A Mid-Month Friday...

Little House on The Prairie, week 3 getting ready to start. The weather outside has calmed down a bit, on the heat index side at least, though we did get slammed Sunday with some storm cells coming through.  That adds to the usual list of tasks here some tree work. We had several come down, but quite a few merely laid into their tree neighbor, which poses a problem in the pasture with goats interested in finding upper level leafy goodness. I won't complain about the torrents of rain, though, because it's been a miserable season of drought around here.

The sewing list is moving along. Dresses, night clothes and underthings, aprons, shirts, pants...I don't have my count listed, guess I should check it out. I know I'm pretty much done with at least one child's full winter needs, aside from a few odds and ends that I may or may not get to. These camisoles were the last of her needs...

 I have a sweater pattern I'd like to work up. I am hoping to work the sizing a little larger, as it only goes up to an 8 child. There are a couple others I like, like this one and this one, in x-small adult. There are some vest patterns I would like to maybe work on (I could so easily adapt this one). So many ideas...
Other crocheting...I've finished the longies from that new baby pattern book. I like them...and I don't. They seem very zoot suit like to me, bowed, funky, etc. I don't know. I suppose once actually ON a baby they might not be so bad. The sweater I was planning on didn't pan out. I just couldn't get into the pattern.  I have tons of them and just couldn't get into any of them so far. Guess I'll go back to my old trusty pattern instead and skip working anything 'new and improved'.

This momma had a come-apart this week. I'm talking full-blown, gut the house from wall to wall, cleaning and purging, no survivors kind of come-apart. I'm tired of feeling like we are living in the barn instead of the house here. We started in the bedrooms, taking apart beds, pulling mattresses, moving every stick of furniture out and scrubbing wall to wall, floor to ceiling, and filling garbage bags. No, I didn't even sort things to keep for recycling, I just closed my eyes and purged fast. I'm a pack rat. The 'quick grab with eyes closed' type of purge is all that works for me. I rationalize keeping too many things any other way.
After bedrooms, we attacked the great room. Quite the mess piled around isn't it? Behind me is the mountains of laundry. It was simply too shameful to show that part.

The living and dining room spaces in the great room were flopped around, book shelves moved, couch and table, television and so forth. Except the piano, if it moved, we attacked it.   The end result as of yesterday was this...

I'm standing at the loveseat. We created a sort of reading nook in the front area. Behind me is now the dining table, and on the other side of that, the couch. It actually faces my sewing area, which I didn't move around at all.  Probably will, but for now, it's fine. No one around here cares much, and honestly, sewing needs trump any television watching, so it's hardly a conflict of interest :-)  And the reorganized book shelves look so pretty. I didn't go full out on organizing, just set the teacher books together so we could grab and go. I may refine the shelving a bit more later, but for now, it'll work better than the chaos we had.
We also washed windows and put up some autumn leaf window clings we grabbed at Dollar Tree. Between those and the leaf doilies and construction paper we still have to work with I think we can get some pretties set up and get the feel of a cooler autumn around here. Any great craft ideas I may have missed? I can always use some new ideas for projects the littles can work on.

And during the purge I came across this...ain't he just the sweetest thing? Kinda cute little baby boy too, heh? This was nearly 13 years ago, Matthew is the baby. Gee, I have such cute men around here. Gpo ahead...you can agree with me.