The Joy of Gift-making

Although it is not my first love language, I do so enjoy gift-giving; but I enjoy it most when I've been able to come up with an idea for something hand-crafted or homemade.  The love language in which I am most fluent is time spent together (and that one is pretty much tied with expressing love for others through acts of service), so it makes sense that making gifts is so much more satisfying and fun for me than buying them. Homemade gifts truly do become labors of love, and my thoughts are focused so much on the recipients as I work on them.

(That's not to say that there haven't been store-bought gifts that have given me great joy to give; I'm just saying that, in general, making them is preferable to me.)

We are going out of town in a few days to visit our youngest son and his wife and two daughters.  Both his 33rd birthday and his baby's first birthday happened in January; and his older daughter will turn three in early March; so we are bringing along gifts (and a cake) and will be celebrating all three of them while we're there.

Our darling almost-three-year-old granddaughter loves to play with little animals and dinosaurs, "small stuff" as she calls these kinds of toys.  (I actually blogged about this recently in post called "Not-So-Small Stuff.")  She already has miniature sets of zoo animals, farm animals, and dinosaurs; so when I asked what she might like for her birthday, our son advised me that perhaps a set of miniature woodland creatures would be appreciated.  Grammy had them ordered within a few minutes of receiving the Amazon link from my boy.

Manufacturing plastic animal toys is well beyond my skill set; but I decided that perhaps I could fashion some kind of play mat to use with them.  At Michael's, I got a 9x12" canvas stretched on a wood frame, and with the help of  acrylic paints I proceeded to create a small landscape for my granddaughter's small creatures to inhabit.  Once I realized that I had to throw the idea of "perspective" out the window and remember that this humble little canvas isn't going to be hanging in an art gallery, it was smooth sailing. And oh, I can't tell you how much I enjoyed making it!

The hippo and elephant can hang out at the watering hole, while the zebra walks down the dirt path...

The monkey can climb into the trees, the lion mountain can climb onto the rocks, and the cheetah can be restrained inside a zoo fence...

And although it is not an ideal size for them, larger toy animals like this thirsty elephant can make good use of this play mat, too...

I'm also stitching up twin dresses for those two precious little birthday girls, but I've got some work to do yet. (I got sidetracked by that painting project mid-way through my sewing project!)  I'm trying something new, mixing two different (and not necessarily coordinating!) floral fabrics.  I hope the end result will be pretty, but we shall see...

My goal is to finish the dresses in time to bring them along on our trip to TN, and I'll try to get a picture of my granddaughters together, modeling them. 

I'm glad I have so many indoor hobbies to keep me busy, because I sure don't want to be outside.  It's been SO COLD here in VA--this is the coldest, snowiest, iciest winter we've had since we moved here in 2017. When we left NH, I thought we would no longer have to deal with these frigid Northeast-style temperatures, and I feel like I've been tricked!  But that's a story for another day!

Speak your love languages loudly, dear readers.  And have a  great week.

How We Handle Christmas Gifts

Before I get started, Happy Feast of the Immaculate Conception, dear readers.  

We have been blessed with 23 grandchildren, abundantly blessed--and I can't tell you the number of times people have asked me how we "do Christmas" with so many to buy for.  It's a complicated question, because we don't have a set routine; each year has tended to be slightly different, and plans keep evolving with the addition of each new little one.  I didn't make a decision the day I became a grandmother about how I was going to handle the Christmas gift-giving thing.  (You know, the way some parents decide from the outset to give each of their children three gifts, like the Wise Men; or they give four: "something you want, something you need, something to wear, something to read.") Part of me wishes that I had been that forward-thinking and organized about it, but I wasn't.  So as I said, it's a tough question to answer.

If we had 10 grandkids or less, I imagine I might have a different philosophy about Christmas gift-giving. But there is no way that we can be those over-the-top generous grandparents, the ones who give motorized ride-on cars and such, when there are 23 of them.  That would bankrupt us.  Even the whole matching Christmas jammies rigamarole is not something we can pull off these days  I tried that once, about six or seven years ago.  I hunted down coordinating PJ's for all of them; but somehow we never even got the requisite picture of all the grandkids gathered together in their red-and-black buffalo checks.  So I haven't tried that since.

