joy pillow give-away

Dear readers,

My children are participating in the First Annual Idaho Homeschool Read-A-Thon and are reading to earn money to buy Usborne books for themselves and for F.A.I.T.H. – Families in Transitional Housing. They have been reading non-stop for the last 10 days and have been trying to find sponsors for themselves. I hatched up an idea to do a give-away to help them raise funds.

I made a pillow…yes, me the sewing impaired mama made a very cute pillow to give to some lucky soul!

Isn’t that cute!

If you post about this on your blog and link back to this post and then leave me a comment with your website’s post, you will get one entry for this adorable 8 1/2″ square pillow. For every dollar that you paypal to the read-a-thon, you will earn two entries. All entries must be in by Saturday night at midnight and the winner will be announced Monday morning. Let’s spread this far and wide! Just think, if 1000 people donated $1, they would reach their goal of $1000. Let’s help them do it!

To paypal, my account is mom2bmw@aol.com.

If you prefer to mail a check, email me and I will send you our home address.

Thanks much! My little ones are having great time reading and earning books and are so excited to give books to the children at F.A.I.T.H. – Families in Transitional Housing.

kat

Kat is a miracle worker! Late last night she came up with a plan to save my project for my children. Actually, she and Keziah came up with it. Around midnight.

If you are wondering why Keziah had any part in this, it is because she and I are partners, co-conspirators really, on this gift. We are making deluxe pencil & notebook holders. Keziah is doing the notebooks and I am doing the holder.

Now, you are probably wondering what went wrong yesterday for me to fall apart in frustration. I will explain.

They were finished…they were beautiful. I was so stinkin’ proud of myself. Then, I put the pencils in and ARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH came out of my mouth. The pencil pockets shrunk in one and a half inches and became a gathered, puffy, will-not-lay-flat, will-not-cover-the-notebook disaster.

Kat came up with several possible solutions and then we decided to basically start over with a whole new design…not encouraging given the fact that I am a sllllloooooowwwwwww seamstress, prone to making lots of mistakes and using my thread picker on an all too regular basis.

Finally, Keziah said, “why don’t we just make the notebooks smaller?” To which I replied, “what good will that do, it does not eliminate the puffy, gathered ugliness on the pencil side!”

But, that little comment of Keziah’s sent Kat’s brain into a whole new direction and she quickly spewed forth her new idea that would save everything. When she saw the look of utter incomprehension on my face she went back and explained it slowly and carefully as if I were five-years-old.

It helped. Maybe that is what I need… a sewing teacher that will treat me like I am five.

Now, I just need to carry out the revisions. I am dedicating several hours to this project this morning. Wish me luck. Actually I need more than luck, I need a little sewing angel to sit on my shoulder and guide me each step of the way.

Good thing Kat is just a phone call away.

Everyone needs a Kat.

Thank you friend – you are a gift to my life.

aaarrrrrgghhhhh!

Just when I thought my sewing project was almost done and was pretty much fabulous, I discovered a serious error. I have made a mistake in designing my pattern and the results are atrocious! I will need one of my amazing friends to come to my rescue and show me how to salvage this project…Kat? Jennifer? Jessica? Anyone?????????

Yes, I know this isn’t the point of Christmas, nor is it the end of the world…but it is FRUSTRATING! I have looked forward to making these for my children for several years…and now they just aren’t working at all!

sewing all day long and not much to show for it

Why do I do this to myself? Why do I dream of creating adorable things for my children and not budget enough time for the inevitable mistakes, unpicking and interruptions that happen while I am sewing? Surely this type of stuff happens to all who sew, right?

Two down, two to go. When they are all finished I will take a picture and share with you what I have designed AND made for my children. I tell ya, I am getting more ambitious all the time!

pencil rolls on their way!

Hallelujah! The pencil roll project has been a huge success! The pencil rolls have been coming in all month long, but the last few days have been the jackpot with 70 coming in on Sunday, 132 coming in on Monday, and 66 coming in today! Simply amazing!

