Some new kid clothes

Looking back at the last few months, I have not made as many things as I normally would. Part of it is that I’ve been working on a couple of sewing patterns. But mostly, it’s been over a year of pandemic with my kids home all the time (they currently only have two days in school in person each week) and I’m just really mentally sapped. We’re about to begin summer and I never plan on getting much work done during summer vacation. However, I have a new pattern coming out in June, and some others pretty far into development, so maybe I’ll surprise myself?

I also worked on a couple big house projects. I painted my laundry room and with my husband’s help, installed shelf systems on three walls. We now have so much room for shoes and other things! I helped my daughter turn the side of the house into a flower garden. It began as an empty flower bed with just a couple of stumps and lots of pine needle mulch. Now it’s got a few new shrubs and plants, (still has the stumps!), and lots of bulbs and seeds planted. And I painted our shed all by myself! I got a pretty bad sunburn from that project.

My 3yo needed a bunch of new shirts and some shorts. So I spent several days working on clothes for him. My daughter also needed some dresses. My other daughter needed softball clothes. So most of my finished projects have been kids clothes. I have a lot of fabric I’ve bought to make my kids shorts, bathing suits, and some new clothes for me, but I’m not sure when I will work on them.

One kind of crazy project that I did was to hem a prom dress for a young lady I know from church. She warned me that it had a ton of layers. It did! It also had a train. She wanted the train gone and about half the “fluff” gone. I ended up cutting out a full layer of crinoline, and then when I hemmed the two layers of fabric, two shorter layers of crinoline, and five tulle overlay layers, whew! It was done!

I will be sending a new pattern to testing next week! It’s based on a custom order I made earlier this year. Keep an eye out for the Lyla May Handbag!