When our three oldest grandchildren, all girls, were young, I used to sew matching Christmas dresses for them; but things were simpler back then.  For a time, they were our only grandchildren! That changed fast! In 2020, I did manage to get the five youngest girls matching red-and-white plaid taffeta dresses, which I'd bought at an after-Christmas clearance sale in 2019, hoping the sizes would work out a year later. They did, and it was adorable.

How cute are these little gals?

But I've got 13 granddaughters now, ages one to 14, who are all shapes and sizes, and all particular about how they like to dress (or how their mommies like to dress them); so that sort of thing just isn't going to happen anymore. 

Anyhoo, I was reading Leila Lawler's most recent post over at Like Mother, Like Daughter, and I realized that in her, I have a kindred spirit.  She has 22 grandchildren and a limited budget, she loves to give gifts handmade with love, and she realizes that it is not up to her to fulfill her grandchildren's wildest dreams at Christmastime.  She says, "I give myself permission to step down from the job of fulfilling their Christmas dreams.  That's the parent's job, really.  You know what I mean: if the child has been longing for a bike or a doll, the parents know best what to get...I've done my part, however inadequately, when my own children were growing up."  Lawler says it so much better than I could, and I totally agree that although grandparents play a vital role in the lives of their grandchildren, giving them the bestest-ever gifts at Christmas does not need to be priority number one.  It's okay as a grandmother to, as she puts it, "just relax into the role of the loving figure who sent you some little toy that wasn't the be-all and end-all."  She doesn't stress about it; she says she just tries "to give one gift per grandchild that is something along these lines: handmade, whimsical, and/or relating to a particular interest of the child."

Although I admittedly sometimes let myself worry about whether I'm doing "enough," Lawler's wise words really do resonate with me. I actually think it's even okay for grandparent gifts to be the ones that get the heave-ho over the shoulder, the way Ralphie and Randy do with their socks in the movie A Christmas Story.  (LOL--that reminds me of two Christmases ago, our "beach towel Christmas."  Sometime I'll give you a good chuckle and tell you all about that one!)

Seriously, though, I don't believe that grandparents need to compete with Santa.  Now don't get me wrong: even though gift-giving isn't my first love language, I do love giving gifts.  It's just that I'm happiest when I have an idea for something I can make rather than buy.  And it's not about the money, really; it's more about wanting to figure out something personal and meaningful for the people who mean the most to me.  I am more apt to want to find a special wished-for toy for each grandchild on their birthdays, when it's all about him or her. But on Christmas, it's all about Jesus, and I feel like the gifts that Papa and I give don't need to make anyone's dreams come true.  I never received anything but clothes and books from my grandparents, and that was okay by me; it was Santa, and Mom and Dad, who stockpiled longed-for toys under the tree and filled my stocking with tiny treasures.

My husband's parents, who ended up with a whopping 32 grandchildren, got to the point where they just gave out crisp five dollar bills at Christmas, and then eventually ten dollar bills. It had just gotten too hard to do gifts for that many kids!  We're not quite there yet, but I can see that as a possibility for how we'll handle things down the road--adjusted for inflation, of course.  :)

So, how's it going to go this year, you ask?  For Christmas 2025, our main gift for each grandchild will be a Rosary handcrafted with love for them by their Grammy.  The ones for the girls are made of white pearls, with rose-shaped beads for the Our Fathers; the ones for the boys are made of blue and gold pearls (Notre Dame colors!), with football-shaped beads for the Our Fathers; and all of them have their names spelled out in letter beads.  I made these way back in the spring, when I got the idea.  I was too excited to wait!  (I do realize that I have some grandchildren who are too young to appreciate or take care of these Rosaries yet; but I wanted to make them for all 23 anyway.)

It's really going to be a handmade Christmas (yay!), because I also stitched up short capes for all 13 granddaughters (well, full disclosure: eight are finished, and I'm currently working on the last five). My youngest son's wife suggested this project to me, and I thought it was genius!  I had to purchase some lining fabric and some metal sew-on clasps, but the yards and yards of lovely velvet material came from my late mother-in-law's attic (adding some sentimental value to these garments).   I'm hoping to get pictures of the girls modeling them, and if so I'll share them here at the blog someday. 

