Split Peas and Rotary Cutters

I will start today with a non-craft scenario: 

I spent two hours cooking split pea soup from scratch (never made it before, in my defense) because it is really cold outside and the kids are home from school. The soup had good flavor and texture (Although I can completely see why this made a good prop in The Exorcist) and we, the adults of the house, happily ate it with crusty bread. 

"Yummy, right?"

One child ate more than half of hers but later said, “I just want you to know that I didn’t really care for this and I only ate it because it was my lunch.” 

The next child ate the crumbles of bacon on top, and then took a bite with her hand clamped over her nostrils, declaring, “This tastes like vomit!”  Precious angel!

The final child dipped bites of the crusty bread into the soup and ate them, but would not have a bite sans bread. She had no words, just a sad look on her face as she shook her head no. Her expression said: “If you loved me, you never would have made this.” 

My question is, what would you have done when they all looked up after the table was cleared and said, “Can we have dessert?” 

I showed great restraint and just ignored them. 

After lunch, we moved into the craft room to start cutting out our pillowcase fabrics. There was some adjustment of fabric choices, scrapping of original designs and re-working of patterns. They had to overcome the hurdle of inexperience, but each fabric cut was straighter than the last. 

By no means will any of then be set free with a rotary cutter any time soon, but at least they graduated from waving the blade (opened) in the air for emphasis to opening it only after it was on the cutting mat. They also discovered that it takes more than three steps to make a pillowcase. 

There was a lot of discussion over fabric choices once they actually laid the pieces out and mocked up the final pillowcases. 

“Oh, that’s what it will look like? I don’t like it,” said the youngest. She decided to make the body of the pillowcase all one fabric instead of giving it a border of quilted squares. Make no mistake, she still LOOOOOOVES the way all the “beautiful” fabrics will look in a checkerboard pattern on the flange. “They will be perfect with the cow print.” Let’s hope her case finds an eclectic owner.

These will all be going on the cow print case!

The middle child decided to save one of her fabrics for her blanket project next month. “I think the owls and monkeys will be better for a blanket,” she said. “I am just using circles and yellow. It's perfect.”

The oldest was able to handle the rotary cutter the best. She has more strength and a bigger hand (Have I mentioned that she wears a size 8 ½ women’s shoe at age 10?), which really helped her control. She did wonder “why are we making these pillowcases so big?” A great chance to explain seam allowances and how things shrink as you sew each seam.

We were ready for a break right around the time we finished cutting out the last bit for the project. (Really, really ready for a break!) Now it’s movie time. Love this lazy day!

Piles of pillowcase fabrics, ready to sew!