September is National Sewing Month, and I already have a list of projects I want to get done this month.  All the kids are in school, so I have just a little more free time (we do keep the quads and big brother Jacob every other weekend to give their parents a break).

So, are you planning anything special for the month, or just regular sewing?  Personally, I think this would be an awesome time to teach someone how to sew.  Perhaps you have a grandchild, a niece, a friends child - or a friend who would like to learn to sew.  It would be a perfect time to give just a little bit of your time to help someone get started in sewing.  If you would like a little help in getting started with the teaching, we do have a book, "Learn How To Sew", that gives tons of information on learning how to sew, as well as practice projects and a lot of hand sewing and machine sewing craft projects for the new sewer to get started on.  Here are a few things that the Learn How To Sew book contains:

Diagrams with explanations of all the parts of the sewing machine

How to install the sewing machine needle correctly

How to properly thread the sewing machine

Instruction and practice exercises on sewing straight stitches as well as using the zig zag features How to make seams

Preparing fabrics for cutting

Fabric/thread/needle compatibility chart

Fabric conversion chart - lets you know how much fabric to buy

Hints for the sewer/crafter to make the sewing process easier

Hand sewing techniques, including a variety of hemming stitches, basting stitches, decorative stitches, etc.

Sewing projects - using the sewing machine and some for hand sewing only

And much, much more!

And while you'll be doing some extra sewing yourself this month, don't forget to keep your sewing machine OUT of the repair shop by checking out the "Sewing Machine Repair For The Home Sewer"  book.  You'll be so happy to be able to work out any sewing issues by following this book --- and save a ton of money by not having to take the machine to the repair shop!

Happy Sewing!   And let us know about the projects you'll be working on this month.

        

Let me tell you how amazing my daughter is -- you know, the one with 4 year old quadruplets and the 6 year old son.  When the quads started pre-k last week - just three days ahead of school starting she got a note in the mail (as all other pre-k parents got) saying the kids need "reusable" snack bags for their little tote bags the school gave each one.  Breakfast and lunch is provided at the school, however the snacks (juice box and other snacks) are to be provided by the parents.  

Denise looked at several stores for the reusable snack bags, already having an idea of what she wanted, and found nothing.  One store had a little bag similar to the paper lunch bags that she ended up buying for nearly 5 bucks each -- and one of them tore apart the first day of school.

The "pattern designer" part of her came out and she decided she could make the pattern AND the little reusable snack bags herself!  She had some waterproof vinyl type fabric on hand, so last weekend, with help from the kids, she made these reusable snack / sandwich bags .  These are like the old sandwich baggies that folded closed - before the zip lock bags came into being.



I do believe she got carried away here --- she's aways way over her head in work, kids, working on her master's degree, etc, but yet she (and the kids) took the time over the weekend to make reusable sandwich bags for all the kids in the pre-k class.  WAY TO GO DENISE!!!

If you'd like to make some of these for your kids, grandchildren or even to donate to your local pre-k school, check out the great tutorial she's posted on how to make them at our SewingBusiness blog .

        

How many people do you know that would turn down $25.00 cash????  Not me, that's for sure!!!  Shopper Strategy , my favorite "deal" blog is sponsoring a $25.00 gift card giveaway, and I'm going to head on over there to make my "comments" to get my name in the pot for the drawing.  I'd recommend that you head on over to the Shopper Strategy Giveaway  and get your name in for the drawing as well -- and if you don't need or want the extra $25.00, just let me know and I'll get you my address to send it to!.

        

Now that school has started and I'm getting myself into a "work and sew" during the weekdays instead of having grandchildren here either 2 or 3 days each week, I've made a rather long list of things to do.

You will start seeing more patterns for our plus size children website , TONS of new patterns for our Patterns2Go website  -- you won't believe how many patterns we've started or have wanted to start, but due to a lack of time to do much more than work with kids, clean house, do laundry and cook, these other projects have taken a back seat.  We have additional pattern making classes that we're working on.

