A Buttload of Undies for Gwen

While sewing up some undies for myself, Gwen asked if I was making any for her.  I said that I would and she insisted on pink and purple.  Well, I didn’t have those colors, but I used some of the repurposed white fabric from Josiah’s undies along with the elastic I used on mine and chose pink and green thread for fun.

I love how they turned out! 

She refused to wear them because “white is boring.” 

I found a few more baby blankets I held onto, not wanting to give them away just yet.  I used a cute pink and white giraffe blanket and got about eight pairs of undies for Gwen.  She loves the little giraffes and asked to “dress up” in the undies as soon as I had finished the first pair.  They fit her really well!

I’m horrible at math and measurements, scaling down or writing my own patterns, but I did find a pattern for 2T/3T Big Girl Underwear, to which I added 1/2″ all around and changed a bit to sew up like the ones I made for myself. 

 

Since I had already made a few pairs they whip up pretty quickly, but I will say I’ve been frustrated with my sewing machine.  When the fabric doesn’t slide smoothly or the thread bunches up underneath I’m not sure if I should change pressure, tension, needle, thread… *sigh*  And the zigzag stitch has been inconsistent; it won’t stay on the chosen setting and periodically skips.  Also, I accidentally got universal ballpoint needles as opposed to ballpoint; I didn’t realize there was a difference but I guess there is.  So, the size 16 needle that was on my machine when I started using it – and has been on there for who knows how long – is getting used for almost all of my projects.  It hasn’t given me problems like the new pack I bought recently; I guess they really don’t make things like they used to. 

I made a couple more pairs of undies for Josiah, too, using up the rest of the farm blanket I chose for him.  I finally settled on what is – for me – the easiest and nicest looking method for his undies.

Just like before, I used Katrina’s Quick Soaker Pattern pieces.  If you’re using a non-directional fabric you can cut the front and back all in one piece, but after making his first pair I decided I wanted the print to face up on both sides so I cut them out separately and sewed them together, doing a flat felled seam in the middle to make it neat and comfy inside.  Since he still has accidents, I added an extra layer in the middle and zigzagged it in place.  

The leg holes are done bias-tape style, matching raw edges on front, right sides together, then folding it over the back.  I use the measurements from the pattern, stretching the material slightly as I pin, making sure there’s some overlap at the ends.  To make it nice and neat on front, you stitch-in-the-ditch all the way around, making sure to catch the underside. 

Side seams are next.  I usually sew with 1/4″ – 3/8″ allowance, but for flat felled seams I like to do closer to 1/2″ to make sure I have enough to fold over.  This looks nice and neat on both the inside and outside and there are no raw edges to contend with. 

I did a couple pairs with elastic at the waist but like the look of folded over fabric best.  This is done the same way as the leg holes, bias-tape style, making sure to stretch as you pin so the waist is nice and snug.  On the overlapping ends I folded one of the raw edges under and encased the other inside before folding it over to stitch-in-the ditch. 

His underwear uses up more fabric because of all the trim pieces, but I may try some fold over elastic in the future.

Expanding the Garden

I love the idea of being self-sustaining – growing and raising our own food, living off the land so we’re eating the freshest, healthiest foods and not answering to someone else’s standard of living.  We’re still contemplating raising chickens, maybe even goats for milk one day, but we’re not ready for that yet.  Baby steps. 

Last year we had three raised beds, and while we thoroughly enjoyed the resulting crops, we didn’t get enough to put any produce away.  We pretty much ate it as it ripened, although we did give some of it away here and there. 

This year Phil built five more raised beds making two rows of four; though I believe he really just wanted to borrow his friend’s backhoe as an excuse to play around and tear up the yard.  The kiddos drove around with him in that thing for over an hour! 

Our side yard looks completely different now.  A big tree was cut down, a side garden uprooted and transplanted (we haven’t really committed to flower gardens yet since we know we’re not done with the yard), and the beds added.  The kiddos were a big help raking the dirt.

 

There are always folks around here with manure for the taking so we scored a load and got to work mixing it in with the soil.  As you can see, Josiah is Daddy’s Big Helper.  I had to laugh when I saw the two of them; apparently, Phil had taken off his shirt while he was working and Josiah promptly followed suit. 

 

Another trip to get some free (I love free!) mulch and we filled in the ground between the beds. 

One day last month Phil told me we should be able to start planting soon.  Not two days later he said we’d better hurry up, his mother already had her garden planted!  I didn’t realize it was a competition. :)  So he got his butt in gear, printed out a planting schedule, and we got to work with a first planting of spinach, lettuce and peas. 

On the left you can see the beginnings of what is now our new compost pile and on the right is our camper, next to which we have a nice section of rhubarb, complements of my grandmother’s old garden.  The kids were very excited to help plant the seeds and bulbs and it provides such a great learning experience for them.

