No Time to Sew: Garden Fun

Abundant rain in winter following four years of drought resulted in a truly magical spring here in California. Seeds that waited dormant in the soil for years sprang to life, covering everything in purples, pinks and the bright orange of California poppies. In April and May my garden erupted with flowers. The effect was truly breathtaking:

The magic of life was so strong, that I didn’t have the heart to pull out plants that grew where I didn’t want them to grow. The path got covered, wildflowers grew into trees and smothered other plants, yet I simply let nature celebrate in all its glory.

For a few precious weeks I woke up to this beauty every morning. I drank my morning coffee looking out the window, taking a little pause before turning my attention to the rushed madness that marked the last few weeks of school. I watched bees of all kinds feasting drunkenly on all that bounty, hummingbirds drinking nectar, and squirrels eating most of the fruits off my trees (OK, I admit I didn’t like that part that much. I don’t mind sharing with wildlife, but why do they have to take only one bite and toss the rest???) .

Then summer came, and we spent the first couple of weeks indoors, cleaning up. By the time we were finally done and I was ready to enjoy my garden, things looked a bit different:

Hence began another week of intense work, this time in the garden. I did lots of pruning, pulling, weeding, cutting, digging, and yes--some planting. It got hot. My arms got covered in scratches. Burrs got stuck to my clothes. Dirt got under my fingernails. Can you tell I enjoyed every moment?

Why Cleaning Up is Good for Kids

As I mentioned last week, the first big project my kids and I embarked on this summer was The Big Cleanup, by now an annual tradition. Over the last couple of weeks we all worked together. We went room room, starting with the kids’ rooms, moving to the master bedroom, and ending with the common areas. We dedicated a day or two to each, depending on the amount of work needed. We took everything out of every closet, drawer, shelf or cubby. We cleaned every surface with a soapy wet cloth, vacuumed every cranny, and sorted through every item.

We put together pieces of games that got scattered over the previous year. We sorted mixed-up crayons, markers or pencils and put them into separate boxes. We recycled lots of paper, and discarded expired food items and medicines. We put outgrown toys, books and clothes into separate piles, and gave them away. Some we passed on to friends with younger kids, others to beloved old preschools, yet others we donated to Goodwill. We tossed broken things. Overall, this year we gave away a car-load and a half of toys, games and books; two large trash bags and a huge cardbox full of clothes; and a large box with miscellaneous things. We cleared up a couple of cubbies, lots of closet space and some shelf space.

Here, for example, is what one of the drawers in the kids’ bathroom originally looked like:

We took everything out:

Then vacuumed the drawer and wiped it clean:

And then we put everything back in again, the way it’s supposed to be:

It will hopefully look like this for at least a couple of months or so…

Now, no one really likes cleaning up, myself included. One could argue that making children organize their room over the summer vacation (instead of, say, sending them to camp or letting them play in the sand) is a malicious form of kid-torture. But I find this experience to be beneficial on many different levels. Here are some (but by no means all) of the benefits I see:

1. Cleaning up teaches kids basic life skills that will be useful later on. Younger kids learn to sort, match (game parts, socks), vacuum, clean. Older kids learn to fix things, fold clothes properly, hang things in the closet, check food for expiration dates.
2. Cleaning makes kids take responsibility for their own space, which in turn makes them more independent and proud of their achievements.
3. It teaches kids that they are a part of the family, and therefore have a responsibility towards the family. My children use the entire house and therefore need to tidy common areas as well as their own room.
4. Cleaning together encourages cooperation and teamwork. It also requires negotiation and conflict resolution, all important skills.
5. Cleaning teaches compassion and social responsibility. We all had trouble parting with some things, be it a favorite stuffed animal or a beloved-yet-outgrown book. Saying goodbye to these items was hard. But we knew that by passing them on someone else would enjoy them, be it a person we care about or a stranger. Putting a toy in a pile directed to “kids who have no toys” made my kids feel good about parting with toys they no longer needed.
6. Getting rid of things teaches kids that material items are not important, and that stuff is replaceable.

