Self-Stitched September

‘I, Headmistress of the Nebula Classical Academy, sign up as a participant of Self-Stitched-Sept ’11. I endeavour to wear three handmade items each week for the duration of September 2011’

Phew!  I am going to do this.  I have watched for a year now as all the refashion/sewing bloggers I follow join in on the fun, while I sat on the sidelines pouting and lamenting my lack of hand-made items.  Not this time!

It will be a little tricky, however.  I have 2 shirts, one pair of pants and one skirt in wearable condition that I can employ, but only the shirts are appropriate for work attire, and wearing them each once a week will get old fast!  To that end, I plan to expand my items to include the two necklaces I have made for myself, and to hurry on up and finish the shrug.  I may, during September itself, have time to do up a denim skirt from Papa Sun’s old jeans, and maybe even finish off a fabric scrap or two into a scarf.

My reasons for joining this time around are three-fold: to encourage me to wear my refashioned wrap skirt, to be a little more adventurous when it comes to style, and to step up the pace with my refashion goals.   Most participants are going for wearing an item a day, but clearly I haven’t got that many items, and no way do I have enough time or energy to make enough to hit such a lofty goal.  So three items a week it is!

Camp Daycare

Let’s move back in time.

It is May. It is finally warm, and we are starting to think about what to do with the children during the summer so that both Phil and I can work. Comet got wind of a program called Camp Invention offered through community ed and this seemed to fit perfectly: it’s a full-day, week long camp; there were programs for both Sparkle and Comet; it was located in Minnetonka so they were likely to run into kids they knew from school. Comet’s ambition is to invent something, anything, so we signed them up, visions of gears, motors and levers dancing in our heads.

The alarm bells should have started going off when we got the letter asking for donations of found or throw-away objects: plastic containers, toilet paper tubes etc. We should have clued in when we realized that the camp assistants were high school students (not to disparage them, they were great kids, but one would expect an invention camp to be run by inventors. At least we did.) Sure enough, by the end of the second day comet was complaining that he hadn’t invented a single thing, and that camp was boring. Phil and I did the forehead slap–doh!–and had to remind ourselves once again that we are parenting kids who are on the far left of the bell curve of intelligence. Comet and Sparkle did have a great time at camp, they learned a lot about working with what you’ve got, channeling creativity, and team-work (a much needed skill, truth be told.) The camp also had some theme days, including crazy hair day, and Comet got as close as he’ll get to having a Mohawk, so it was by no means a total loss. But this camp was ex.pen.sive, considering they create new objects from found objects all the time at home. (see exhibit A below.)

Lesson learned. Next time look for the invention camp for gifted learners.