Family

So I think we are settled on letting our extended families know that I have a blog. Just wanted to say a few things to all who read this and actually may see me on holiday.
Yes I do know that you probably read through my craziest blogs. No, I dont really want to break it down at all, or discuss it. Surely I have forgotten what I posted 4 wednesdays ago. Yes I do want you to read it and see what we are doing, yes I am sorry for posting so sporadically. No I dont spell check and yes I do have run ons on purpose. They amuse me. I do know how to write, matter of fact I am decent at it. But this isnt school so bear with me!
Yes I am interested in your blogs if you have them, if not, please get on that. I DO want to know what you are doing and yes we are going to be in the military forever and will probably live in weird far away places that cost 2 months pay to fly to. And then you have to consider the 2 mo pay to get back... And I know you dont want to live with me, I am overly organizational and usually a neat freak! But then who wouldnt be, my husband puts his laundry NEXT to the hamper and thinks that the robe he wore for 10 min a morning 4 mornings in a row IS worthy of the hamper.
Just kidding, he is great and I know a lot of you who are related to him somehow are interested in what he is doing. He is fixing our house, playing with our children, helping me with my work (the man can sew!), fixing the car(s), pipe dreaming about extra work in the house, studying for school, getting ready to go to warrant officer school, listening to me...
I will put pictures of homeschool stuff, house and car stuff, and updates on my business. I hope that you all have some insight on this life that I love!

Drywalling

These are pictures of our bathroom in progress. Frank is finishing up the drywalling here. It looks good except for the pink! Both the tiles and walls in this bathroom were pink. We are not settled on how to redo the floor yet in a simple/inexpensive way. We redid this bathroom in order to have space for a stairway to the attic. We made a room the entire length of the attic, we didnt finish drywalling up there but its servicable. The attic is where my work things are stored, fabric and inventory mostly. The stairway is where the master bath was. And on the other side of the master bath was a very large closet which we took part of for the bathtub/shower. So now their is a new wall in the closet and the bathroom! We did all the work, though Frank has done more than I by far. Today he finished the hall ceiling where the pull down ladder used to be for the attic.

We hope that the attic and redone bathroom will attract buyers. We also tiled the kitchen and put wood laminant throughout the living room and hall. There is a very nice new dishwasher and we have had work done on the heating and cooling unit. We plan to list soon, a lot of mudding and painting for me to do first!

These are all bathroom pictures, sink is gone because the pc of drywall needed to go behind it.

Homeschool

Okay so here is why I homeschool! Not just because I like them, but because they have a chance at real life experience. Not many kids get to learn their parents trade. My kids help with drywalling, they know what tools to get for daddy, how to unlock the shed to get the tools. My son knows where to get them from in the tool chest! Even I don't know that... They know how engines work- in part. They can both sew, and now Tad can make inserts for the diapers on the serger. I have an attic full of fabric bales and bins now, we organized yesterday. My children can stock bins, pick fabric by style i.e., go get some flannel print in a girl color. Nathalie will bring down as many choices as she can carry. Tad knows the difference in hemp fleece and cotton fleece, by the weight, the feel of the fabric.

I learned long ago that I sew not only because I know how but because I listen. I know thats crazy, but this is my blog thus my crazy spot. I hear fabric, I dont just feel it. I can listen to it, know how to pull and push it, when to let the machine take it so it doesnt get too stretched out. I cant teach someone to listen, I can only hope they hear. As children, we all heard. My children do hear, I dont have to explain it. I try and they can tell me what I mean, what I am trying to say. They understand, dont worry mommy. I know what you mean.

This is my greatest advocacy for homeschool. My children understand herbs from nikki, nursing from nana, cars and houses from daddy, sewing from mommy. And they can read, write, do arithmatic and know who hitler was. And who American Indians are, and how many continents there are, and the order of the planets in the solar system, and why the moon follows us at night...

Stocking!

We are still working on stocking the website! I know it seems like it wouldnt be hard, but for me the sewing can be time consuming. For Nikki of Kat's Naturals, she is still researching. We have have some wonderful products, but they do take research. As with all things, we have to use them ourselves and give samples to local customers and obtain feedback. Some things such as laundry detergent and wipe spray have been used by us for some time. We love these products and they work great! But every product takes tweaking and time. Some of the things that we have made and ready to go still need some research.

As for time, I have this thing called kids... They seem to need and like me! I am pleased that they like me and love that they need me. My son is walking in a circle behind me right now talking about something concerning going into the snow without clothes. Something about how he would survive through any temperature! They provide me with humor often. They are time consuming though, especially because they are homeschooled. While it takes them less time to complete the task, it takes me time that would otherwise be free. I wouldnt give up this job for the world, but its why stocking is slow!

Then I have a husband, I like him to! We do spend as much time together as possible since he is going to a military school for about 6 monthes and he leaves in november. I will miss him and would rather be with him than stocking some evenings. I feel like I will have much time to fill during that 6 monthes and can get lots of stocking done.

