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.

A Pillow Case Dress

Want to teach your littlest girls to sew? Have them make a pillowcase dress!

Miss J made this pillowcase dress for the County 4-H Fashion Show. She had a great time sewing it and is so proud that she wants to wear it on Easter Sunday. Instead of buying a pillowcase, I purchased the fabric at my local Wal-Mart for $2 a yard. I then made a pillowcase and she followed the directions from there. After I had the pillowcase made, it took about an hour for her to sew. Here are basic directions for a pillowcase dress. Instead of using elastic, I just had her sew a casing and she then threaded long pieces of ribbon through. This was pretty easy to do, but the ribbon comes out easily so you may prefer to use the elastic as in the tutorial. Here is another tutorial starting with fabric instead of a pillowcase. Miss J is 6 years old and she sewed hers on the sewing machine. In order to make that work, I put the presser foot on a huge stack of books until she could easily reach it. Also, my sewing machine is a Bernina 180 and is able to sew r-e-a-l-l-y slow. I helped her guide the fabric through so the stitches came out reasonably straight. This had just enough sewing for her to remain interested, yet feel very fulfilled to have a completed project in such a short time.

Happy Sewing,
Mrs. P