Last-second crafting

It's been a crazy week around here. I've been staying up late every night, working after my family goes to bed, preparing for tonight's big celebration--the annual end-of-the-year party for my kids, with a ceremony for the first child to "graduate" from my program. She's been with me since the beginning--three years now--and I wanted to do it up right. I put together slide shows of the past year, and of the graduate's 3 years. I wrote the annual letter to the families, summarizing our year's work, illustrated with scanned drawings from the children. I printed programs, illustrated with self portraits of all the kids. Together with the kids, I altered the words to Bev Bos' "I Remember When You Couldn't Do That" to sing to her. I wrote a "diploma" for her, describing many of the things she's accomplished in her years with us. I assembled a book from the children: each page had a photo of one of the children, their message for her, and a drawing from them. Anyway, 11:00 last night rolled around, and I still didn't have a gift for her. So I made this bag (literally at the eleventh hour), and tucked the book inside.

She loved it. Success.

I won!

Back in May, Sew, Mama Sew! sponsored a giveaway day, with hundreds of bloggers participating by offering wonderful craft supplies and handmade goodies to commenters. I was on vacation then, so had time to browse many new blogs and enter the giveaways. And I won one!

Trish, at Two Peas in a Pod Homegrown Designs, offered this beautiful farmer's market tote, and then at the last minute, decided to add a lovely produce bag to go inside. They arrived yesterday and are more beautiful in person than photos can show. They are very well made, sturdy, and lovely. I adore the mix of vintagy-looking fabrics.



Trish had asked for snack suggestions: "your favorite fresh wholesome after school snack... It should use fruits or veggies and not a lot of ingredients – something tasty and good for you and something that celebrates nature's harvest." I won with my (admittedly very strange) suggestion of cabbage and ketchup--but I can't take credit for the idea. Last summer, I took an online food storage class with Sharon Astyk, and I asked the group for suggestions about how to get kids to eat more greens--particularly cabbage, which I had tons of from the farmer with whom I was bartering. Sharon suggested offering it with ketchup as a dip, which seemed like a gross but perfectly logical choice, as kids love to dip. Sure enough, they all ask for "more cabbage! more cabbage!" when I offer that now-favorite snack. (I make my own ketchup, so I know they're not getting too much sugar and nasty ingredients.)

So this summer, when I shop the farmer's market for more cabbage and tomatoes destined to become ketchup, I'll carry them home in a lovely new bag. Thanks, Trish!

New field bags

Here is one of the field bags that nearly destroyed my sewing machine. Each is slightly different, but they all contain the same supplies. They're embroidered with the children's names, in the color which helps them identify all their belongings at my house.

The children in my program are between 1 and 5 years old. We're starting small and simple with these bags, and will work up to more later. For now, they contain:
a beautiful little sketch pad
a pencil
a small magnifying lens
a tulle collection bag for rocks, bark, flowers, etc, etc, etc.

As the children get older and more used to using their field bags, I expect to add:
watercolor paints (thus the really nice sketch books which work beautifully with watercolors)
field guides appropriate to wherever we're headed and whatever we're into at the moment
critter collection containers
and...? We'll see what comes from the children's pursuits.

Lori Pickert, another Reggio-inspired educator, has a great tutorial on her blog for how to make a field bag from recycled clothing. I'd wanted to have field bags for the kids, and her blog gave me just the kick in the ratty-old-mom-jeans I needed to get going on making them.

Free-motion flower for Pleated Beauty Handbag

free-motion flower for pleated beauty handbag
Originally uploaded by mcghol

Ok, this is the most fun I've ever had sewing on my machine so far! What? You haven't tried free-motion embroidery yet? Go try it!

This is all I've managed to accomplish yet on my "Pleated Beauty Handbag," which I'm planning to bring on vacation this weekend. Will I be able to finish in time?