I've been busy in my basement sewing room!

Girls like pretty clothes, so I can do this sort of thing for the granddaughters; but boys, not so much.   I used to sew a bit for my grandsons when they were little guys, rompers and such; but these days, I don't think that's the way to go.  When it comes to clothes, a team jersey or a Pokemon t-shirt might be a hit; but they all have plenty of those.  So the girls will get the capes with their Rosaries, and the big boys will get new footballs (cool ones with favorite team logos on them--I'm not a total Grinch!).  The boys who are too little to care about footballs will get trucks (again, not a Grinch!).

I might have thrown a few extra toys into the mix for two of our wee granddaughters, who are almost 3 and almost one; but they are the only grandchildren we won't see this Christmas season (they'll be out in Michigan with their other grandparents), so I think it's okay to spoil them just a tad. 

This is how we're doing things this Christmas; it all might look totally different next year, depending on circumstances.  But I'm thrilled that this one is going to be a mostly homemade Christmas.

To wrap this up, I don't really think it's necessary, or even a good idea, to try to spoil our grandkids too much with stuff--in general, not just at Christmastime.  Their Papa and I prefer to spoil them with our time and attention, which we give as generously and joyfully as we possibly can throughout the year.

And now, down to the sewing room!

Like Leila, Like Laura (Maybe?)

I have been so inspired lately, reading Leila Lawler's "Like Mother, Like Daughter" blog (which is often graced with lovely, well-written posts by her grown daughters as well).  How I missed her all these years that I've been immersed in the blogging world is beyond me.  She is just awesome (as are her girls), and I pretty much agree with her mindset on every aspect of the vitally important triple vocation we share: wife/mother/homemaker.  I mean, I feel like we could be best friends if we ever met (although I'm so shy and terrible at making new friends that she might be less enthusiastic about the whole thing than I.  But I think we could be Internet friends, at least...).

Like "Auntie Leila," I  have striven to live by the "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without" philosophy, which she often espouses on her blog, throughout my marriage. I've tried to be as thrifty and frugal as possible--to make our home as comfy, warm, and beautiful as I could, even during those early years when I had to do it on a shoestring budget. And then by the time I could have spent more, I was hesitant to do so--because the habit of trying to make what I had work for us, and if not, to find something old and used and in need of a bit of TLC to make it "perfect," was deeply ingrained in me after years of creative housekeeping. 

I am quite lucky, I realize, to enjoy the type of hobbies that go hand-in-hand with my three-pronged vocation: cooking, baking, home decorating, furniture refinishing, painting, drawing, sewing, crafting, reading, and writing, to name a few! I even like to clean.  (Should I be embarrassed to admit that?  My husband calls me the "mad vacker," because I love to vacuum way more than I should.) 

Also, Leila Lawler is the only blogger (other than myself!) whom I've ever seen touting the benefits of wearing an apron to do housework; my boys like to tease me about my apron-wearing.  It's true that I am rarely seen without one during waking hours if I'm in my own house.  By I don't sleep in one, as one of my funny sons has accused.  (I blogged about aprons once upon a time; if you're interested in visiting my archives you can read that post here.)

I have a proverbial wardrobe of aprons, actually.  Holiday-themed ones even.

My Mrs. Clause apron.  (And a darling chocolatey-faced elf!)

Anyway, Leila Lawler is a seamstress.  (See, there's another thing we have in common.  She even said in one post that in spite of being at it for 40 years, she tends to make lots of mistakes and relies heavily on a seam-ripper.  Me, too!  I'm beginning to think we might be twins who were separated at birth!)  After reading some of her old sewing posts, I felt motivated to organize my sewing room for the first time in ages.  In one of the big plastic bins that held some of my fabric stash, I found some fun treasures that I'd almost forgotten about, including a few unfinished projects that I decided I'll have to get to ASAP.  (I'm not getting any younger, you know.  I'll be 66 in July.  If I don't finish them now, then when?!)