I did get some done today, small all in ones will be well stocked as soon as I get pictures up. I think we are good for pockets with most sizes and medium all in ones are getting there. Large all in ones and newborns in all in ones and pockets are lacking. Large is my best seller and nb is my lowest. Pull ups look good right now and I have lowered the price on those. Pockets will have to go up, I cant keep them this low anymore. I am really losing on those!

Lots of 2nd quality pads coming up, I am practicing with the serger and am getting better. However, I have some cut outs from my old pattern which was too curvy to serge. I am serging them anyways, but they are not great! I have 3 sets on auction and some in the store right now. More updates later!

Set of pads on ebay auction!

Work work work!

A piece of our day! The daddy is drywalling, Tad is serging inserts and Nathalie is thinking of napping after we read her new books. She is sporting her new wooly pants that I made and lasts years dress. The dress that I mastered arm cuffs on!

Tad is wearing the long sleeve camo shirt I made, along with his new pants that he helped cut and pin. These pants total 16 pcs when cut out, a topstitching masterpiece!

I made a lot of headway on mama pads today. I have a large pile of pad tops that were cut out before I bought the serger. I was using a machine interlock stitch then. I use the serger now, but the pattern had to be larger and slightly less curvy so now I have all of these leftover tops! I can serge them but they are tough around the curves so they are all 2nds. I am and will continue listing them on ebay auctions and as pkg deals on my website. I need to move them out for the new pattern!

Hidden Smile

These are pictures I took of my God daughter. Nikki and I were sewing, making winter clothes for her 4 and my 2. Faith is wearing a new wool interlock dress and wanted something to wear on her head, Nikki wrapped her head in a piece of marroon fabric. Her eyes are stunning showing through the space, and yet you cannot see the child that she is through it, her smile is all but lost here. I do not mean for these pictures to be offensive to those of a religion that requires such attire, I was simply stunned by how different she was with a simple head wrap.

Finally a post...

So much to say! One of my best friends in Cali posts to her blog regularly. I know she has no more time than I do. She has a house similarly sized, 2 children just like me and a cloth diapers business. Her store is more full than mine and her blog is wicked amazing! I love going and reading it and I cant read fast enough. She has posts I have never read... I should post more, there are people who ask me to so that they can apprise themselves of my going ons and yet here I sit acting busy!

--This was my morning job before we started school.

I am putting up some pictures from this mornings work, the kids helped me with this by sorting fabric into piles of tops and waterproof bottoms and then Tad can now pick which pcs are wide enough for pads and which bits have to be piled up for mini wet bags and pad soakers. So I cut out while they sort and hand me pcs. Now we have small piles of mini, regular and super cuts for tops and bottoms and a small pile of soakers. The leftover waterproof pcs will be cut into squares for mini pad bags and the pcs of micro/flannel that are long enough for soaker tops will be used for that instead of being cut into pad soakers. I need an avg of 8 inches wide to make a pad top/bottom because of the wings.

I have recently learned to serge my pads, they were taking so much of my time on the machine. I was using a machine interlock stitch that looked similar to a serge stitch but I can serge 7 in the time it took to sew 1. I dont want to stitch and turn pads as then they have a bulky seam all around the edges which does show through well fitting pants-quite embarrassing! I am serging them, yet I am not great at it! We are going to have a huge pads seconds sale on my website. All prices will be slashed on pads to sell out the ones made on the machine and the prices will stay low while I become more practiced at serging so look out for pkg sales on my site!

In other news, I think I may have found an employee! A local mom from my home school group spent Friday with us learning about what I do. She did some cutting and I learned that I was correct in thinking she pays attention to detail. She learns fast, I think it helps that she already knows how to sew. I am looking forward to working with her again on Friday, I think she will be great for this business. I am including a picture of what we are working on Friday, this table is filled by pad cuts and that was just this morning. This bin is full of scraps that must be cut into pads. Also is a picture of my trash pile, that pile would include all on my table and all in that bin if I didn't make pads and mini bags! The poor earth is already too full of trash, I am glad that I can find a way to use these pcs.

This is about 6 wks of scraps- leftover pcs from diaper and pull up cutting!

My friend in California has also found a good use for her larger scraps, she sends them to me! We are exchanging this wk, she is sending her large piles of usable scraps and I am sending her some windpro that I was able to obtain on sale. Malden Mills had a huge sale on fabric before they stopped selling wholesale, thanks to my mom I was able to buy a pretty large quantity. My friend Amanda also buys in wholesale, but neither of us can afford all we would like so we use a trade system to share the colors! She will be putting out some great diapers and covers in oat colored heavy weight windpro and I will have extra cutting for Angela and some really cute pads for some of you! Thanks Amanda for a great trade...

I have more to post later, made some really cute winter clothes for the kids which they kindly modeled.