Today has been all about Columbia, and I mean ALL about Columbia!! I have lost some serious Mummy points and am currently rating pretty highly in the odds for ‘Bad-Mummy of the Year’ awards, more of that later but first Columbia…
So following our recent clothing request to help the Wayuu community at La Guajira, Columbia, today I finally found the time and space at the Hive to start putting the request together for 32 girls and 31 boys ranging from 6 months to 15 years old.
I am delighted to report that the vast majority of the required items were available in our stock boxes, and for that, I would like to sincerely thank our wonderful sewing bees for your continued support and creativity as this takes soooo much pressure off when these requests come in.
For the few items that we didn’t have in stock, I put out my famous 🌟🌟🌟🌟SHOUTOUT 🌟🌟🌟🌟 (which is actually a thinly veiled translation of me quietly panicking at the Hive, quite why I panic so much I’m not sure as the amazing bees NEVER let me down, anyway I digress, on with the story), immediately following my 🌟🌟🌟🌟SHOUTOUT🌟🌟🌟🌟 the messages started pinging back in to inform me of the imminent delivery of 3 pairs of age 12 shorts, then 12 pairs of shorts of various sizes, then 6 dresses age 11-12yrs, then 6 girls tops….I am constantly overwhelmed by the wonderful women who make up the Rags to Riches team, honestly, you wouldn’t believe how many happy tears I shed due to the total amazingness of our busy bees!
So, as always I try to hold back some of our request for myself to make as it means I actually get to dust off my sewing machine and get creative. This time one of the ranges I had decided was to be my contribution was the 3 x 13-15yr old girls.
To set the scene, let me tell you that some time ago, Sally, had made some lovely tops for this age range as we are always trying to add tops to our Rida* skirts range (Rida* skirts are a whole other chapter to discuss), so I plucked the said tops out of the relevant stock box and set to finding some Rida* to match the colour scheme…it didn’t take long to find some beautiful Rida of complimentary colour-ways awaiting transformation and my creativity and OCD reached a whole new level!!
The Rida were cut down to create calf-length skirts for the 13-15yr olds and with the off-cuts, I decided that it would be nice to add a pocket to Sally’s lovely tops to enhance the overall outfit. Then another brainwave hit…these are 13-15yr old girls…they would benefit from our Angel Wings© kits (for those that don’t know Angel Wings© are our reusable sanitary wear) and so with the rest of the offcuts from the Rida I decided to make the girls a matching Angel Wings© pouch (as I said my OCD was on overdrive). At that moment I realised that my phone had blipped up that I had four missed calls….oops! I checked my phone….my son!!! Not one missed call from him, but FOUR!
My fixation on Columbia was such that I had lost all track of time….and I’d totally forgotten to pick him up from school, AND such was my fixation on the Columbia request that my phone was still on silent from the preceding night! oh dear…serious shoulder slump as I take my place up high on the podium for baaaaad Mummies!!
Luckily my son is 17 and not 7 years old and is very conversant with the Careem (other Taxi firms are available) app on his phone and when I sheepishly called him back he informed me that he was indeed in the aforementioned taxi….obviously I quickly tried to redeem myself by promising Lasagna for dinner…yadda-yadda, grovel-grovel.
Anyway, despite my dreadful parenting, I would like to say that my up-cycling has come on leaps & bounds and I made 3 lovely skirts and put a little finishing touch to Sally’s tops AND created 3 matching Angel Wings© pouches, just look at the photos…and that last photo shows the tiny scraps left over from the original Rida, now surely that’s some way to a full redemption!
Best wishes and huge thanks for your continued kindness and support,
Ceri ❤️🐝❤️ (Baaaaad Mummy but great recycler)