I found a patchwork quilt that I began to put together in the late 1970's, while I was still in college (it was for my "hope chest," kind of), and then continued to work on after my husband and I got married in 1980 and started having our sons.  It was made with soft, almost threadbare squares of fabric, taken from old clothing and scraps from craft projects I'd worked on. (BTW, what was I thinking making the squares so small?!  Each is only 5"!)  I'd added some appliquéd hearts, with the names and birthdays of the first two boys on them; the next two sons each have a heart appliqué with their names and birthdates penciled in, but I never got around to embroidering them; and the fifth son never even got a heart on there before I abandoned this quilting project (probably because I was too busy raising said boys, four little guys who were born within a span of four years and three months).  Son #4, the last one represented on this quilt, is 36 now, so it's been more than three decades since I did any work on it!

Finally finishing that decades-old quilt is on my to-do list now.

I also found the top of a baby quilt that was made by my best college friend in 1983, as a gift for our firstborn son.  This quilt originally had batting inside and the layers were hand-tied together with yarn at some of the corners where the rectangular pieces on the front met.  After washing it a number of times, the batting got all lumpy, and I took it apart, planning to put new batting in it and then put it back together, possibly doing some machine quilting, too, so it would hold up better.  But alas, I never got around to it.  My friend had made it before she knew whether we were having a girl or a boy, and it had an awful lot of pink in it.  When we kept having boys, I put it away to save in case we ended up with a daughter, but we never did.  Our oldest son has six girls now, and one boy, and the youngest, a girl, is still a baby.  So I think I'm going to fix it up and pass it on to him for his little one.

How fun!  I had almost forgotten that baby quilt existed!

Another treasure I found was a zip-lock bag with some pre-cut 8" quilt squares in it.

What is special about these squares is that most of them (all but the dark blue, which I must have gotten as a filler) are Laura Ashely fabrics, taken from sheets, pillowcases, and curtains that we used to have in our bedroom. Way back in the early years of our marriage, my mother-in-law (a T J Maxx clearance shopping pro who had no equal!) gifted us a king-sized Laura Ashley puff/bedspread (in the dusty blue with little cream-colored flowers on it).  We had a double bed at the time, but she said we would probably go bigger eventually, and she wanted it to fit.  We had that puff on our double bed for about ten years, before we finally got a king-sized bed in 1993.  By that time, my M-I-L had gifted us sheets (in the coordiating cream with little dusty blue flowers), curtains, pillow shams, and throw pillows in that same pattern.  Then eventually, she got us a new king-sized quilt, in the floral pattern that had some pink in it but was in the same color palette and still went with the curtains from the other pattern we'd had for so long, and a king-sized sheet set (top right fabric square in the picture) to go with it.  

We slept on Laura Ashley bedding for so many years that when we finally made the switch to something different, I wanted to have a little memento of it.  So I'd cut out those squares, intending to make a little throw quilt.  But like so many other projects I'd started over the years, I never got around to sewing those squares together.

Well, guess what I did today?

It's not very big, just a lap quilt.  It just needs a back (I'm not sure I'm even going to do a layer of batting inside).  I'll probably keep it draped over the back of the upholstered arm chair in our room, as a reminder of those early days of our marriage.  And of my beloved mother-in-law as well.

I found some other goodies that had belonged to her--beautiful linen-and-lace napkins, pillowcases, pillow shams, etc. (some bought new on clearance, some vintage, some with lovely embroidery on them, many stained from decades stored in the attic after the house fire at my husband’s childhood home).  And I have projects planned for them as well.  So stay tuned for more sewing talk in the coming weeks, dear readers.

Or not!  I realize that this post might have been boring to many of you. (But perhaps it wouldn't be to Auntie Leila?)

Baby’s First Christmas Dress

Our youngest son's first child, a daughter who turns one in March (I must give her a blog name one of these days!), is going to be celebrating her first Christmas this year.   She was with us for Thanksgiving, but will be at her maternal grandparents' house in the Midwest for Christmas.

While she and her parents were with us in November, I finished making a Christmas dress for her.  I hadn't sewn anything for her yet and thought it was about time.

I have the coolest pattern book (pictured) that enables you to make dresses from infant sizes up to a girls' size 10. There's a basic pattern (shown on the cover) and then inside, it shows lots of ways to make adjustments that essentially turn you into a dress designer.  I just love it.  Although I must admit, that simple retro-looking dress on the cover, with the Peter Pan collar, is my absolute favorite style for little girls, and it's the one I've made the most often since getting this pattern book.

