Category Archives: girls

Jo’s Family Easter

Jo's family in their Easter finery. Every one (except Jo!!!!) is wearing one of her creations.

Jo’s beautiful family in their Easter finery. Every one (except Jo, unless she made the lavender sweater) is wearing one of her creations.

I just love seeing what you all have sewn up for holidays–or everydays!  So it really pleased me to see photos of Jo’s family all decked out in the Easter garments she made.   They are all color coordinated in lavender and yellow, with a paisley print used on several outfits.  Living in the cold, cold north, Jo chose corduroy for the little ones in the family.

As so often happens, in the midst of her rush to finish up, there were complications.  Most of the family came down with a terrible virus requiring huge amounts of laundry, at the exact time that her dryer died.  So while she tended to the sick, she was running back and forth to the home of a good neighbor whose dryer was put at Jo’s disposal.  All the while for those several days, Jo awaited delivery of her own new laundry appliance.

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In spite of these roadblocks, she finished everything up–dresses for the girls, a smocked Children’s Corner Johnny for little Gideon and ties for the big boys and her husband. Continue reading

Readers’ Easter Outfits

While it’s unlikely that I am the only Nana or Mama stitching right down to the Easter Sunday deadline, it’s nice to know that some readers are contentedly dying eggs, sampling gourmet jelly beans and buying chocolate bunnies.  Ahhh, I wish.

 

Courtney finished this gorgeous brother-sister set more than 10 days ago!

Courtney finished this gorgeous brother-sister set more than 10 days ago!  And  these aren’t even their church clothes!  See below.

 

Courtney shared  pictures of TWO brother-sister sets that she has made for Easter.

Her daughter’s first dress is cut from one of my all-time favorite patterns, Maggie  by Children’s Corner. The smocking plate is Bunny Luv by Ellen McCarn.  I love that she mirror imaged the chocolate bunny on the dress so they are facing one another.    Her color choices are as  lovely as her smocking. Continue reading

Lighting Candles, Playing Dolls, This and That

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crying Karoline

My mother, Dollie Manning, was a very gifted doll maker. Years ago, she made the as many as 80 porcelain dolls for each of the Sewing for Dolls events that Mildred Turner, Terri Johnson and I held around the country. Additionally, she provided dolls for several similar schools sponsored by Ellen Nickerson in the San Francisco area. Mom also made tiny 3-8″ dolls that Lezette Thomason marketed and for which Lezette had drafted patterns. Then there were the dolls she made for our daughter Rebecca. That’s a lotta dolls.

When 8 year old granddaughter Laurel discovered that there are 3 storage bins of dolls in the garage, she just had to see them. She was allowed to select one to keep and she chose this very unique baby who had lost a shoe through the years.

You don’t often see a doll crying but Karoline (the name given her by Laurel) had tears that looked real.

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The sheen on Karoline’s tears is from clear fingernail polish.

Then I told Karoline’s story to Laurel. Continue reading

The Lace Dress for Easter

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This is a beautiful, symmetrical dress–not cockeyed as it appears in this photo.   The wind would NOT stop blowing so it kept swinging on the hanger as I  tried to snap it in a moment of calm.  Note also that the hanger is an adult size, so the shoulder appears to be wider than the pattern picture.

But, hurrah!! Laurel’s Easter dress is almost done, lacking only buttons and buttonholes.  The pattern is one of Nancy Coburn’s at Ginger Snaps Designs.

 

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Laurel’s dress includes absolutely no originality from me.  I copied this beauty as is because I didn’t think there was any way I could improve upon it. Continue reading

Easter Dresses from the Past

Courtney wrote a sweet note asking about Easter dresses I have made in the past.  For her 2 year old daughter, she is designing an heirloom confection for this same celebration.  She was curious about my granddaughter Laurel’s earlier special frocks.

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She was just 10 months old, crawling at lightning speed when her first Easter rolled around.  A bubble seemed to be the most sensible solution for a baby who spent most of her waking moments on her knees.  For details of this little outfit, headband and matching bib for Easter dinner, see the post Baby Bunny Bubble.

 

 

1st birthday~Easter dress

 

Laurel’s first birthday was two months later.  She was toddling around, making it easy for me to justify making the heirloom dress of my dreams.  I absolutely loved making  this.  For details and more photos than you will want to look at, check the post First Birthday Dress.

 

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For me, the matching slip was the finishing touch.

Her second Easter fell just a few months before our daughter’s wedding, Continue reading

Elves and Merry Christmas!

Three year olds Alastair and Aliya, share a hug. Don’t they look like elves? They are all jammied up after watching the nighttime Christmas parade. Their joy and excitement are infectious.

