Prepping Plans

I had Big Plans for the day.  It turned out to be a very rainy Sunday afternoon, which is good for inside projects.

1) Prep the pillowcase for the private sewing lesson that was my offering for the school spring carnival auction.  The girl who won it is not in my class, but her teacher says she is a good student.  Her mother says she bought a kiddie sewing machine with her own money.  That was so successful the mother bought her a real machine.  I'm thinking she is serious about learning to sew and I'm happy to help her.

Nice and bright.

The colors she asked for were rainbow, bright, light purple, lime green.  The purple is not really light, but it is a perfect match to the butterflies.  Check! Done!  Ready to go!

2) Make two samples - a tote and a drawstring bag.  We are having Entrepreneur Day as the culminating activity for our Economics unit.  It will be held the last week of school.  The kids make their product at home and then will buy and sell among the 10 3rd grade classes.  Since testing will be over and we are on the downhill slide into summer I thought it might be fun to take the sewing machine and let them make their own "shopping bag."  I need to get the steps down to the bare minimum and get a time figured out so we can allow enough time for all 24 kids to make their bag before the big day.  This didn't happen at all.  I was running out of steam and still needed to work on my lesson plan and other school related stuff.  

3) Make a sample for the sewing class at the library this Saturday.  The library has reopened after it's roof repairs during the winter and I signed on to keep going with the  monthly sewing classes.  I was very thankful that their closure coincided with my heaviest months at work.  I put some more conditions on the class this time around - everyone has to have their own machine and class size of 5 students or fewer.  I might change that to 3-4 students unless they already are confident sewists.

First round of auditions.  The yellow is just a place holder since there were no precut greens.

I finally decided on a 16-patch pillow cover with an envelope back as the project.  Plenty of opportunity to sew short straight lines while practicing threading and getting to know the machine.  No hand sewing to finish it up.

Still auditioning colors and patterns.  It needs to coordinate with the leafy sham on the right.

My sample is using 5" squares mostly from my stack of random precuts.  I can take the rest of the stack to the class and there is enough variety that they can find 16 that they like.

I will make the sample to match my bedding since I changed out our bedding last fall when the room got painted but never really did anything final with the new colors.  This is a step in the right direction.  I think I am on the right track with fabric selection.  I will let this idea marinate and work on it again tomorrow.  Progress.  Done for now.

That was all so much easier to do with a clean space, easy access to my fabric stash, and a clear table top.  Woo hoo!!  I am 5 for 5 on doing something sewing related Every Day in the Month of May.  I really wonder how long I can keep this up!!