This little granddaughter's mom likes to cook and bake, so I thought the material I found at JoAnn's was perfect for her. 

After I was finished, my daughter-in-law asked if I could make a matching headband/bow.  I didn't quite trust myself with that task, so I found an inexpensive pre-made set at TJ Maxx and added a button to one of them, using the same material as the collar of the dress.

While our little sweetie was here, we had her open a gift from us--one of those "Baby's First Doll" deals.  My late mother-in-law used to say, "A little girl should always get a doll for Christmas."  I like that way of thinking. 

She thought it was delicious. 

She is a little doll herself.  And I just love her!

A Christening Ensemble for a Living Doll

Just a warning: this is going to be a photo-rich post. I'm writing it mostly for myself, to have scrapbook-style memories that I can keep forever.  Because I'm about to give away a beloved item that I've been hanging onto for three decades; and although it is going to the very recipient for whom I was saving it all these years, I will miss seeing it hanging in one of the guest room closets of our house.

This guest room of which I speak is one that I always thought of as our youngest son's room, because when we moved into this house in VA almost seven years ago, he was the only one of our five boys who wasn't married yet.  So I wanted him to have a room that was "his" whenever he came to visit us here.  He was in the Army, stationed in Germany, when we sold his childhood home and moved south, and I always felt a little guilty about that.  He loved our NH house; it was the only one he'd ever known.  Our other boys had all started families and had homes of their own, so they didn't need to have bedrooms here; but our baby did.

A dresser-top tribute to my baby boy.
 (BTW: who is that old lady in the mirror?!)

Well, that baby of ours is 30 now.  And he's about to have a baby of his very own.  His wife is due with child #1, a girl, in about a week.  And we are ready to head to Nashville as soon as we get the word that she's in labor.

When we pack up the car to get on the road, we will be bringing with us the christening gown I made for my youngest son 30 years ago.  Our four older boys had worn a Pearl family heirloom made by my mother-in-law; but our nephew, who was born four days before son #5, was being baptized on the same day as he was, and that nephew was going to be wearing the family gown.  (The cousins were baptized together at the church in upstate NY where Pearls had been attending Mass for generations--and where my husband and I were married in 1980.)

So in 1993, I made this christening gown.

The fabric wasn't the best--just a very pedestrian cotton blend.  When I made christening gowns for our four oldest boys' babies starting in 2011, I used lovely linen-and-lace fabrics that I found in my late mother-in-law's attic.  A talented seamstress, she had quite a vast collection of fabrics and sewing notions stored up there. But back in 1993 when I set out to sew my first christening gown, she was still alive and I didn't dare ask her if I could have something from the attic.  I knew she had lots of plans for the things she was going to make with all those bolts of material and piles of white linen pillow shams.  So the fabric I used for my creation wasn't top-notch; but I put pin-tucks in the bodice and hand-embroidered shamrocks on both the bodice and skirt.  I poured lots of love into that gown, and my boy looked like an angel in it.  (I would include a picture, but I have somehow misplaced the photo album that has the photos from his Baptism!)

For this new granddaughter we can’t wait to meet, I added that pearl cluster button embellishment. (Originally, if memory serves me, there was a long white satin ribbon there, tied in a bow, fastened in place with a safety pin.) To tell you the truth, I can't believe I never thought to sew any seed pearls onto that gown back when I made it!  (Opportunity missed!)

Our boy didn't have any sort of hat for his Baptism, but I thought I'd use a piece of fabric from my mother-in-law's attic to make a bonnet for his baby girl.  

This was a pillow sham that I took apart.  I love how there are shamrock shapes in the embroidery.
I thought that would make the bonnet match the gown!

I can think of few things that give me more joy than taking a flat piece of fabric and turning it into some garment that can be worn by my grandchildren.  This bonnet was so much fun to make!

Sorry for the photo dump, but as I said: this is a memory-keeping post for me.  Bear with me now...Here are some pictures of one of my porcelain dolls, who is not quite as big as a real newborn baby, modeling the gown and bonnet ensemble.

