Archive | December, 2013

making merry : : sewing and serving

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the inside of a Waldorf doll before the skin is put on

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with her crocheted head cap on before I added her long hair

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IMG_0737 IMG_0740IMG_0727I meant to share our goings on today much earlier but  we got the opportunity to do something very good.  We were invited to go and feed the homeless and so took a break from merry making to serve our fellow brother and sister.    Reminders to our children that no matter what a person looks like, smells like, is dressed like etc, he is still as special to Our Lord as are we.  That everyone deserves to be treated with respect and has a God given dignity.  We talked about how close most people are to the reality of being homeless and how scary that can be for some and even how that makes some people look the other way in order to not deal with unpleasant things.   A great opportunity to discuss these things with my children.

We headed out with a troop of teenaged kids and the owner of a local pizza restaurant to hand out piping hot pizza cooked straight out of the truck.  Sadly, not many homeless people showed up and we left wondering, on such a cold night, where those less fortunate than us, would be eating tonight.

I have never discussed this here (or too many other places) but as a child, I remember what it was like to be hungry, to need a coat and not want to look cold so that my poor momma (who worked night and day) would not know that I needed a coat that I knew she couldn’t afford.  Those experiences made me who I am today and I worry that my children will lack empathy not ever knowing what it is like to go without.  I never want them to think that anyone is less of a person for their situation in life for it is not our job to judge, it is our job to help.  Poppa and I are discussing how we can be of help in this new community of ours, where can our children learn to serve.

Upon returning home, I jumped back into my studio to continue the gift making.  I am working on a new Waldorf dolly for Livie.  A smaller one that she can play with in a future doll house, my own pattern.  I probably should have done something easier since I have sewn and resewn her body a few times more than I wish to share.  I think I need to make her torso shorter, I want to make some changes to her knees and her feet are too big but believe me, she looks a lot better than her predecessors.  She is about as long as my hand and I just can’t wait to see Olivia’s face when she gets opens her gift.

She is going to be a Princess and the Pea doll and I found her a beautiful wooden bed at a thrift store some months ago for $1!!  Oh, you want to see the bed, oh but that is hidden away with all the Christmas presents so you will have to come by here on Christmas to get a peek.

I have a little Christmas morning surprise for the kids that I will make from the wooden dolls.  I have not painted one of these in years, do you remember when I used to paint the little people?  I found two links, I think the others have gotten lost when I moved my blog over from blogger.  You can see some from way back here and here.  I must have done hundreds of these sets back then and then just got burned out and put it away.  Thankfully I never get rid of anything and can use them for my special surprise.

Tomorrow, I will be crafting away most of the day!  Hope to see you around here.

 

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making merry week : : heirlooms in the making

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I woke up to this sign today.  All throughout the house there are the signs that Christmas is almost here.  Almost every room has someone in it working on a “secret” project or cutting snowflakes to decorate their rooms and Nick has taken charge of stringing the popcorn for the tree.  So much to do and so much fun to do it all.  We will not stress about how much there is to do, there is time.  Christmas for us is all about making room in our hearts for the infant Jesus to be born and giving him the only gifts that we can.  The only thing the infant needs, our love for each other.  And so (yes, I know you shouldn’t start a sentence with and) I will declare this week “making merry week” and invite you to visit us whenever you can in the next couple of days as I may have more than one post per day.

Today, I am working on a project that I have tried to make a part of our Christmas for the past few years.  Three years ago I went out and bought some fabric to do it and it still didn’t happen.  Last year I added some fabric to that pile and nothing.  This year, I decided that it was going to happen and added quite a bit of fabric selections to the pile.  For about 6 years I have been trying to talk the kids into going paperless (or almost paperless) in the gift giving department.  We have used fabric gift bags for birthday presents since my big kids were little but for some reason the thought of not ripping and shredding paper on Christmas morning was so sad to them.  Until that is, I myself realized that those fabric gift bags would become part of our every Christmas, our heirlooms.

I told them to think forward 10, 15, 20 years and imagine looking back to see the different fabrics from each year.  How special!  We all agreed that this was stellar and no one was sad about it anymore, they are in fact excited about it.  There are lots of kiddie fabrics (love me some Peanuts) and some vintage looking ones and some just downright Christmas-y fabrics that I am zipping up into bags of all sizes.  Every year I will add a few along with a hand embroidered tag of the year they were added to our pile, sewn onto each bag.  Our hope is that when our children start their very own families, they can take a few to start their own piles and remember the love that we share during Christmas.

The kids wanted me to label the fabrics I bought in 2011 and 2012 as such so I am doing tags for three years and this year being the first will have the biggest selection of fabrics.  Most of the fabrics were purchased at Joanns or online and I have left the selvage edges on the ones that say where they came from because someday that too will be cherished information.

The wool yarn ties are Cascade Magnum Wool, bulky, Ecru.  They remind me of the ribbons my momma would put in my hair when I was little.

I hope you are enjoying the last few days of Advent.  Until we see each other again, I am off to make merry.

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