 

 

Whenever I tell them we’re eating fresh food from our garden, it’s one of the best feelings in the world.  And when we ate the first of the asparagus – ohmigoodness, the stuff in the stores just doesn’t compare!  I swear all vegetables are sweet when freshly picked.  I can’t wait to try bacon-wrapped asparagus…

 

Poking their heads up we’ve got the asparagus, two types of lettuce, spinach and peas.  This year we also hope to have tomatoes (a couple different kinds – I think plum and some sort of hot for salsa), squash (summer, butternut and zucchini), peppers, potatoes, onions and garlic.  After last year’s carrots I’m not too keen on growing them again, but Phil said we might as well try.  I feel the same way about broccoli. 

My sister-in-law gave me Canning for a New Generation for my birthday last year and I’m excited to try some of the recipes.  I’m already looking forward to filling in the fruit gaps picking peaches and blueberries this summer, too.

Preschool: Z is for Zebra

I can’t believe it… we’ve finally reached the end of the alphabet!  When you’re singing the alphabet song it doesn’t seem that long, but when you’re teaching one letter a week - with review weeks every now and then – it takes forever.

Granted, in comparison to a traditional school schedule, we’ve finished early.  But we’re not a traditional school and – technically – Gwen is pre-pre-K.  So I’m trying not to worry about it, but I am wondering what to do next time around.  Any ideas for an advanced preschooler who’s not quite ready for K-level stuff?

Bible
After Jesus died on the cross and rose on the third day - the story during Easter week - He said goodbye to His friends and family and ascended to Heaven.  Jesus’ return to Heaven was our story for the week; our Bible verse was John 14:2 – In my father’s house are many mansions… I go to prepare a place for you.

Theme
Ironically, all the times we’ve been to the zoo with our membership, we don’t even make it to the zoo when it’s our theme for the week!  I printed out Oopsey Daisy’s Zoo Check-Off List just in case but we didn’t get around to using it.  No worries – we’ll go again this Summer! 

Instead, the kids made their own playdough and popsicle stick zoo cages. 

 

Playdough is always a big hit and it always evolves into more creative play – and of course a mess.  I didn’t get a chance to make a batch of homemade play dough, but the kids did get a container in an Easter basket from their Meme, one of only a couple non-candy items I didn’t give away! 

Since we were already settled at the table I brought out a few printables I had prepared.  Montessori for Everyone has Animal Families cards in their Zoology section; I printed them on cardstock and had the kiddos match the mommies, daddies and babies.  There are only four types of animals and it’s pretty easy, but we also talked about how each member in an animal family has a different name.

 

 

In their zoo theme, KidSparkz has animal skin patterns so I printed them out smaller and had the kiddos match them to the correct animals.  We didn’t have a snake so we made one from playdough! 

Throughout the week we used some of the zoo-themed printables from 2 Teaching Mommies.  I helped Gwen categorize plant-eaters and meat-eaters; she had to think back to the times we’ve seen what animals were eating, like the giraffes pulling leaves from the trees or seeing pictures of lions with their catch.

 

I’ve used them before, like in our water unit (though I think I forgot to mention them), and the kids love playing with water beads.  I guess they’re all the rage, so I decided to order some from Amazon.  They’re pretty cheap and afford hours of play, but I was surprised how delicate they are.  If they get squished – or dropped on the floor – they break into a gel-y mess.  We pretended this was the aquarium part of the zoo.

Gwen put the whole Little People A-Z Learning Playset together by herself. 

We watched “The Zoo Train” Signing Time DVD and afterwards the kids pretended to be camels – it was the silliest thing!

And since I’m all about the food, I just had to make these giraffe and elephant sandwiches for the kiddos – even though they’re rather laborious to put together.  Phil just kisses my forehead and tells me how cute I am, trying to make them happy.

 

Letter
No surprise here, our word for the week was zebra.  Many of the things we did involved zebras, like Gwen’s Do-A-Dot page, color-by-number, letter hunt and tracing page (the latter from Oopsey Daisy’s Z is for Zoo Mommy Packet).

 
 

The kiddos had fun making their zebra Zs and putting big, googly eyes on them.  Josiah doesn’t care that they’re only supposed to have two eyes. 

 

The next popular zoo animal?  Giraffe.  These are from dry-erase and alphabet dot-to-dot books.

 

Since Gwen love mazes, we did a letter Z maze; she almost always starts from both ends and meets in the middle.

Gwen did the pre-writer tracing pages from the zoo unit, some pages in one of her workbooks (look at the zebra she drew!), a zoo train hidden picture in her Highlights’ Hidden Puzzles magazine and letter Z matching that I put in a page protector for dry erase. 

 
 

For dessert one day I got this great idea to make a zebra cake!  I turned it into more of a banana bread and the stripes were really pretty.  It tasted pretty plain but I would love to make it again, maybe more chocolate-y this time.

Number
We worked on counting with the number clip cards from the zoo unit along with some number dot-to-dot.

 

Color
Our color of the week was red, and it just so happened that Gwen picked an all-red outfit on our color day.  In addition to reading a bunch of books about the color red, Gwen did a page from one of her workbooks and we made sure to munch on strawberries during the week.