Well, these precious items are all packed up in a pretty storage box now, ready to load in the car as soon as we get the call that says it's go time.  Please keep our daughter-in-law and her baby in your prayers, for a safe (and relatively easy!) labor and delivery.

7 Quick Takes: Much Ado about Nothing (or Everything)

I always look forward to the 7QT posts Colleen Martin shares here each week.  This funny, bright, devoutly Catholic, happily married mother of seven has long been one of my favorite bloggers, and I'm thrilled that she has kept her Martin Family Moments up and running, even after most of the gals I used to follow have jumped ship and headed over to the Insta-world.  I have felt like giving up myself numerous times over the past five years or so, but I keep trying to plug away at it.  I've noticed that even if she doesn't get any other posts up during the week, Colleen is usually here on Fridays for 7QT.  I am going to use her example as inspiration and try to do the same.  I used to blog every morning, for goodness sake; I can certainly blog once a week.  Because, you know--

1. Blogging is Still a Thing

It is!  And speaking of Martin Family Moments, if you aren't reading it you're really missing out.  If you stop by this endearing blog site, you will undoubtedly be entertained and inspired.  You will see adorable children, ranging in age from toddler to teen.  You will be amused by clever memes (you might even LOL on occasion!).  You will also get some great ideas for new recipes to feed your family.  This recent post is a perfect example of why I always make a point to read Colleen's blog.  Check it out! 

2. Further Proof That Blogging Matters

If you're here at This Ain't the Lyceum, you probably know how awesome blogger/writer/speaker Kelly Mantoan is, because she's the host of this link-up after all.  But when I read an old blog post of hers, "I Am Not Exceptional, and So Can You" (following a link that Colleen had shared in that post of hers that I just told you about), I was blown away by her writing.  What a beautiful treatise on finding joy while parenting her kids, two of whom have special needs, reminding readers that God can choose any one of us--whether we seem like "saints" or not--and give us crosses to carry and challenges to overcome that we might never have thought we could handle.  Kelly has a down-to-earth way of putting things and writes with wisdom, honesty, heart, humility, and humor.  She says, "Raising a special needs child requires the same skills as raising non-disabled children: patience, hard work, sacrifice and love.  If you say you couldn't do what I do, then I have to question if you can properly raise any child, pet or possibly houseplant." So true!  I just love the way she puts things.  (You can read that post here.) 

3. I Have Lots to Blog About, But Less Time to Do It!

I used to have just five boys to blog about (there they are with me in this photo on my computer's screen saver), but they grew up and got married, so now I have five daughters, too, ten children in all. And those ten have so far produced 17 precious grandchildren, with two more on the way.  With SO MANY people in my life to love (and bake birthday cakes for, and babysit for, and snuggle...), I could seriously write a novella every day...if only I had the time.  

4. I'm Going to Need a Bigger Wall...

When our grandchildren reach the age of one, they are immortalized on our living room wall with a photo canvas.  Our daughter-in-law Preciosa started us down this road Christmas 2012, when she gave us a 16 x 20" canvas print of our twin granddaughters (now 10), who were our only grandchildren at the time.  Preciosa wasn't even engaged to our middle son yet (that would happen within a few months, and the wedding just under a year later), and she already knew exactly the kind of gift we would love.

When our next grandchild, the twins' sister (now 8), was born, we decided that since the twins were just about a year old in their canvas, we would have one made of her at that age, too.  Our gallery of canvas portraits just keeps growing and growing as each new grandchild celebrates his or her first birthday.  When the next set of multiples, the triplets (now 4) came along, we put them on a 16 x 20" canvas together, like the twins, but all the singletons have 12 x 12" squares to themselves.  (I hope the multiples don't feel cheated!)

It has gotten to the point where I'm going to need a bigger wall.  Or I'm at least going to have to rehang all the canvases higher up, both in order to make room for more faces and to keep curious little people from standing on the couch and playing with them.  (Not that that would ever happen.)

4. So Many Birthdays, So Much Cake!

With a family as big as ours, there are certainly a lot of birthdays to celebrate.  And that means there is a lot of cake to eat.  (Not a bad problem to have..."Or maybe it is," says my waistline.)

5. Speaking of Birthdays—

Hey, that last take was actually quick, which is out of character for me.  Did you notice?  Anyway...

