Category Archives: heirloom sewing

FREE Heirloom Baby Dress Sew-Along

Posted on June 16, 2018 | 13 comments

Heirloom Baby Gown Sew-Along presented by Brother International Corporation

Classic Sewing Magazine is offering a FREE Sew-Along. I made this sweet little dress/daygown for Brother’s submission to the magazine and it is being offered to you. The instructions have been broken into 4 lessons.

Written for beginners, it also includes tips and suggestions that might be useful for experienced heirloom sewists. Techniques such as lace insertion, lace shaping, pin stitch, joining gathered lace, etc. are included.

The first two lessons have been posted so go sign up! You must be signed up to get notification of the next lessons.

I do hope you will join us. Just click on the link in the opening photo and you will be taken to the site to sign up. The sleeves on this pattern (Simplicity 8024) are just precious.

Let’s sew along!

13 Comments

Posted in girls, heirloom sewing, machine embroidery

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Easter ’18 Week

Posted on April 7, 2018 | 8 comments

Vivian Rose at Oma’s house, decked out in her mother’s Rebecca’s Bow Dress.

I hope you all had a joyous Easter. The Ferguson family had a fabulous week of Easter celebrations! We saw both of our children with all four of our grandchildren, but not at the same time. A good bit of sewing was done before and after their arrival.

Saturday we joined our son-in-law’s family for Easter dinner.  5 yo Vivian Rose was resplendent in her mother’s 35 yo Rebecca’s Bow Dress, with her curls confined to elaborate, elegant French braids.

The original slip has been lost through the years so this white Imperial batiste slip was made.  Because it really can be worn as a dress, a bow was embroidered on the yoke. To avoid it shadowing through the dress, it was stitched in a very pale pink and white.

The same yoke pattern was used with 1/2″ removed from the top half of the armscye.

Ever obliging 9 yo Alastair wore his bow tie made from the Little Boy Bowtie:the Quick and Easy Version pattern which I have used so often.

The color matched the green leaves in his sister’s fancyband.

The bows alternated with 3 vertical strips of lace.

I love this picture taken as Vivian was ready to put on her heirloom dress. Alastair was proud that he was already dressed and ready for the egg hunt.

The bunny was tied at the top with a bow, but Vivian HAD to open it.

See the felt candy-filled bunny in Vivi’s hand? That was such a fun little project. I made 20 of these for the children at church, as well as for these two. Vivian had a bunny filled basket and loved handing them out. I so regret that I did not get a photo that or of all the pink, blue, yellow and white bunnies together. They were a big hit with all the children. Continue reading →

8 Comments

Posted in accessories, boys, brother-sister, free patterns and designs, girls, heirloom sewing, lace tape, machine embroidery, Nana fun, Second Time Around

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Valentine Free Fil Tire’ Heart

Posted on February 5, 2018 | 158 comments

With Valentine’s Day around the corner, I am again offering this free fil tire’ heart design. There are many new readers who might enjoy this and some older readers who might have missed it. The design is so suitable for this holiday celebrating love. And what says love better than a heart?

I so appreciate the support and encouragement you dear readers have given me through the years. For the some time now I have been extraordinarily busy and posts have been few and far between. And yet you still stop by to read my infrequent chats. I thank you for that.

For this day celebrating love, I am offering this free machine embroidered fil tire’ heart, along with wishes for love each day. Just leave your request for the design as a comment at the bottom of this post.
 Continue reading →

158 Comments

Posted in free patterns and designs, heirloom sewing, Holiday Projects, machine embroidery

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Children and Puppies=Inevitable Damage

Posted on June 28, 2017 | 6 comments

Children and puppies–I do love and enjoy them.  Damages are to be expected and the children who are the light of my life  never fail to deliver in their younger days.

 

 

Recently, Vivian Rose, 4 yo, was here for a week of Nana Camp.  She is a scamp so I rarely let her out of my sight.  But one  day she slipped away while I was on the phone.  She was wearing her back-to-school Children’s Corner Jane.

 

At the top of her head is what Vivi calls her “fountain.” This was her signature look for a few weeks at the beginning of the last school year. She loved it.

 

As I turned away from  the kitchen sink, Vivi stood behind me, looking quite artificially serene.  Her outfit was streaked with what looked like peach sidewalk chalk marks.

 

Vivi’s back to school Jane.  After laundering the stain remains

 

“What’s on your shirt, Vivi?”

