Smocked Bishop Nightie~White Wednesday

Perfect love sometimes does not come until the first grandchild. ~Welsh Proverb                                                                

 And this one is mine–the little bundle of joy who ignited the perfect love I could not have imagined until she was born.

When her brother Robert came along, I felt the same way. Wow!  This is amazing! Then her cousin Alastair was born and  I was carried away with that same overpowering love.  That’s when I realized that the well of love in a grandparent’s heart will never run dry.

I’m sorry to be so gooey and sentimental, but my emotions are pretty intense right now.  I will hold Alastair tomorrow night, I will see Robert Charles tomorrow afternoon and Laurel, who has been here since 9 a.m. for homeschooling and is spending the night, has charmed me since her arrival. The emotions of grandparenthood are deep and yet always close to the surface. Bob and I just shake our heads in amazement at the wonder of grandchildren.

But on to sewing and my White Wednesday post for Faded Charm.  I smocked this white nightgown for Laurel for Christmas. Some time ago, she asked me to make her a nightgown that “goes all the way to the floor.” So this one does.

As I do so often, I resorted to a ready-to-smock. The size 6 broadcloth bishop dress is one size larger than the size 5 she has just grown into, but it is perfectly generous for a gown. Because she is a little small for her age, the dress required a growth tuck to keep her from stepping on the hem, which is trimmed with tatting. Tatting also trims the sleeves.

Smitten as I am with ready-to-smock garments, I do make some changes. In earlier posts, I’ve mentioned that I always replace the utility buttons with mother-of-pearl. But an additional modification is the removal of the label at the neckline which, against tender kindergarten skin, feels stiff and scratchy. But is sewn into the neck binding so removing those stitches would release the pleats. I’ve found that by cutting very close to the binding, the remaining threads can be pulled out with tweezers, leaving no trace of the offending label.

BE MINE smocking plate by Ellen McCarn

Attached to the label is the size tag. I remove that from the label and sew it into a side seam where it is unlikely to cause any irritation.

The smocking plate is Ellen McCarn’s Be Mine, which I have smocked at least 10 times in the past 25 years. Do you do that, use a pattern or plate over and over again? After some searching for a design with hearts–Laurel’s request–I defaulted to a tried and true design, rather than going for something new and different. Maybe if I had more time, I would have sought out a new challenge, but I knew that this plate smocked up quickly. Time has become an increasingly more important consideration for my selection of projects and patterns.

It seems ironic that at this time of my life, I feel so short of time to pursue my love of needlework. When our children were little, my dear friend Mary (Hale) Hoffman and I often lamented the fact that most smockers had either children and little/no time to smock or no children to smock for and all the time in the world. Our time for leisurely and extensive smocking/sewing would come with grandchildren, we believed.  This was yet another mistaken belief of our youth.

A bit of wisdom is one of the rewards of growing older. Grandchildren are another.

The idea that no one is perfect is a view most commonly held by people with no grandchildren. ~Doug Larson