Friday, 24 July 2009

Crafting with 2 pre-schoolers ...

It's the perennial question that crafters, who are mothers, ask - to craft or not to craft (when the children are in the vicinity)?!

Sometimes I'm in the mood for children and sometimes I'm not. Sometimes it feels like I will never get anything done because I have the children with me and sometimes it doesn't. Do you snatch 5 minutes whilst they are happily engaged in another activity? Do you engage them in your activity and realise that progress will be MUCH slower? Do you wait until they are all tucked up in bed? And then realise that you're just too damn tired to do it yourself?

We've had friends staying for the last couple and they left mid-morning. We had a brilliant time and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, however 4 adults, 4 children under 5, 2 dogs and exceedingly heavy rain does mean a certain amount of tiredness!!! Added to that a few bottles drunk, great food eaten and lots of talking - well you get the picture! Can you actually get a hangover from talking? It certainly feels like I have had one today.

So the name of the game today was to t.a.k.e. i.t. s.l.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.w.w.w.w.w. but having not done any sewing for a few days I was tempted. I took the bull by the horns and decided to start filling the patches I had made for my puff patchwork blanket. Maia was happily involved in writing 'letters' and drawing pictures for her penpal and Cassia was put to work!

The filling for the patches is the inside of an old pillow. Now, this is a compromise. I know it's not a natural material which would be my preference but it is re-using something I already have so I go with it. When old pillows become lumpy and uncomfortable they can be thrown in the washing machine and then the filling is good to fill things with! I decided to let Cassia into the pillowcase of filling. All good to begin with and she actually did fill some of the pockets however, it was not long before the filling became snow and was scattered about everywhere!

Maia then realised that we were playing with 'fluff' and decided she wanted to help too. Now to be fair she did really help and filled lots of the pockets whilst I sewed them up. My two little helpers, or is that one little helper and one little hinderer?!

On reflection was it worth it? So I had a lot of 'fluff' to tidy up and had to be the 'fluff' monitor a couple of times but, today, it was definitely worth it. I got all 108 filled and closed - hurray!!!!!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kids entertained. All 108 filled and sewed. Sounds like a success to me! Isn't it funny how WIPs can sit for months or years then be mostly completed in one day?

Cat J B said...

I'm usually the 'wait till kids in bed then too damn tired'....sewing for me means my 15 month old wants to sit on my knee while I machine sew and my 4 yr old wants to operate the pedal....eek, fingers everywhere, turns my hair grey! Or they both want my scissors....not their own which they have...mine. I can and do kitchen-it with them often though, and that requires quite the clean up too, though it's flour, not fluff, lol

Pom Pom said...

Yay! Progress on the puffs! I can't wait to see the finished product! You should consume a lot of tea today and refresh and replenish your people stores! Company is fun, but exhausting!

gardenmama said...

Looks like fun was had by all ; )
I think it is great you had your girls working alongside you!!

annamaria potamiti said...

You know there was a time when I had three children all under the age of five!!I really tried hard and I had a good laugh when I read this! Now my fourth is seven and she is getting to that lovely age when they can do so much and actually really help- Have patience my dear, it gets better by the minute- (until their teens- then hmmm-I don't want to scare you...) By the way, your project looks awesome!!
Have a great day,
Annamaria

Pippa said...

Yep, I have moments when I wonder if I ought to be involving the children in what I'm doing more. To be honest though, even I would would want to throw that lovely stuffing around a bit!! Looking forward to seeing the cushion all finished!

Charlotte Scott said...

My two darlings have a fixation on the rotary cutter because they are ABSOLUTELY not allowed it. Which to them means they ABSOLUTELY have to have it! Somewhere I have a cute pic of them having a ball throwing around a whole bag of 5" charm squares - not quite as messy as fluff, but a bit more colourful!