Smiling sweetly, “Dirt.  Umm hmm.  Brown dirt.”

“It doesn’t look like brown dirt.”

Big blue eyes widen as she replies, “Well, the red polish was vewwy vewwy high u—uh, I mean…. it’s brown dirt.” She smiled and walked away.  End of subject.  What she lacks in honesty, she makes up for in creative explanations. Continue reading →

6 Comments

Posted in girls, heirloom sewing, lace tape, quilts

Opinions Change–Hurrah!

Posted on May 22, 2017 | 16 comments

Children’s Corner Gwen with lengthened sleeve ruffles.

 

Granddaughter Vivian Rose, 4 yo, has always had strong opinions about her wardrobe.  Her taste in fashion has been less than classic, requiring bribes  for her to wear many of the garments I have made her.

But now she has changed her mind!!!!  She is asking for more Nana dresses!

It’s like she is recognizing her femininity, the flip side of her (Tarzan’s) Jane or Moana Strong Female persona.

 

 

I love this picture, taken when the family was on a camping trip last weekend. She looks like an Amazon girl, bringing home the 5 yo “man” she bagged! Continue reading →

16 Comments

Posted in girls, heirloom sewing, Second Time Around, smocking

Beautiful Easter ’17

Posted on April 20, 2017 | 13 comments

What a hambone! This little girl in her smocked Swiss voile bishop loves the camera.

I hope you all had a joyous Easter. Ours was beyond fabulous, with a beautiful worship service and all four grandchildren and their parents for the weekend. It could only have been better if our pilot son had not been flying out in the wild blue yonder.

It was a non-stop celebration. Saturday morning a church family hosted an Easter egg hunt for 40+ children. Wonderful as the hunt and the huge bounce house were, the highlight for most of the children was fishing in the pond. Those fish were hungry and hit on every line. Every child caught at least one fish. Grandson Alastair, 8, caught 4! He was ecstatic.

Vivian Rose also caught a fish but she seemed more disgusted than thrilled. She was happy to have her daddy’s help dealing with her catch. She looked so cute and comfortable in her Petite Poche Penny. Continue reading →

13 Comments

Posted in accessories, antique textiles, antique/vintage textiles, girls, heirloom sewing, Holiday Projects, machine embroidery, Nana fun, smocking

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Opinions? Easter Dress in Progress

Posted on April 7, 2017 | 15 comments

Pink Swiss voile, ivory entredeux, cherub medallion, heirloom laces and bishop pattern from Mimi’s Heirloom Sewing Book Two.

My life is absolutely wonderful but SO busy! These new puppies chew up a lot of time… and a lot of everything else.! They are adorable and we are crazy about them. But they are one of the big reasons it’s been so long since I’ve posted.

Samson and Delilah, each 21 lbs, 10 weeks old

At this late date I am starting on Easter dresses for 4 yo granddaughter Vivian Rose. One, of course, is for Easter Sunday. The other is for the church egg hunt on Sat. But that is on the back burner until Sunday’s dress is finished.

For several years I have had a piece of what must have been an exquisite tablecloth featuring cherubs and roses. You probably figured out that roses are a bonus for anything I make for Vivi.

I’m thankful that someone had the foresight to save the remnants. From the first time I saw it, I imagined one of those cherub medallions in a granddaughter’s dress. Finally, the time has come.

each cherub is 3″ tall

The plan is to modify a bishop with several inches removed from the front. That would leave a flat area on the Swiss voile for the single cherub. As you can see, it is already pinstitched to the voile. I love love love pinstitch and use it whenever possible. This time a #100 needle was used instead of a wing for fear that a wing would cut through the dense portions of the lace.

cherub medallion secured to Swiss voile with pinstitch W 2.5 L 2.5

Continue reading →

15 Comments

Posted in antique/vintage textiles, girls, heirloom sewing

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Sweet Dreams, Baby Girl

Posted on November 4, 2016 | 26 comments

While spending the past weekend with our daughter and her family, we celebrated her birthday and her husband’s.  After running across this post, I decided to put it up again.  Daughters are wonderful!! (But so are sons.)

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pc shams vert

Monogram is Dazzle from OESD. Tthe floral design is from Brother’s Holiday Card #77. This is a beautiful collection, with a pretty companion design for this one.

