In my Junior High years (grade 7 and 8) my school principal decided to try out a new method of teaching/learning and used my class for the experiment.  We were his lab rats!

Needless to say I did not learn much in those 2 very crucial years.  (The principal was fired soon after!)

But for all negatives there is a positive and the silver lining here was that my school thought it would be useful for us teens to learn some life skills.

So we were bused one afternoon a week to another school that had facilities to teach us in ‘home ec’ and woodworking.

Home ec (as in home economics) taught us how to cook and sew.

And the woodworking class taught us how to use tools and build things.

I eventually learned what an adjective was and how to do fractions, finished high school and went on to higher learning but those life skills I was taught in grade 7 and 8 have been invaluable.

And well used.

Cooking is something I do on a daily basis with rave reviews from the family.

And I always have a sewing project on the go.

My sewing projects are usually quite basic but I do turn out some good results.  I have sewn a million cushion covers over the years and if you’ve ever been to a fabric store you may understand how fabulous fabrics have a way of following you out the store and inspiring sewing projects.  I recently fell in love with this colourful ‘mod’ fabric,   

and thought the fabric would be the perfect accompaniment to my retro bedside lamps.

Apparently everyone at university is ‘Irish’ and celebrates St Patrick’s Day in a big way so this past March my son requested a pair of ‘celebratory’ pants to be sewn by his obliging Mother.

Three yards of this,                   

Produced these,                      

A big hit with all the St Patty’s Day revellers.

I even got orders for next year!  NOT!

My woodworking skills have been used much less.  Although I did produce my initials in woodworking class and have kept them all these years as a reminder that I can indeed build things,                

Instead I married a man whose building skills far outweigh mine and we decided early in the relationship that I was a better cook/sewer and he was a better builder.

That’s fine by me.

Cheers!

All images via Modmissy