…spring sewing plans…

As the weather warms up, I’m slowly starting to swap over my wardrobe, packing away the heavy winter jumpers and pulling out my favourite shorts. In the process, I’m discovering I’m rather overloaded in the “homeschool mum slobbing at home” kind of outfits, and rather lacking in the “pretending to be a functional adult in public” kind of outfits. I could do like a normal person and go buy something…but where’s the fun in that?

Since Me Made May, my saved items on insta has been full of cute patterns, most of which are summer type designs. Top of my list is a pair of Thurlow shorts, and a Sage Bush Top. On Monday, the children and I decided to do a run over to our nearest bigger town, to join in with their homeschool group for a co-op class that sounded fun. It didn’t hurt that it would also put me in spitting distance of my closest Spotlight, and I was in need of some stamping rubber. Sadly, that was out of stock, which is a bit frustrating with still a few stamps needed to cross off another item on my 2020 challenge list, but since I was there anyway, what was the harm in looking around?

It seemed like as good a time as any to pick up some supplies for the sewing I wanted to do, to pick something in person – for the top especially I wanted to be able to feel the fabric and test the drape to be sure I would be happy with the end result. Picking in person meant I could also make sure the fabrics for the two items would work together nicely. I decided on an large navy gingham for the top, and a mustard drill for the shorts. The shorts pattern also notes an optional requirement of grosgrain ribbon for a waist tie, so I decided to go with a navy for that to tie the whole outfit together.

Of course, what is a Spotlight trip without an extra or two! I was chasing a bias maker after my weekend sewing adventures brought me dangerously close to burnt fingers. I have two pairs of socks to knit before the end of the year, so picked up a couple of balls of fingering weight yarn. I found a 100% cotton that I plan to use for playing with an avocado stone dye. A friend hit me up for a mercy dash for knitting needles, so I popped those in as well. The children had pocket money burning a hole in their pockets, and ended up with a mini art kit for Mr12, and a paint brush set for Miss10. Overall, not a bad haul for going in for one thing!

It’s a deliciously cool and rainy day today. The three littles have been up and knocked out their chores, and are now taking over the storage loft (which is barely high enough to sit up in) and it is “mission control”, so apparently I am pivoting school plans for today towards astronomy and aerospace research. While they do that, I want to start prepping that yarn for dyeing. I think I’m going to sew the sage bush top first, so I need to download and print that pattern and start prepping it. I really want to finish my kindle book today, it’s been hanging around too long and I just want it off my in-progress list. The washing taking over the lounge isn’t going to put itself away so I’m probably going to need to housewife a bit. Before all that though, I might make myself a coffee and sit and enjoy it in peace while I listen to “Houston” attempt to locate the two rockets they’ve lost in three days. Someone remind me to never travel with the Barefoot Space Exploration Company…