The world has been celebrating Christmas for nearly 2000 years now.  In the past 100 years, there have been many  changes documented in my beloved vintage Needlecraft/Home Arts magazines. Alastair and Alyia, in their knit and serged holiday pajamas are dressed very differently from this little guy in 1928.

But it this 1936 Home Arts shows that footed sleepers are not new. Continue reading

Updated…Compromises-Play it again, Sam!

Though nothing like this was heard at the formal Stetson Christmas Concert which is central to this post, the video below is is too special not to share. Thanks, Shirley, for bringing this to my attention. I promise you all will want to see this to the very hilarious ending.

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I’m being forced to make creative compromises.  It is absolutely impossible to sew all that I want and to regularly dress my grandchildren in the classic clothing I’ve always wanted for them.

Torn between making baby clothes for soon-to-arrive granddaughter #2 and sewing Christmas outfits for the three grandchildren who are already here, I am making compromises I never thought I would accept.

I’m re-doing, recycling, and taking shortcuts with holiday clothes, not to mention cooking and housekeeping!  This year’s Christmas frock for granddaughter Laurel is 2011 all over again.  It’s the same burgundy velveteen collar dress, though he collar has been replaced with one I made for my daughter 24 years ago.

This doesn’t even meet the bridal wardrobe standard of “something old and something new.”  This is just something old and something older!

Seven year old Robert joined us this year for the Stetson University Christmas Concert.   He looked handsome in a nice red sweater (off the rack, not even handknit by Nana), while Laurel, 8, wore this dress.  But they certainly didn’t compliment one another’s outfits.  Oh well.

The concert was absolutely spectacular and incredibly moving.  My scalp prickled and my eyes teared. Continue reading

Candy Corn & Halloween Fun

There are sooooo many adorable Halloween applique’ designs for machine embroidery!  For granddaughter Laurel’s outfit, I finally narrowed the field down to this candy corn design, primarily because I had already purchased the spider web/candy corn fabric for fun.  This design just seemed right.  Candy Corn Cutie is from Embroitique.com

The girls A-line jumper in  Applique’, Martha’s Favorites by Martha Pullen’s has always been one of my favorites.  I bemoaned the fact that it went only to size 6 when it occurred to me that I could use the same quick and easy lining technique with any similar pattern.  I found just what I needed with a commercial pattern (on sale at JoAnn’s for $1.99!) and whipped up this piece for Laurel in no time.

It is lined with yellow cotton batiste because 1. I had it on hand and 2. because it is a relatively cool, lightweight fabric.   In Florida, Halloween season can be and usually is very hot.  Top stitching is worked around the hem, neckline and armscyes.  At the them, three rows of ribbon echo the white, yellow, and orange layers on the candy corn.

The leggings with a knit ruffle at the ankle are from Sophie’s Stitches.

NANA FUN—Our daughter, Rebecca, came for a few days with her husband and 3 year-old Alastair.  We had so much Halloween fun with the little guy.  Every year Granddad (Bob) decorates his shed which is the background for the bonfires the children love so much.   Often, they pause from running around or eating s’mores to climb up on his John Deer tractor housed in the shed, or pretend to drive the golf cart which also resides in this man cave.

It was late, so Alastair was in his jammies.

Sadly, cousins Robert and Laurel were tied up with football practice, piano lessons and Girl Scouts so they couldn’t make it over while Alastair was here.  But 4 year-old Alysha, our goddaughter’s child,  came for the bonfire and a day of fun. Continue reading

Ruffled Jungle Skirt

UPDATE:  Just came across this site with excellent tips about sewing on pre-ruffled fabric.  There are two parts to the tutorial so scroll down to part 1 before reading part 2.

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The color is really a coral, more like the photo below.

 

 

I’m trying to make my granddaughter Laurel an occasional contemporary garment.  At eight years old, she sometimes balks at wearing the smocked or heirloom dresses I lay out for her to wear for homeschool or church when she is with us.   This little outfit is my attempt to step into the “cool” zone of kid couture.  If it’s not quilting, smocking or heirloom, I am totally out of my comfort zone.  But this should placate her for a while. Continue reading

Kickoff ’12 and 10 Commandments of Football Fandom

Legendary Tim Tebow spending a little time with Robert, Laurel and two of their lucky friends.

Finally, it’s here. The 2012 SEC college football season started Thursday night with the South Carolina (W) vs. Vanderbilt game. Friday night, Tennessee (W) played  NC State.  Bob and I were hunkered down in front of the tv for those games, our appetites whetted for today’s Gator game against Bowling Green.

For the past nine months, we’ve waited for kickoff. Around the country, and especially in the South,  the date of your team’s opening game ranks in importance way above Halloween, which is now reckoned as the most popular secular holiday in America.

my children and their spouses Swamp bound–off to the game

In the Ferguson family, it is a date to which we have been counting down since  January.

Six year-old Laurel taking a half-time break

Continue reading