10 Cents and a 1/2 Hour

My girls have been asking me to get out the fall/winter clothes for a couple of weeks. Well, I finally decided that since it wasn't going to be in the 80's again, we would start going through the boxes.

I was pleased to find that almost everyone had enough in their needed size to outfit them for fall/winter. My son needed pajamas, but I was able to get some at the consignment shop and even was able to pay for them with my credit. My second oldest is in need of some shirts, but has enough to get her through until we find some. My 5 year-old was another story.

This girl some how is attracted to a special kind of dirt that doesn't like to come out of clothes. I can wash everyone else's clothes that are covered in dirt and it will come out, but her clothes remained stained no matter how many different types of stain removal I use.

In fact, I ended up getting rid of 5 of her skirts and 7 shirts (I had more shirts for her because of the staining problems)! Considering we only keep 7 casual outfits per person, that is a large percentage of her clothes! Two of the skirts were skirts I made for her at the beginning of spring. (edited to add--only 2 nights after she got out the fall/winter clothes, she came to me with a large hole in one of her pajamas! Praise God that we have more pajamas in her size waiting in the tote!).

After going through the tote filled with her size clothing, she only had 4 outfits. We decided that a couple of outfits could be passed down from an older sister so that left her in need of only 1 more outfit. While I am sure I could get her a skirt using credit at the consignment store, I also knew that I have two 5 shelf bookshelves filled with material so I might as well make her one. She had about a dozen shirts in her size that didn't match anything else and weren't stained so I just looked for material that would match a couple of those shirts. I figured I might as well go with a heavy-duty material to withstand her abuse. I found a brown corduroy with just enough to make a skirt for her. In about a 1/2 hour, I had it cut and sewn.

We have been blessed by a number of people who have given us fabric to use. In fact, I haven't had to purchase material in at least 3 years! In addition, the elastic I used for this skirt was part of a large bag of new elastic that I purchased at the thrift store for only $2 and the thread was also given to us. My guess is that this skirt cost me about $ .10 and less than a 1/2 hour of my time!

I might get ambitious and try my hand at some shirts for my second oldest, but shirts take a bit longer to make so we'll see how much extra time I have. I do have lots of sewing ideas in the works for Christmas gifts already.

I would love to hear about any sewing projects you have done recently, are in the middle of completing, or are planning on doing!