 

With a teary eye for the quick passage of time and a proud heart for the woman she has become, I celebrated my daughter’s birthday by making this pair of pillowcases for her.  With these and the wonderful life she has made for herself,  I expect she will have sweet dreams.

 

DSC07077

The monogram is  Dazzle   from OESD.  It’s certainly convenient that she and her husband have the same initials.The floral design is from   Brother’s Holiday Card #77. This is a beautiful collection, with a pretty companion design for this one.

 

Luxurious bed linens have always been a priority for my girl.  As a freshman moving into a dorm at University of Florida, she asked me to custom make pima cotton sheets for the non-standard dorm bed, and, of course, matching pillowcases.    She confided that she was a bit like storybook character in the Princess and the Pea.  How could she get a decent night’s sleep on anything but pima cotton?  Oh dear, I thought.  Have I raised a “pima” donna?   But of course, two sets of fitted pima sheets were packed.

 

Sending off our French foregin exchange student days before Rebecca (in red) headed to University of Florida.

At  the airport, sending Claire, our French foreign exchange student,  home to France.  This was just a few days before Rebecca (in red) headed to University of Florida—along with her mama-made pima cotton bedding.

 

From the dormitory to the sorority house to her first college-girl apartment to her first little bachelorette house and now in her lovely marital home, she has always had pima cotton bedding. Continue reading →

26 Comments

Posted in Daughter's Home Garden Wedding, girls, heirloom sewing, home dec, Kids Sew, machine embroidery, turn tube hem

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Alice Tea Linens Tutorial

Posted on August 5, 2016 | 9 comments
image 1 panned set all shadowed

This child sized tea linen set features Alice in Wonderland characters. With the heavenly scented Confederate Jasmine in full bloom on my front porch, a sweet tea party could be held, if only I had a few grandchildren in house.

Making this linen tea set was such a pleasure. The project and accompanying tutorial were just posted on Brother’s Stitching Sewcial  blog.  This is especially timely with the recent release of Disney’s new movie, Alice through the Looking Glass. A whole new generation of children will meet the characters through this movie.

The tutorial includes .pdf downloads for the corner templates (a smaller one for the napkins and a larger one for the tablecloth). It also includes a link to download the zig zag feather stitch which I created in My Custom Stitch, available on many Brother machines. I find this stitch useful for many projects–baby bonnets,   baby shawls,  blankets and more.

If your machine has this feature, you might want to download the zig zag feather even if you are not planning to whip up an Alice tea linen set. Instructions for getting this stitch from the download to a memory stick to your machine are included in the tutorial.

When I began this project, my biggest challenge was to select the designs from the 13 designs available at iBroidery.com. Somehow, they would be have to be color coordinated with sweet Alice’s dress because the Madeira tablecloth corners just had to be blue.

Alice napkin close

Finally, I decided that the napkin corners would have to coordinate with its many colored embroidered characters. Continue reading →

9 Comments

Posted in accessories, Disney, Disney projects, heirloom sewing, machine embroidery, Nana fun, Tutorials

Alice in Wonderland Tea Party

Posted on May 27, 2016 | 12 comments

napkin panned AliceCR

It’s busy, busy, busy in the sewing room. My current project is an Alice in Wonderland linen tea set and I’m loving every minute of it. The new Alice designs at Brother’s iBroidery.com got me so excited that I had to make this. Soon there will be a tutorial for the project which includes a 30″ tablecloth, and 4 napkins.

Baby tatting edges the Madeira applique’ on each corner of the tablecloth which features a Brother My Custom Stitch zig zag feather stitch.  The same corner embellishes each napkin. All four sides are pinstitched.

Along with Alice, the tea party guests include the White Rabbit, Mad Hatter, Queen of Hearts, three different Alices, TweedleDum and his twin TweedleDee.

napkin panned White Rabbit

I love having tea parties with my grandchildren. It’s a great situation for talking about manners and etiquette, proper table linens and more. There’s nothing like cookies to motivate a child to hang around the tea table and chat.

Laurel started partying when she was very small. As she grew older and we had a little tea time break during the 3 years I homeschooled her and her brother.  I even managed to work the Boston Tea Party into the conversation. It was just too good an opportunity to miss giving a little history lesson.

Lteaparty1

We often tea partied on the back porch. Apple juice and cookies were always served. For more photos and info about this set click here.

Continue reading →

12 Comments

Posted in heirloom sewing, party accessories and ideas

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