Where do you school? designated room? or all over?

We are in full house upheaval as I rearrange pretty much every room in order to move our homeschooling downstairs.  It will be my 14th year to homeschool this fall and I have finally given up on the idea of having my homeschool room upstairs in our loft.  Over the years, we start off well upstairs, but eventually, life happens.  You need to be able to fold laundry, watch a pot of stew, or scrub windows while children do independent work. Or you need little ones to stay with you at all times so that they don't draw pictures in sharpie decorate your walls or pour a gallon of vinegar into the volcano your middle school student made from plaster of Paris have science experimentation without supervision.  It's not that I'm oblivious to the children, it's just that there is a lot to do when you have five children eating, sleeping, schooling, and making messes all day long in the house.  In an effort to save my sanity teach the children good habits and responsible behaviors, we are reorganizing the entire house.  My oldest, who commutes to college, moved into the downstairs bedroom leaving her larger upstairs room for the two younger girls.  My boys share a room as well and I hope to make the loft a play room/craft room.  I have really, missed having a good place to sew and having all of my sewing things in one place, rather than in every nook and cranny I can find throughout the house.  So with that said, here are a few rooms that I like and are serving as inspiration.

Has anyone else ever drooled over the thought of a library/dining room combo??? How perfect are those globes on the table?

Here is another from the Pennington Point.  I just love her decorating style! I think that I would prefer a chalkboard but will likely just move the dry erase board from upstairs to downstairs since it would be FREE.  I also have cubbies almost exactly like this setup.

My Child I Love You also has a classy way of combining her homeschool into the home living spaces.  I want to find some pretty maps to hang on the wall and absolutely adore her alphabet idea.

What a fantastic way to organize the CC Memory Work as well. 

When I get the books and school things all moved downstairs, then I will embark on the sewing loft. I have many ideas for organization, storage, and decoration pinned here.  Since all children are either at work or in the barn, I will head back to my organizing fun and hope to post some photos of how my spaces turn out in the next several days.  How do you like to organize your homeschool or crafting spaces?

It's a Handmade Christmas at the Farm!

Miss J and I have been itching to do some crafting, so I've deemed it a handmade Christmas here at our farm.  Mr. C and Baby C will also be crafting and Miss A may or may not craft handmade gifts.  Her high school load has been pretty hefty and she doesn't have nearly as much time for the fun stuff as she used to have.  She is currently up to her eyeballs in silk dupioni finishing a Shakespeare era gown for her final project in her Shakespeare class.  I'll post pics when she finishes it.  Right now, the pics wouldn't be much as she is sewing miles of boning into the bodice.  So back to my original thought... I'll be adding handmade Christmas gifts, pictures, and links to instructions as we make them and maybe you will make a few handmade gifts for your Christmas as well.  The first thing we are making is using a tutorial called, Hot Dog! It's a pillowcase.  It is a super easy method for making a very neat pillow case.  Join us tomorrow as we post pics of Miss J making her pair of pillowcases.  And if you are family and happen to open up some pillowcases (or other crafty goodness), pretend you've never seen such craftiness before.  ;-)

Blessings,
Mrs. P

I can wish can't I???

Some things are getting done, and many, many more are not done.  I'll cross off as I do a few things because unlike my home making binder or a to to list, I won't lose this list.  This week, I hope to focus on our over-abundance of clothes.  I finally have accepted that with 8 years difference between my boys that hand-me downs are not going to work.  Even things like Levi jeans change styles in 8 years.  So that is going to free up some MAJOR space in my boys' closet and will be freeing to me to quit trying to keep it all organized!

So here is my "wish list" of things to accomplish before school starts in August.

Organize my daughter's American Girl Doll Collection.
Clean out the freezers.
Organize my sewing supplies.
Move furniture around and set up my office/school space in the upstairs loft area.
Get Baby C to sleep ALL night long without his 3:30 am songs to Momma from his gated room.
Get Baby C the remaining 10% potty trained.
Repot my house plants.
Finish weeding my flower beds. (actually hubby took the weed eater to them, can I take credit for that???)
Mulch my flower beds in hopes of keeping the weeds at bay in the future.
Have my bedroom carpet cleaned.
Clean my ceiling fans.
Clean my barn!
Redo my stone walkway onto the porch.
Finish the first 5 lessons of Henle Latin. (1 down and 4 to go...read the first 10 lessons of another text for reference sake)
Create Study sheets for weekly Algebra 1 lessons.
Create school supply lists, calendar, etc for Challenge 1 classes.
Spot clean sofas.
Cover my old sofa upstairs with the cool red duck cloth I've had for 3 years now!
Sew the patterns and fabric that I bought a month or so ago.
Wash my windows.
Scrub my porches.
Clean out my shed.
Clean out the children's clothes and hand me downs.
Be consistent about not eating things I'm allergic to.

Learning to Sew the Classical Way

Adventures Among the Thimble People

January28

I purchased this lovely "living book" from my favorite quilt and heirloom shop a couple of years ago.  I have since also purchased the Mary Marie doll and also the sewing bird.  This reprint of a 1913 book tells the story of Miss Mary Frances as she learns to sew while at her grandmother’s house.  In her grandmother’s upstairs room, Mary Frances meets the Thimble People (sewing tools that come to life and talk to her) and throughout the book learns basic hand sewing and more.  By the end of the book, Mary Marie (her dolly) has an entire wardrobe of lovely Edwardian doll clothes.  The reprint has the original patterns and they are just as lovely today as they were then.  My own daughter has made a couple of them and so have I.  While this book was intended to teach a young girl to sew, some of the sewing terms and stitches may not be familiar to a modern seamstress.   However, a girl who learns all of the stitches and techniques in this book will be quite a seamstress. I realized after reading it that it teaches sewing in a classical way.  First Mary Frances learns the "grammar" of sewing.  She learns each stitch in isolation on her sampler while learning the vocabulary specific to hand sewing.  Later in the book, she uses that grammar to sew the dolly wardrobe and then after completing this book, Mary Frances is ready to sew other things.  It really is a delightful book.  To me it qualifies as a "living" book and is definitely twaddle free.

Blessings,
Mrs. P

Lapped Zipper application

So these next few days I will be the supervisor of all types of fair projects.  Miss A is sewing, sewing, sewing.  Mr. C has a model airplane to construct as well as some other crafts and foods to make.  The show animals are also busy with exercise and preparations for the livestock show.  School is still in session as well.  Miss A is not looking forward to her Biology and Latin exams on Friday, but this is real life.  Even when we are busy work/school still has to be done.  Today, just as I've done every year before this one, I vowed to organize the fair projects into our summer vacation.  Maybe this year, I will actually follow through on that plan. ;-)  Today, Miss A is working on a decorative pillow.  Here is a video on how to put in a lapped zipper.  Except for one small step, it appears to be pretty close to the zipper package instructions.

House on Hill Road Zipper Video