My Other Prairie Skills

If you read this blog all the time — bless you! — you may have noticed some spotty posting over the past couple of weeks. That is because October has been (as it typically is) a very busy month for us. In addition to all the kids' extracurricular activities, harvesting, and winter garden prepping going on this month, I've been investing time in some other domestic skills:

First up: sewing. In the photo above, I am slip-stiching a hem by hand. Most of this dress was made on my new machine, but it also involved a fair amount of hand-finishing around the cuffs and collar. This bout of dressmaking was in service of (what else?) Halloween. After about a week of work, here's the finished product:

This is Tiegan's "Kirsten" costume. (Kirsten is an 1800s prairie girl from the American Girl series. I prefer to think of her as Laura Ingalls Wilder.) The photo above was from the final fitting of the dress, which I did most of (although Tiegan worked on sewing the skirt panels together). I didn't make all of her costume, though. 

Tiegan made the apron by herself. The photo above is just before a Halloween party last weekend, and this is the costume in all its glory. She has a bonnet hanging down her back, too, but it's hard to see. I think Tiegan enjoyed this project, and she seems interested in continuing to sew. Maybe we'll be making everyday clothes next.

Sewing wasn't the only major project on the books during October. 

We finally finished the first half of our kitchen remodel! Most of the skills on display here are Kirk's: laying tile, woodworking, building walls, etc. My contribution to this scene is mostly mudding and taping the drywall, and painting it yellow. Oh, and we split credit for the design, I think.

Where I do finally shine, though, is in the organization of the kitchen cabinets. This is my major skill in life, I think. Everything else that I'm good at ultimately derives from the basic starting point of organizing ideas, materials, and process. Behold:

The cleaning closet.

The pantry closet. This photo doesn't quite do justice to the the organization of each pull-out drawer by food type, complete with bins and dividers chosen for the purpose.

The silverware drawer.

The tupperware drawer.

Seriously, that last one is a pretty major quality of life improvement. I could keep posting pictures of every drawer, because I love them, but you might not be quite as organizationally-fixated as I am. 

Last but not least, we've spent a ton of time this month watching the Red Sox postseason games. For me, this means every pitch — and not very much sleep. But, with coffee and a theme song, it's all been doable. 

But that doesn't mean I'm not totally looking forward to that extra hour of sleep when we switch the clocks this weekend!