Empty Nester – Extraordinaire

Posts Tagged ‘clothes’

Dollies, dresses, and blankies… oh my!

I have great plans for new items for Bats! meow… I also have great hope that the time I need to draft the patterns and sew some samples will just appear in my life.

First up are a couple of new dresses or, maybe skirt and top sets.  The way this usually works is I determine what my girls want and then sew for them.  If the design is a success [as determined by the ooos and aaahs of the 6- and 7-years old girls  in the house and in the neighborhood], we’ll photograph, do the price workups [cost versus profit], create the web listing, and work on alternate size options – not necessarily in that order.

Next up are a set of rag dolls.  Or something of that nature.  I’m super excited about this.  When I was a little girl, all of my baby dolls [and I had a LOT of baby dolls with ALL the accessories] were little blonde things with bobbed hair.  They didn’t look anything like their mama.  Even the baby dolls in our house are 90% blondes. I do believe it’s time to expand the market to include more of the ‘looks like me’ variety.  Of course, there is more in the plans than just brown hair and grey eyes.  I’ll share more as soon as something has been sewn and stuffed. I’m really looking forward to this!

Finally, I want to incorporate my love of quilting into our designs.  More housewares, some quilts for babies, even some pillows for bigger kids and adults.  But not just any design will do – we’ll need something special, so more designing on real life graph paper.

So much to do.  Such great plans.  But time, again, is the enemy.

~sheila

Movies in the Dark

Today has been a busy day. A very busy day.

While I was able to sleep in some [and planned to do it], I slept much too long and had to rush to get Alek to dance class on time.  He’s a drop-and-go kid, so after the quick drive over, I ran back home. I should have gone straight to the sewing studio and got to work, but I planned on a relaxing late afternoon. So I sat down and watched a couple episodes of a cartoon I really dislike with the other kids.  Before I knew it, it was time to head back to pick him up. Woops!

It should have been another quick trip over and back, but I think Alek stopped to talk to every last person in the building before coming out to the car.  His social nature isn’t usually a problem to our schedule, but I didn’t work that many extra minutes into the morning.  Back home and it was time to wake up Eric for another drive back to the dance studio. Somewhere in the hour that I was at home, I started to wonder about myself.  Aren’t Saturdays supposed to be quiet?

Maybe they are, but today we were helpers.  The studio where the kids take classes had scheduled a cleaning day for the props and costumes room.  Ravynn’s teacher had asked me on Tuesday to come and help out and I talked Eric into joining me.  Alek, because he is moving on up in the class hierarchy, decided he should go and help too. Besides, there was the promise of picking up discarded loot.

The session was scheduled from 1-4.  We arrived about 20 minutes early and worked hard. My phone rang a couple times while the kids checked in from home, but it was early.  When we stopped long enough for a rest and to gather our finds into a neat bundle that was out of the way, I checked my phone for the time – almost 5!  So we said our goodbyes and headed home.  Within the next few days, I’ll try to photograph some of the wonderful items we picked up.  Eric will use them in his paintings and I’ll use them in one-of-a-kind fashion designs.  Alek even got some fun things for himself.

When I got  home, I realized that three of us hadn’t had lunch yet and it was time for dinner.

I kind of copped out on cooking for the kids and made fish planks, a box of microwave noodles with cheese sauce, and canned peas.  I desperately need to go to the grocery, so I had to get creative for Eric and I.  I sat down with my BH&G cookbook and started flipping through pages, determined to make the first thing I had all the ingredients for.  It could have gone bad. Luckily, this cookbook starts with an appetizer section.  I was overjoyed to find out I could make Coconut Shrimp -and- that they were easy and low-fat.  Ravynn and I went to work while the fish baked. I really like cooking with her and it appears she likes cooking with her mama too.

After dinner, we sat down to watch a documentary from the History channel about death masks. I was amazed by how interested the kids were, but also happy that it led to some interesting conversations about President Lincoln, Napoleon, and John Dillinger.  Just another reminder that MY KIDS ARE AWESOME!  After that, the boys asked for a movie, so we had them pick – Zombies Anonymous was their choice.  It was a decent movie, but nothing I’ll watch everyday.  I liked the angle they took on the zombie/human relationship.

The boys retreated to their room for another movie while the girls asked if they could stay up. Sure, but we need to turn off all the lights so it’s spooky 🙂  Agreed. Someone chose the movie P2, which stars the movie-making kid from American Beauty.  Whisper zonked on the sofa about half an hour in, but Ravynn is loving this movie.  She’s our little night owl and is very proud of that fact. This movie is much better, but has had one or two questionable scenes/events.  I can forgive them; it’s tying together pretty well.  We’ll see how it ends.

Despite the fact that I’ve accomplished nothing, it’s been a really good day.  I hope for more just like it in the future.

~sheila