Made by Monday - For the kids

Sage started first grade today. I think I'm really going to enjoy McKenna's naptime now when I can sew to my heart's content and get back to focusing on kokoleo. This summer my focus was on the kids, and while we had a lot of fun, those two are exhausting. I kept reminding myself to enjoy the moment - pretty soon I'll be back in the workaday world and we'll all be on tight schedules and I'll long to have those lazy summer days again (minus, of course, all the screaming, whining, and mess-making).

Sometime around the beginning of the summer, Sage came in to my studio and saw some monsters I was working on and said, "Wow, can I have one of those? " I told him no, they were for a shop. When I saw the dejected look on his face I told him that instead, he could have one of my biggest and most expensive monsters (that I had had for almost a year and never sold).

In this economy who can afford $55 dollar stuffed monsters anyway? I'll tell you who - I can! And I didn't have to spend a dime on them either. I let Sage choose which one he wanted and gave McKenna the other one. The fact that they own matching monsters made with love by their mom is worth way more than the $110 I would have made off them someday anyway.

Then I thought, why was I working so hard making stuff for other people's kids while my own wear hand-me-downs and thrift store stuff? So I raided my kokoleo drawers and gave them things that if I saw in a store I'd want them to have (but couldn't afford). I can! Suddenly, some of the things I made and no one wanted now fit my kids, and they want them! It's like going shopping in my own home.

This week, I spent some time sprucing up some of their well-loved items. Sage's poor "Blanken" went in for surgery (note the hole in the middle):

And came out shining:

McKenna got some pants revamped, like the ones above, and these (to hide the dirty knees):

It's not that I don't want to make things for other people anymore, I do. My kids have enough kokoleo stuff now anyway, so I can get back to restocking the shop. Mark my words: September will be the month I upload my new and improved web site, complete with lots of inventory I've been stockpiling this summer. After a few months hiatus, I'm excited to get back in the swing (sewing?) of kokoleo again.