My children actually like the Big Cleanup. This year they wanted to start organizing the house even before the school year ended, and I had to convince them to take a couple of days off to relax first. When I asked what they like about it, my seven-year-old told me he always looks forward to finding lost toys or lost pieces of games. My twelve-year-old said that she likes the way a tidy room (and house) feels. My fourteen-year-old, it turns out, enjoys going over my clothes and seeing what she could pilfer.

It took a bit over two weeks, but our Big Cleanup of the year is finally over. To celebrate our accomplishment we went to the movies. “Finding Dory” was fun, as was eating a huge bucket of popcorn.

Material things are disposable. Shared experiences are forever!

No Time to Sew: The Big Cleanup

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, the end of the school year marks the end of my sewing season. It doesn’t mark the end of work, though. In fact, I find summer to be a great time to catch up on many otherwise-neglected projects.

My creative work process seems to require a mess. Despite my many efforts to rearrange and clean up my studio (see the posts My Work Space (aka "studio") and Finally organized! from a few months ago), I just can’t seem to keep my work space tidy. It takes hours (days!) to put everything away, but then, when I start new projects, items just naturally find their way out again. Different-colored thread spools start accumulating near my machine. Fabrics in different stages of cutting and sewing sort themselves into different piles on the bed or carpet, each waiting for the next stage. Metal hardware boxes lie open, waiting to be incorporated into bags. And on it goes. Here, for example, is a recent photo of my sewing table:

But the truth is that in order to feel at peace and be able to concentrate, I actually need my surroundings to be reasonably tidy. By “my surroundings” I mean my house, an almost impossible goal with three kids as roommates.

Hence, a few years ago we started a new summer-vacation tradition: “The Big Cleanup.” The Big Cleanup is just what it sounds like: a thorough cleaning/organizing/rearranging of every single room in the house.

This is how it works: after the last day of school the kids and I give ourselves a couple of days to unwind and relax. We make no plans and set no rules. Everyone has time to do whatever they want to do, be it stay in pajamas all day, read on the sofa uninterrupted, or disappear behind a screen. Then we start working. We work every day for about two weeks, taking breaks for snacks, meals and the occasional rest. We set reasonable daily goals, and bribe ourselves with fun things to do in the afternoons (if we finish everything on time). The actual work is long and tedious. We get cranky, we have difficulty parting with some things, we fight, we grumble. But when the day’s work is done everyone feels great (or at least I do). The room we just worked on looks nice. The drawers and cabinets are all clean and tidy. We feel like we really earned that relaxed stroll downtown, or that tasty ice cream, or the coffee-house visit with its drinks and cakes:

And when the Big Cleanup is all over we celebrate by doing something fun together, which makes us forget the ordeal we endured over the last couple of weeks.

A Little Late but DONE!

Despite all my good intentions, I was unable to finish my mother-in-law’s purse before the school year ended. Some of the distractions I should have anticipated: Voting Day fell right on that last week of school, and reading through the voting materials and filling out the forms took some time. Helping with the parent-part of the eighth-grade middle-school graduation ceremony also required some attention. There were a couple of primary school rituals I just HAD to attend, and I also had to shop for and drive to three different end-of-year parties. Then there were the unanticipated obstacles: my four-year-new washing machine chose to break down right at that time (of course!), leaving me with piles of unwashed clothes. This required two different technician visits (one to diagnose the problem, the second to change the broken part), and left me with two-weeks-worth of laundry that had to be done all at once, and which took hours to do. In the end, I had a lot less time for sewing than I expected. Still, I managed to at least start that green-and-yellow summer purse before school was out.

As Expected, the first few days of summer were busy. But today my husband’s company had a “Take Kids to Work Day,” which gave me just the break I needed to finish my own project. I hope my mother in law likes it!

