Stella and Marina summer 2016

All our grandchildren are super fun and enthusiastically enjoy camping and hiking with us.  But our grandsons and granddaughters are very different in some noticeable ways.

Although Marina and Stella can be very “rough and tough”, they are also very “girly.“ They are very like me, Vicky, in this way.  Stella and Marina and I love to look at pretty things, chat together about this flower and that hairstyle or earring....just anything pretty.  And we also get great happiness in spending hours doing any kind of craft.  Our grandsons just aren’t interested in these things.  Viva La difference!

Dan and I get to see our granddaughters in the spring, when we get home from our roadtrips, and before they leave for summer vacation.  So in the spring I get to be a girl again with our granddaughters and do craft projects with them.  Dan has two very important jobs to do.  He gets to be the Visa Card and pay for our craft projects and most importantly, Dan HAS to admire every little thing that Marina and Stella complete and show him!

In the past we have provided Marina and Stella with jewelry-making supplies, and I have been teaching them how to bead and make jewelry, including earrings, bracelets, and necklaces.  

I taught myself how to sew when I was eleven years old, on an old Singer machine that my mother had and my mother and none of my three sisters (or two brothers) ever used. So this old sewing machine became one of my good friends.  

I spent hours altering my sister’s hand-me-downs so they would fit me, as I was the smallest girl in my family (With six kids in my family, the only new clothes we got in the 1950’s and 60’s was a “first day of school outfit”).  I also made every dress I wore to my high school dances.  They were all “originals” that I designed.  I loved making my own clothes.

Last spring I taught Marina and Stella some basic sewing, and they both made a bag with a draw string.  Marina is 11 and Stella is now 8 years old.  Since Marina is the same age I was when I started to sew, I decided that she would be capable to completing an “outfit." Stella is still a little too young for a complicated sewing project that would take several months to complete.

Dan and I took Marina to the fabric store and we bought her everything she needed for her “sewing kit."  Then Marina picked out a pattern, fabric, buttons, and her thread.  Once a week Marina came to our home and worked on her dress.  Stella often came along and made jewelry, assorted crafts, and sewed the pillow cases and curtains for our Grandchildren’s Room.

Marina learning how to read a pattern, lay down and pin the pattern to her fabric, and cut out the pieces for her dress:

 

This took several weeks. At one point while she was ironing her seams open, she mentioned that most of sewing was not actual sewing, but all the steps getting ready to sew.  A very astute observation!  She was not complaining, just noticing how much more than sewing is involved in making an outfit.

Marina quickly progressed from me helping her to sew a straight line to sewing by herself:

 

Grandpa doing his job, admiring Marina’s dress:

 

The completed dress.  Beautiful!

 

Stella showed an interest in playing the piano, so Dan bought her a beginner piano book and taught her how to read the notes and play a few songs:

Stella showing Grandpa the wooden birdhouse and mobile that she painted and glued together:

 

Curtains that Stella made for their room in our home:

One of the really cool things about living on Whidbey Island is the Island County Fair.  The children living on the island can enter not only the animals they have raised during the year, but can also enter all the projects and artwork they have done during the year.

Marina and Stella entered all the things they made with us this spring in the Fair.  You should have seen all the blue ribbons they were awarded!

Near the end of the summer we got to see Marina and Stella one last time before we headed out on Roadtrip 6.  It was a hot day and we had a wonderful day swimming at Goss Lake!

We will sure miss all our grandchildren while we are on our next roadtrip, but before we know it we will be playing with them again.