Yesterday was our oldest son's 38th birthday.  (That's him in the grey and blue striped polo in the picture up above.) Happy Birthday to the boy who made me a mom and changed my life forever for the better; I love you to the moon and back!!  

Our firstborn is the father of five with one on the way, and he has recently taken a job with a new airline.  His schedule, commute, and quality of life will be so much better with this new company, as far as time with his own family goes...but the hard part for this spoiled mom/grandmother who has had all of her grandkids living nearby for more than four years now is that his sweet family will be moving, from 17 minutes away from us in VA all the way out to the Midwest.   More about that in a later post...[sniff!].  I’d rather not talk about it now!

I've been busy lately, so I missed blogging about our oldest boy's wife's birthday last month, and our oldest grandson G-man's a few weeks ago.  It's hard to keep up, I tell you!

My favorite 7-year-old boy.

Next week, we have three grandchildren celebrating birthdays three days in a row (they're turning one, two, and three).  Fortunately, the two moms of those little ones decided to join forces and have one big party today, which will simplify the Pearl family's calendar of events considerably!

6. I Might Have a Mini-me...

With all those grandchildren, I guess the odds were there might be one who resembled his or her Grammy a little.  Our #4 son and his wife have 4-year-old triplets and an almost 2-year-old daughter (one of the three whose birthday we’ll be celebrating today) who looks so much like her daddy did at that age.  They think this youngest little gal of theirs looks like me.  What do you think, is this my Mini-me? 

7. If You’re Looking for Me, I’m Probably Baking, Sewing, or Painting

It’s a good bet that if I have free time, I’ll be doing one of those things!  As a matter of fact, I have to sign off now, so I can decorate a sheet cake with a T-Rex for two little grandsons and finish sewing a dress for one one granddaughter’s birthday and a poodle skirt for another granddaughter’s upcoming Fifties-themed dress-up day in kindergarten.

Before I finished and published this post,
I finished the skirt!  

No painting today.   But I recently finished a fun trompe l'oeil painting project on my walls that I'll share here soon.  

That’s it for me, but now if I were you I’d head on over to Kelly’s, where many delightful die-hard bloggers continue to gather.

Sewing with Grammy (4 and 5)

I never got around to blogging about sewing lesson number 4 last week!  I find it hard to blog these days, and I truly don't know where the time goes; but I definitely want to try to keep up with this little sewing series.  I want my granddaughters to have these memories of our time together to look back on whenever they feel like it.  So today you get a two-fer.

Last Monday, the twins (10) started out with more sewing machine practice on paper, following straight, curvy, and zig-zagged lines.  The curves and zigs and zags proved to be challenging, but they did remarkably well. 

After they'd demonstrated what masters of straight line sewing they've become, I had the twins practice doing straight lines on fabric by having them hem casings for the elasticized waists on four simple skirts for their American Girl dolls--one each for the seamstresses, and one each for their two younger sisters, 8 and 6. (By the way, if you want to make one of these, all you need is one regular 8 and 1/2 x 11" sheet of computer paper.  Place the shorter side on the fold of the fabric to cut one large rectangle.  Then you just fold down the top to sew a casing for the 10 and 1/2 " long piece of 1/4" elastic, hem the bottom, and sew up one back seam.  Voila!  Easy peasy.) 

Once they'd finished on the machine, I had the younger girls pull the elastic through the casings guided by safety pins, because I wanted them to feel like they have a hand in the creation of these doll fashions.  (Each girl got to pick out the fabric she wanted to use for her garment, but I wanted all of them to feel fully involved in the project.)

Yesterday, I was going to have the twins hem the skirts and sew the back seams so they could take them home and start using them on their dolls; but first, I had a hand-sewing project for all the girls to do together.  And that ended up being so much fun, and taking up so much time, that we never got to the skirts and decided to finish them off when we have our next lesson.

For hand-sewing, felt is always a good idea, in my book; it's so forgiving.  And Christmas-themed crafts are also always a good idea.  I think so, anyway.  So felt Christmas tree-shaped ornaments were the project du jour for my budding seamstresses.

