Moving. Rearranging. Sewing.

For awhile now my husband and I have been talking about moving our youngest son into the room with his older brothers. Mostly we felt like they should all be together, especially since there's such a gap between my middle son and youngest. 

So this weekend I decided it would probably be a good idea to move his crib in there so he could get used to being in there before we switched him over to the toddler bed I made him. All day Saturday I spent moving his stuff into the boys room, all the boys' toys into my sewing room, and all my sewing stuff into the former nursery. Boy, that took forever. I didn't realize how much sewing junk I had until I had to make fifty bazillion trips from one end of the house to the other. 

But the result is that the boys are really excited to have him in their room. I am really excited to have my sewing room be the room with the best lighting (and air conditioning that works--our back room is not insulated) and it's SO AWESOME to have all the boys legos and toys in one specific area rather than all over the place. Everything feels so much cleaner! We'll see how long that lasts, though. Ha.

Anyway, with the "new" sewing area in place, I've been super inspired to sew. What am I making? Pillowcase dresses!

These are going to be for the little orphans in Siteki, Swaziland. Our church tries to do whatever we can to help them, whether with money for food or supplies, and simple dresses and shorts for the orphans are what we're working on now. I've never tried these before (three boys, remember?) but they are so satisfying. I didn't use a pattern or tutorial, I just forced my boys to try them on in different sizes to get a good template (evil grin) and went to work. 

The girls in the hospital/orphanage range are between 3 and 5 years old so I've been making them similar in size. The first one I made with just the ribbon through the casing, the second two I made with with bias tape over the armholes extending up as ties. 

I've got fabric laid out for at least 4 or 5 more. I'm pretty excited about this. Ever since I made quilts for the orphans and grandmas taking care of them I've been hoping for another project to help them out, so this is perfect.

Also, I had a ton of fabric my mom had given me that used to be Guatemalan skirts, and I never knew quite what to do with it. But it's the perfect weight and pattern for shorts for the orphan boys! So Sunday I cut into that and got about six pairs of shorts out of it. Yay! It makes me happy to know that I can make something so necessary and useful out of things I already have.