Summertime

I know that there are folks that live for summer.  Me, not so much.  I missed school. (Yup, a total nerd.)  I lived for the Summer Weekly Reader to arrive.  I missed friends.  I did love being able to read a lot, though my mom thought I should do a fair share of garden weeding and house cleaning.  (What a hard life!)  I did love that I pretty much learned to sew, embroider , cook, knit and crochet on summer vacation.  4-H projects and some Primary girls activities gave this instruction some structure and 4-H gave me Dress Review and County Fair to show off my projects.  In this spirit, we've got a Best Loved kiddlet for a couple of weeks and though she's no bigger than a gnat she's big enough this summer to share in some of my passions and her reading ability has leaped ahead so we can enjoy really good chapter books.  One thing she wanted to do was to learn to sew On The Sewing Machine.  She took to it like a natural. 

Behold. . . an elastic skirt made without a pattern, made by the kiddlet herself!  My first 4-H sewing project was a gathered skirt without a pattern.  The project guidelines said it had to have a waist band, a placket and a hand hem.  I was a year older than our kiddlet but this is a bit easier.  Only straight line stitching. We bought a yard of fabric and just seamed it lengthwise, folded the top over to hold elastic and hemmed it by strait stitching it down.  She picked out the fabric (her Mom and I really urged her to choose this not another orange and pink print as it would be better for fall). To use my sewing machine we had to put her on a booster seat and then put the foot pedal on top of a Rubbermaid bin.  Yea, she's short.   We practiced on paper without thread in the machine, then progressed to scrap fabric.  She will tell you that she's crafty and she really is.  I had such flash backs of me sewing my first projects with Mom on my shoulder telling me to slow down the machine - "you're not a racehorse".  Yes, I said it, too. 

We also did some basic embroidery  instruction.  Behold, the first sample piece of Stem stitch and straight stitch.  

We think this will become a doll pillow.  What kind of fun is summer fun at your house?