If you don't like cute, you've come to the wrong blog

A wonderful shaft of light comes through our house before sunset. It comes in through the living/sewing room window and goes straight through all the way to the dining room. Here are some things it caught in its path tonight.

Some sewing bits that are taking me a very long time to pull together.

Tess in all her glory.

I swear she is this enjoyable every single minute of the day.

I thought I wasn't getting anything done...

I didn't think I had much to show, but when I loaded the photos from my camera, I realized there was some crafting going on around here this week. Patrick came on home on Monday with an open-ended assignment to make a flag for class. Any material/medium could be used. He wanted to use fabric. He's never seemed too interested in sewing, so I was more than pleased when he said he wanted to give it a try. Since this was his first try, I was at his side helping quite a bit. But that being said, he did every step of the flag himself. He used the rotary cutter (yikes that's scary!), pinned, ran the sewing machine, ironed (just one little burn), and embroidered. I helped with the measuring and such by telling him how wide to cut the strips and how much seam allowance to use. I also showed him how to make the x's for the stars and helped thread the needle and tie knots. He sat down and spent about 2 hours sewing all 50 stars. This kid can really focus when he wants to! He was so funny because he kept wanting to take pictures of it as he worked. Where would he get an idea like that? In the end the flag looked great, but he got it off to school before we managed to get a final photo of it. In all he probably spent about 4 hours on it over a couple of days.
On Tuesday I got a last minute call from a mother inviting Maria to a birthday party on Wednesday. This meant either I would have to forgo Tess's nap on Wednesday morn to get a gift, or I would have to make something. I take nap time very seriously. I pulled out my bunny pattern and some sweaters and challenged myself to make this in one nap. Because I've made this pattern twice before, I was able to do it pretty quick, but with not a minute to spare. I hope she likes it. I go through a lot of doubt when I give these things as gifts. I feel like including a note that says "if you don't like it, give it back and I'll go get you some Polly Pockets instead. When my baby's not sleeping. When I have someone to watch all these kids cause I wouldn't bring even one of them anywhere near a store that sells toys. When I don't have a lot of other things to do during those few moments that someone else is watching all the kids. Really, if you want the Polly Pockets that bad, I will do that for you." Sooner or later the local moms are going to catch on to this and either they will stop inviting the kids to parties so they don't have deal with the homemade gifts that they have to convince their kids to appreciate. Or, maybe, the will like them and try figure out ways to invite my kids to parties at the last minute so they can get the beautiful, handcrafted, one-of -a-kind creations to treasure for the rest of their lives. Who knows?
Yesterday when Maria was getting ready for school she pulled out this little smock. I had forgotten about it. I made it to go with the Easter dresses, but it was making them look too Little House on the Prairie, so it wasn't worn that day. Maria found a cute way to wear it to school.