And, speaking of sewing and new items, have you checked out the CouponClutch  site lately? There are a bunch of new designs, and among my favorites are these.

  
The first one is the "giraffe with red trim" and the second one is the "chocolate and pink polka dots".  There are probably 6 or 8 brand new designs available now to go along with some of the older best sellers.  When you get a minute, and if you are into coupon clipping and using coupons (as most of us do now because of the economy) you owe it to yourself to check out these cool and stylish coupon totes!

        

School started today and our "babies" - the now 4 year old quadruplets have started Pre-K and are in school full time.  They will be turning 5 the first of October, so didn't make the cut-off for Kindergarted, however the school in their district has a full time pre-K program that they qualified for.  Big Brother Jacob will be in the 1st grade at school, so they were all looking forward to going to "Jacob's school".

Happy Day for them and for all of us, but also a sad day because we (Papaw and Mamaw) won't be getting to see them as much as previously.  They live about 45 minutes away from us, so it'll probably be weekends when we can pick up one or all of them for an overnight stay.  Here they are, all decked out in uniforms, stopping long enough to get a picture before heading into school:



Do I really have to quit calling them our "babies"?  They have informed me they are NOT babies - they are big kids now.  Ok, Ok - we no longer have babies at our house - we have all big kids now!!  Congratulations big kids - we know you'll be having a great time at school!

        

As most of you know we have 4 year old quadruplet grandbabies - 2 girls / 2 boys plus their now 6 year old big brother that we keep either 2 days or 3 days each week so that their "work from home" parents can actually get a little work done.

We started keeping Jacob every weekend when our daughter was about 3 months pregnant with the quads, on total bed rest with twice a day monitoring.  Our son in law was working himself to death trying to keep up on housework, caring for a  7 month old child, twice daily monitorings, etc, etc so we started to pick him up every Saturday for the weekend just for a little break for our son in law.  That has continued to this day.

Once the quads were born, a couple months early, they needed all the help they could get, so I started going out to their house a couple days a week to help, Betty, our son in law's mother, would come out 2-3 days a week to help out.  Then a little over 3 years ago my sister, a retired government worker and on-line teacher, moved down from Pittsburgh in order to help with the kids as well.  It was then that we started a little routine of picking them all up on Tuesday morning, keeping them overnight, then Wednesday afternoon our daughter would pick them up after naps.  Then the next week we (my sister and I) would pick them up Wednesday morning and they'd stay at my house until Friday after naps, when Denise would come pick them up.   My son in law's mother would continue to come to their house the other week days to help take care of the kids.  This has gone on, like I mentioned, for the past three years.

Well, today ended the alternate Tues/Weds and Weds/Thurs/Fri kids at our house because the "babies" start Pre-K next Monday (Jacob will be in First Grade), so we are no longer needed.  Here's a picture of the kids and my sister -


I would like to say a special THANK YOU to my sister, Diana, for making the move here to help out with the kids.  She will be moving back to Pittsburgh in another month, and I'm gonna have to put together a BIG list of things to keep me busy, because I can't allow myself to even think about next week without my babies and big boy Jacob or I'm gonna cry!!

        

Another question could be "how much work do you think you could do with 5 kids under the age of 6 in the house when it rains all day?"  The answer is - VERY LITTLE! 

Our 4 year old quadruplet grandbabies (kids as they tell me) and their 6 year old big brother are here for 3 days, and today it rained most of the day.  Well, these guys LOVE projects and "activities", so I always try to have something we can bring out during bad weather!  Today we first brought out a box of books that had been put away during most of July because of our son and his family coming here to visit (we wanted the house to look like something besides an exploded day care center!), and they acted like they were all new books.   Then they started picking out the ones they liked best and we spent some time reading and looking at the books.  After that excitement was over, we did our project - making crowns.