The families that have participated in this project have given their time, money, materials, and hearts to the children of Katie’s school. They have shown me what a small group of willing women can do…I tell you we can do anything! We can make a difference. We can work together. We can touch lives, soften hearts, and bring joy.

There are people involved in this project that I have never met, people that I know and see regularly, and people who live far away. We have volunteers from Idaho, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Alaska, and England! We have seamstresses of all ages, from girls under ten to grandmas over 70, and all abilities, from beginner all the way to professional. We have papas that watched babies so mamas could sew. We have people that donated fabric, sewed on buttons, delivered pencil rolls, and created patterns. We have a small army of volunteers who have taught me how to be give more selflessly. I counted up our volunteers and there are over 60 people who directly helped. One small blog, written by one mother in Idaho, has brought all of this goodness together to create something magical!

Here are some pics of the 516 (yes, we made it to 500!) pencil rolls:

Look at this cute inside fabric! It is pencils! Isn’t that adorable? You can get it at Hancock Fabrics.

And here is one of my pencil rolls I did by my very own self. I truly am sewing challenged and I’m sure my rolls took me ten times longer than they would have taken someone who is not inept in this area, but I did it and did lots of them. It was a wonderful project for me to overcome my fear of sewing and I improved a lot by the time I was done. Thanks to my mom, I learned how to sew buttons on with my machine!!! Hoorah!

I just took them to the shipping office and after repacking them into one big box from my three boxes and then repacking them AGAIN into a slightly smaller box (It was quite the sight, to have me inside a huge box on the floor, surrounded by pencil rolls, as I loaded up stack after stack of them! Why so many repackings you ask? Well, my three boxes would have cost about $120 with FedEx and $160 with the USPS with UPS somewhere in the middle, so we tried to save moo-lah by repacking them into one box, which was then a tad too big, so we repacked again, and got the price all the way down to 90 buckaroos.) they are on their way to Tennessee and then on to Uganda!

Thank you to all of you. Thank you for your sacrifices, your love, and your generosity. I pray that you will be blessed. I ask that you join me in prayer that our gifts will make it to Uganda in safety and that they will bring happiness to the children of Katie’s school.

pencil roll tutorial!

Drumroll please

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

(doesn’t that look like a drumroll?)

Here are the long-awaited directions for the pencil roll!

Go to Kat’s website and you will find step-by-step instructions for our 500 Pencil Roll Project for Katie’s children. After hours of brainstorming, reading other people’s tutorials, and basically making myself crazy, we created this easy, step-by-step guide that anyone (even me!) can follow. I am telling you, if I can sew these, truly, anyone can!

We are not doing them with the different colored pockets for each pencil – they are WAY cute, but also time consuming, and we are trying to make these as quick as possible. These ones are made with one piece of cotton fabric for the outside, a different piece for the inside, and flannel hidden on the inside to give it some strength, or you can use interfacing if you have that.

Each person can sew from cotton fabric they have on hand or if you are willing to purchase some that is great as well. If you are willing to donate money to the cause for others to buy fabric they don’t have, that is wonderful as well…or donate fabric!

I have about 20 yards of fabric I bought at Home Fabrics $1/yard sale, so if you need some, let me know.

If you want to do them with wool felt or a wool felt blend of 35% wool/65% rayon or 20% wool/80% rayon, you can and I will give you those directions below. DO NOT USE craft felt found in stores!!! It is garbage and will not hold up to even a week of handling. You can buy the wool felt at prairiepointjunction.com and get a 20% off coupon by entering here. The discount button is over on the right hand side of the page about 1/2 way down. You can also get it at Joann.com and use a 50% off coupon or 40% off coupon. The 20/80 blend is $7.99 and the 35/65 blend is $9.99, so with the coupons, it would be a great price! It is not available here in our local stores, but may be in the larger stores, just call and ask if you are interested. Caution though, if you do not know much about wool felt, call me before you purchase it so I can help you know if it is acrylic/polyester/eco-felt garbage or if it is the good stuff.