One Last Sewing Project Before Summer

In three days the school year will be over, and my sewing season will come to an end. I am looking forward to spending relaxing summer days with my children, lounging around in pajamas until mid-morning, eating breakfast late and not having to live by the clock, to rush and be rushed constantly. I’ve lived through enough summers to know to expect the occasional squabbles and the many “I’m bored” complaints, but overall I feel like we could all use a break. Knowing my kids, I am quite sure that I will not be able to get even close to my sewing machine all summer long, not to mention to actually work on a sewing project.

But in the three days I still have left, there is one thing I need to finish: a gift for my mother in law. A while back she asked for a summer purse, and I promised to make her one. I haven’t had time for this so far, and will therefore need to act fast. The next couple of days will be dedicated to this one last project of the year!

My mother in law LOVES sunflowers. In the summer, she goes to the farmers’ market every Saturday, and buys a huge bouquet of sunflowers, which she then places in a prominent location right at the entrance to her house. Whenever I see sunflowers I think of her.

Miraculously, I found a fabric that had sunflowers on it. I bought it for the lining of her bag, and selected the outside fabrics to match it:

I will do my very best to finish this purse before the last bell of the school year rings!

Inspiration: A Quiet Place in the Galilee

On my family’s recent visit to Israel we spent a couple of days relaxing in a beautiful, quiet zimmer (guest house) in the Galilee. The guest house, Hemdatya (http://www.hemdatya.co.il/english/index.html), is located in Ilaniya, the first Jewish agricultural settlement in the Galilee, which was established in 1900 (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilaniya).

The guest rooms are converted old structures, which were part of a farmhouse complex built at the beginning of the previous century. They were lovingly restored with much attention to detail and with attention to sound ecological practices. The resulting accommodations are fully up to modern standards, yet keep the old atmosphere intact. The place is a truly magical sanctuary where three generations of my family were able to relax together.

I arrived in Israel with a suitcase-full of handmade gifts for all members of my family. These gifts looked very much in place in everyone’s respective rooms in the Galilee.

This is the laptop bag I made for my sister, set on the beautifully-painted tiles of the floor in her room:

For my mom, I made a purse with a matching cell-phone case, both of which looked great on the old, roughly-woven stool we found in my parents’ room:

And the handmade i-pad cover I made for my father looked nice on the wooden counter:

The courtyard we all shared was covered with wild, tall and gorgeous annuals, in many different shades of pink:

Each room had a little patio or terrace outside, where we enjoyed a glass of local wine when relaxing in the evenings. This, for example, is the grapevine-covered patio outside my parents’ room:

The floor in their room, my dad said, had the same pattern his grandfather's house featured in Jerusalem at the turn of the previous century. The mud-covered walls and restored fireplace added nice details:

I liked many of the little touches and special decor throughout the complex:

And the furniture, too:

And as for the amazing breakfasts, made from locally-grown vegetables (some from Hemdatya’s very own vegetable garden!) and which included super-fresh cheeses made from milk collected from the owner’s own goats, well, let’s just say that I am sure to fantasize about THOSE for many months to come...

The Scrap Project: Bookmarks!

I admit to being slightly obsessed with recycling, reusing and repurposing. I just can’t help it--discarding things that still have some use in them makes me feel really bad… This might be blamed on genes (dad, you know what I'm talking about!), or just on the sad state of our over-materialistic, over-consuming society (of which I am very much a part). No matter the reason, there it is.

I already found several uses for some of my bigger scraps, and also for some of my narrower scraps of soft fabrics. But I also have many very narrow scraps of thicker upholstery fabrics that just couldn’t be folded and ironed and made into button loops.

Some of these I reluctantly threw. Others I piled up in my scrap box, hoping to use eventually. And then, one day, I got an idea: bookmarks!

We are all avid readers in my family. Even my first-grader is starting to spend more and more time with books. And we all need LOTS of bookmarks.

It’s a win win!!