I am not a sewing-type person. I hated it when I was a kid and the sewing machine and I always ended up in a full-pitched battle to the death every time I tried to sew something, with me on the losing end of the equation. I was always more comfortable with a soldering iron, resistors, and computer boards, than with the art of sewing, or knitting, or crocheting, or any other related activity.
Once I had kids and we gave up one income so I could stay home with them, I redoubled my efforts to conquer that strange art called sewing. I can handle a manual-free dismantling and repair of dryers, washers, and dishwashers, but that sewing machine was my Moriarty.
I had, however, one thing in my favor: stubbornness. I am more stubborn that anyone I know. I absolutely never, ever give up.
And so I have been gearing up for months. Learning to sew. Reading about how to deal with various types of cloth. Having staring contests with my sewing machine so it will learn who is the boss.
I guess it all paid off today.
I managed to take an old, frumpy, and too short purple t-shirt and add bits of fabric from a pair of my daughter’s leggings that I cut the legs off of to make her summer shorts. The result was much better than it sounds so I popped a picture in above.
The take home message is you can lengthen your kids’ t-shirts when they get too short. You can continue to use the fabric from their old clothes in a variety of ways from shorts and t-shirts to sweater-scarfs and library bags.
As a homeschooling family, we all give up potential earnings with one parent staying home part- or full-time with our children. We learn to scrimp here and save there, reusing cocoa tins as organizers for school supplies, discovering you can throw pretty much any leftover into soup and it will taste pretty OK, and buying generic clothing and handing it down through all our children, boys and girls alike. We drive old cars and don’t vacation or eat out.
And what do we do with our savings? Duh! We spend it on our kids! And it makes us supremely happy.
The Hub likes to say that kids who get sent to public school have parents who don’t love them enough to care. I think that is fundamentally true. I love my children (and my husband) enough to do absolutely anything that will benefit them. Including learning to sew.