To use as a model, I decorated the front of one of the felt trees I’d cut out before they arrived.  (Mine went home with their little brother, who doesn't like to be left out of things--so I added a car, an airplane, and a football button especially for him.) 

The girls had a great time rummaging through my button box, and they were very creative.  Each ornament was a one-of-a-kind creation.  They sewed backs on the decorated fronts and stuffed them, and then we added loops for hanging them on the tree.

It's hard to put into words just how much this little weekly sewing class means to me.  Back when I was raising these girls' daddy and his brothers, if I had tried to look ahead and picture what life as a Grammy to many grandchildren would be like, I never could have imagined anything even remotely as wonderful as it is.  When these girls are my age, I hope they look back on our times together with fondness.  And I hope they keep sewing!  It's such a useful skill!

Sewing with Grammy (3)

If you are one of the few people who does come here often, you might be wondering if this has morphed into a sewing blog now or something.

No, it hasn't; but I am a Grammy blogger (not to be confused with a mommy blogger, which was a popular thing to be back in blogging's heyday).  And sewing with four of my granddaughters--the offspring of our firstborn son--is currently one of my favorite Grammy activities.  So there you go.  (I will blog about something else one of these days; but this is not that day!)

For the past three Monday afternoons, I have been holding a little Sewing 101 course at my kitchen table for four young budding seamstresses. 

Each week, I've tried to plan projects that are fun for them, but as an added bonus also give them something to bring home at the end of the lesson (doll-related items are always a good choice!).

On Monday, I had the two oldest (10-year-old twins) do a review of one of the skills we worked on last week and practice machine sewing straight lines on paper.  They did so well that I had them graduate to sewing straight lines on double-thickness squares of fabric on which I'd drawn a series of lines.

They pretty much aced that task, so then I had them sew up some simple 5x7" American Girl-sized bed pillows I'd cut out for them ahead of time.  They sewed the seams leaving an opening for stuffing, clipped the corners, and turned them inside out.

When they had accomplished this, I called their two younger sisters (8 and 6) up from the basement playroom to stuff the pillows and hand-sew the openings closed.  

When I went online a month or so ago to figure out the best way to go about teaching young kids to sew, one of the bloggers whose site I visited stressed the need to be okay with their efforts being imperfect, in order to let them learn without too much interference.  I knew that with my tendency toward perfectionism I might hamper their learning by itching to take over too much.  So I've been trying really hard to let them do their own work and make their own mistakes.  (Sewing with Grammy will be a good learning experience for me as well!)

These sweet granddaughters are so generous with each other and don't appear to have that need to be in complete control of the outcome that their Grammy struggles with.  The older girls were perfectly happy to have the younger girls do the finish work on the pillows, and they did a bang-up job.  So it was truly a wonderful team effort.  I am so proud of this little sewing circle of mine!

Yes, someday, I shall write about something other than sewing lessons...but here's the problem these days, you see:

and I do mean HOURS!!

Sewing with Grammy (2)

Our oldest son's four homeschooled daughters came to our house for their second weekly sewing lesson on Monday afternoon.  I had an easy hand-sewing project for all of them to work on: adding buttons and flower embellishments to simple felt vests I’d made for them ahead of time (sized to fit their American Girl and/or baby dolls).

I love to see the joy that working on such projects produces in these sweet young ladies!  And I am determined to make sure that they have something fun to bring home with them after each sewing lesson.

Once the dolls were looking spiffy in their new vests, it was time to get down to brass tacks: teaching the older girls the basics of using a sewing machine. So the two younger girls went down to the basement playroom to play with their little brother, and the twins (aged 10) began their lesson for the day: sewing straight lines on paper.  (Thank you, Internet, for both the genius idea and the free printable pages to practice on!)

It did this Grammy's heart so much good to see these girls, my two oldest grandchildren (who are maturing into poised young women at an alarming rate!), growing in confidence each time they sat down at the machine.  They were somewhat intimidated at first, but quickly got the hang of it.  The younger of the twins (by a few minutes!), Cutie Pie, was heard to exclaim, "I love this.  I feel like I was born to do this!"

Born to sew!  If that's the case, I'm so glad that I have the unique opportunity to help these girls learn a useful new skill (one that has served me well over the years)--you know, so that they can do what they were born to do.