Now, you may be wondering why using wool felt is easier than using your leftover cotton scraps. If so, let me explain. Wool does not fray and does not need to be sewn right sides together/wrong sides out and then turned. You just sew right on to your piece of felt!

Wool felt tutorial:

Your finished product will be 10.5″ wide x 8″ tall.

Cut a piece of wool felt 11″ x 17″ and position it so the 11″ side is running side to side and the 17″ side is running top to bottom.

At the top, measure in 1.25″ and 5″ down the side and cut.

Fold up the bottom 4″ and pin in place.

Lay a thin no-damage ponytail holder on your table and hold it flat. Wrap a thread around it 1/2″ from its end.

Insert the 1/2″ side of the ponytail holder at the almost 4″ mark of your felt (where you folded up the bottom) and pin in place just below the top of that pocket. The big loop of ponytail holder should be hanging out of the fabric.

Top stitch at 1/4″ all the way around the wool felt, making sure to back stitch over the ponytail holder.

Measure and mark 7/8″ pockets on the part you folded up.

Sew pockets going a titch past the top of them so the stress point isn’t right at the top of the pocket and back stitch at both ends.

At the spot where the flap starts, fold it down and top stitch at 1/8″.

Put some tester pencils in and roll it up so you can figure out button placement for where the ponytail holder will attach. Mark where a button should go. Unroll, take your tester pencils out. and sew a big button in place.

If you want to make it super-cute, use pinking shears to cut the edges, making sure to not cut through the elastic.

Voila! You are done…now isn’t that easy peasy!

You may choose to use two piece of wool felt to make it more colorful and add to its strength. If so, just do everything identical, except insert the ponytail holder in between the two pieces of felt.

These are some pictorial instructions, but they don’t have the “cut the flap at an angle” step, and they use a ribbon instead of the ponytail holder/button attachment. The ribbon attachment is easy for adults, but not so easy for little children to wrap it around and tie, so we are using the button method. It also doesn’t have the top stitching, so make sure you do that. As soon as I make one out of felt I will post pictures, but it will probably take me a day or two to get to that.

Now you have everything you need to get to work. Thank you so much for your willingness to help and please, please, spread the word and enlist the women in your life to sew with you! Right now, we are at 21 women, so that means we each need to do 24 rolls to make it to 500. As word spreads, the per person roll can decrease…so step out on a limb and encourage others to sew with you.

Also, there has been some confusion about the pencils. Amazima has a lot of colored pencils and we do not need to provide those. We are doing the sewing and they are gathering the pencils.

If you have any questions, let me know at tracy@wetoatmealkisses.com.

oompa loompa outfit

I really cannot sew. It hurts my brain. It tries my patience. It drives me batty. But for some ridiculous reason, I am drawn to sewing. I buy fabric. I buy patterns. I dream of creations. I long to be able to whip out something adorable for my children to wear. My dear friend, Kat, taught me how to make this outfit and then she insisted that I sew each and every stitch of it. She practically held my hand through the whole process and it took at least three times longer than she thought it would, but I did it! I think it is absolutely precious and I love, love, love it. It is super-wide, especially on Annesley who is the skinniest thing ever, and so we named it an Oompa-Loompa outfit.

Isn’t it cute! Aren’t you so incredibly proud of me?!?

If you can’t tell from the picture, it is reversible and the bottom is supposed to be folded up so you can see the contrasting fabric, but, of course, I forgot to do that for the picture.

I have more fabric to whip up plod my way through some more, but I don’t know when I will get to it, as now I am thinking of making LOTS of colored pencil holders for the children in Uganda that attend Katie’s school. Anyone want to join me in making some of these?

These are the beautiful creations of the super-talented and creative April of By Small Means. Notice how each pencil has color-coordinating fabric? Notice the handy flap to keep all the pencils from falling out? Notice how bright and colorful and adorable they are? Don’t you want to help us make hundreds??? If so, or if you would like to donate fabric, buttons, flannel, or $$ to buy this stuff, please put it in the comments section and I will get in contact with you and work out a plan.