Rhyme
Since I didn’t already have a rhyme picked out for our last week, I resorted to education.com’s alphabet nursery rhymes.  Their Letter Z: Fuzzy Wuzzy was a big hit!  It has lots of Z sounds and the kiddos got a kick out of it. 

*See my Zoo Pinterest board for more inspiration.

Bulletin Board

Book Basket
Theme/Vocab
Animal Strike at the Zoo
Never, EVER Shout in a Zoo
Giraffes
Zebras
Good Night, Gorilla
Spots – Counting Creatures from Sky to Sea
A Horse Lover’s Alphabet – Appaloosa Zebra
My Heart is Like a Zoo
Curious George Visits the Zoo

Letter
The Z Was Zapped
Zack’s Alligator
Berlioz the Bear
The Fairies’ Alphabet Book

Number 
Zero the Hero
1, 2, 3 to the Zoo

Color
A Pair of Red Clogs
The Red Book
Llama Llama Red Pajama
Color Zoo

DVDs  
Tarzan
Signing Time - The Zoo Train

I can’t believe I’m sewing underwear

I was determined to make another pair of undies after my first attempt.  Once again I used Indigo Orchid’s pattern, although this time I used the next size up in case I needed to create any seams. 

Using a pair of jersey pants that have since started getting worn around the edges and hole-y in the waistband, I made two pairs of undies for myself.  I love how they turned out!  I will admit to being stumped each time I attach the crotch gusset in indigo orchid’s sewing underwear, the basics.  Rolling the pieces inside makes sense but when I unfold it I always get one piece of the main part inside out. *sigh*  Yay for seam rippers.  

Just like I do with recipes, once I attempt a pattern, I’m ready to make it my own.  I took her suggestion to make a flat felled seam on the side seams, which makes it look nice and smooth.  I ordered some elastic trim from Fabulace on Etsy and used it for the leg openings, following the tutorial (which confused me at first then made sense once I went along).  I didn’t even bother pinning, which cut down on time.

I didn’t have elastic lace trim for the waist, so I decided to use regular elastic, another suggestion in the extras part of the tutorial.  I cut my 1/2″ elastic in half, zigzag-stitched it to the waist on the wrong side, folded it over, and zigzag-stitched it again.  Nothing fancy, but it works just fine.

I’m so proud of myself!  I like them better than my store-bought undies; the green-edged pair is my favorite.

 

Onto the kiddos!  I’ve wanted some more undies for Josiah for a while now but just don’t feel like buying them.  So I figured, why not try to make him a pair?  I’ve pinned a number of tutorials and started with Home Sweet Homebodies’ Easy-On Potty Training Pants pattern and tutorial.  I wasn’t crazy with how it all came together because of the different pieces, though I love how hers turned out!

I had already downloaded Katrina’s Quick Soaker Pattern, and when I saw The Sitting Tree’s upcycled t-shirt underwear using this pattern I decided to give it a go.  I went with the large size for Josiah (with the medium size extra protection layer), using grey scraps leftover from making my undies for the leg and waistbands and some jersey material from an old baby blanket for the main section. 

This one was easier to put together and I love how it turned out; I made the felled seams with these, too, but I still wasn’t too crazy about how the bands get sewn on.  I decided to get creative with the second pair, sewing the legbands on like bias tape (which I became familiar with while making the clothespin aprons) and making the waistband with a foldover like mine. 

 

I think I’m narrowing down the process! I was pleasantly surprised how easy the legholes were… but realized a) I should have done it before sewing up the side seams, and b) when doing the trim that way you’re supposed to sew the right sides together first (the nice, neat sides are now on the inside, d’oh!).  I haven’t tried the white ones on him so I’m not sure how the waist is; I may end up going back to waist trim like the green one but we’ll see how it fits.

He was excited to wear the tractor undies and they fit nicely!

 

Gwen was excited when I told her I might try and make her some new undies.  “Pink and purple, alright?”

Dude, I can’t believe I’m sewing underwear.

Popsicles!

With Summer right around the corner we’ll once again be adding smoothies to our daily menu.  And what do you get when you freeze smoothies?  Popsicles!  When I got the kiddos the rocket pops for Easter, I remembered I wanted to try and find a creamsicle recipe.  Most that I found called for sugar and orange juice concentrate, but I did find a bunch of Ice Pops recipes at Real Food Tastes Good. 

Since I didn’t want to totally deplete Phil’s OJ for the week, I decided to combine the pineapple coconut pops recipe with the orange creamsicle.  I mixed pineapple chunks, coconut milk, banana, orange juice, yogurt and honey to fill the popsicle molds.  The verdict?

 

Really good!  And cold!  I usually puree the ingredients but I left the fruit in chunks and it was a nice contrast.  I can’t wait to try some of the other recipes, as well as those from Pops! Icy Treats For Everyone that I got last year.

The popsicle molds pictured are actually Orka Ice Pop Molds; the set only comes with four, which is why I decided to get the Tovolo rocket pops.  And as a side note: see Gwen’s pants?  I sewed some of the leftover fabric from her crayon roll onto the bottom of her leggings to get some more life out of them. :)