Project Mom

As I might have noted in earlier posts, crafts have never been my thing.  All of my grade school projects were well researched, had great supportive evidence and thinking and looked like they were assembled by a drunk monkey.  Fortunately, throughout my academic career, my work ethic and charm caused my teachers to overlook the fact that I couldn't sketch, paint or model. In college, I should have taken an elective art class, but I was so focused on my GPA, that I was unwilling to take the risk of a bad grade in an effort to learn how to draw an appropriately proportioned face.  Then I had children, and realized that my lack of natural craftiness could be a real handicap in my parenting life.  And of course it was my good fortune to give birth to children who love arts and crafts.  By love I mean that when we go to Michael's, I walk out with a cart overflowing with paint, sequins and poster board.  We then spend hours making sparkly paintings of people who's bodies are wildly out of proportion with their heads.  This past weekend, I was feeling really ambitious and took the twins on a trip to the fabric store.  After an hour, we left with fabric for a pillow project and fabric for two size 5 girls sundresses.  You can see where this is headed.  I don't own a sewing machine because I don't know how to sew.  I assumed that you can hand stitch both pillows and dresses and that sewing machines are for people who are either in a hurry or very concerned that their stitches all line up in a perfect row.  This was a project so we had plenty of time -- and I was certain that the girls wouldn't get hung up on how perfectly straight my stitches were.  Last night we started the pillow project. Mattie and Ella sat with me of the floor while I cut their fabric and threaded their needles.  I showed them how to make a basic stitch (I believe that is the correct term) along the edge of the fabric.  Ella sat through about four stitches before losing interest and asking me to finish her edge work.  Mattie was much more committed to seeing the project through.  She stitched away, feet pointed in, eyes carefully focused on each stitch.  She lost a little steam after 20 minutes and asked me to finish her pillow.  I finished the stitching and the girls started stuffing. They happy stuffed handfuls of cotton into each pillow, smiling broadly as their projects came to life.  While they stuffed, I tended to my bleeding thumb which I had jabbed as I rushed to get them to the stuffing step.  Did I mention that I'm not naturally crafty?  We finished the pillows and the girls broke out markers and proceeded to draw on and personalize them.  An hour later, they fell asleep with their brightly decorated pastel satin pillows tucked beneath their arms, marker rubbing off on their faces and stitches stretching open.  And while we will never produce finished goods that are worthy of a table at our school's craft fair, they love what we make and I'll take a bloody thumb for that any day.