My sister had gotten a bag of various shaped "jewels" - hearts, squares, stars, triangles, circles, etc in all colors that had a little sticker on the back, which turned the jewels into stickable jewels when the backing was removed.

I made crown shapes our of card stock for them to dress up, then we stapled them to fit each child's head.  Here is a picture of the super crowns!  Notice how differently each one of them has decorated the crowns.



This project took them over half an hour to complete - and we still had to wait on Sarah to finish hers -- she's the one that had to have everything in a straight line.  Is this an awesome group of kids or what????

        

Now I will not say that I'm biased at all, but I believe my quadruplet grandchildren (I always want to call them "babies", but they've informed me they are NOT babies anymore because they are FOUR years old now!) are way advanced in the things they come up with!  Each time they come to our house for a couple days they come up with new and different ways to do things.  Some days they are carpenters and use flaps off every box we have as "boards" and it's amazing at the things they can build and put together with those "boards".   The next time they'll be a mailman or a delivery man and spend an hour or more finding things they can "deliver" to each other and to me.

The other day they "invented" a big wheel for two, and had the best time racing up and down our driveway - changing out the driver from time to time - and having a blast.  Check out these pictures and see if they aren't just the cutest things on their "big wheels for two"!


The boys were roaring around the driveway first, but the girls didn't want to be outdone, so here they are in their new vehicle!


It's not like we don't have enough big wheels - there is one for each of them, plus a tricycle, plus a bicycle for each of them, but whatever they want to ride on is fine with me!!

        

WOW!   I can't believe I did NO posting during the month of July!!  So now you ask "where have you been"?  Well, my son and his family were here for a little over two weeks during July, plus as you probably know, we keep our 5 grandchildren (4 year old quads and their big 6 year old brother) either 2 days a week or 3 days a week, and Jacob the 6 year old spends every weekend with us.  Does that sound reasonable, or does it sound like an excuse for not writing?

In addition to all of the above, my daughter has been swamped with orders for her coupon clutches, which we help her sew, and how many of you have tried to do major sewing projects with 5 young grandchildren in the house PLUS 2 additional adults and their 5 & 9 year old children (my son and his family)?   Plus trying to keep up on the laundry, cooking, drag the vacuum out once in awhile, and try to hit a couple spots with the pledge.  Am I digging the hole deeper???

On a different note, my daughter Denise and I went to a BlogHer convention in New York City last weekend and met some wonderful bloggers.  There were about 2400 women there who blog about everything from couponing  to mommy blogs to fashion to politics and everything inbetween.  There were tons of info sessions available as well as specific meetings and lunches for the various areas of blogging.

Now we're back, and hopefully I can get back to doing some writing.  I want to thank all my readers for waiting for me to return to the "alive and well" category!

        

I don't know what the temperatures are like where you live, but here in "sunny" Florida, it has been HOT, HOT, HOT!  Well, yes, it IS summer now, but the temperatures have been in the mid to upper 90's for nearly a month now, so I'd say if you haven't gotten out your shorts and capri pants, it's probably past time to dig them out!!

And, after trying them on, how did they fit?  If you're not really pleased with the way they look, perhaps you'd like to try your hand at using your own measurements and making a pattern so you can have a perfect fit.  Check out PatternsThatFitYou.com  for a complete class on how to take your own measurements and how to use those measurements to make shorts, slacks and those capri pants you might want.   The classes are designed for all sizes and shapes -- we have plus size classes, regular size classes and a petite size class for those who are too small and petite for regular commercial patterns.

There are also classes for skirts, dresses and blouses, as well as pattern making classes for men and children.  You can make your own patterns according to your own measurements (using our easy step by step illustrated instructions), and be able to say "finally it fits!"

We've really seen a lot of sales lately for the skirt and shorts/slacks classes, so I do believe many of you are not too pleased with the way the spring and summer clothes are fitting.  You've come to the right place, PatternsThatFitYou  can help you get the fit you've been looking for!