aside that would make wonderful summer dresses for the girls. So today, we all went to the fabric store. While I and the girls were picking out appropriate patterns, Daddy and the Happy Boy were investigating Belt Buckles for the chain maille belt he was making for me. I finally came up with a dress pattern that the girls agreed to, but they had fallen in love with another pattern of fancy dresses as well. It turns out that this was a good day to shop for patterns at this store (All Simplicity patterns were just $1.50 each). So each girl got a pattern for a simple summer dress and a pattern for a fancy occassion dress.

The Fairy in particular is fascinated by this and wants to be in on all of the process. Which I think will be a very good thing. I intend to teach her to sew. So this is a situation where she can watch the process happen and learn how clothing is made. After this (and the completion of a few projects that are still in process), I hope to start teaching her how to sew patchwork by hand to make a small quilt project. So far she likes this idea. I'm not sure how much she will like it after about a dozen seams.

I'm looking forward to sewing again, but I wonder if I can get all four dresses done in a reasonable time so they can wear the dresses before they outgrow them. I am going to aim for getting the summer dresses done in a month's time. The fancy dresses will take longer. I will aim for no later than the beginning of August for them. Of course with dresses that fancy, we will need an occassion for them to wear them. If we don't come up with any special occassion, then I suppose they can always be princesses for Halloween.

Then maybe I will have my figure back in trim again by fall so that I can make something nice for me... Hmmm... I like that idea.