A Little Red Jacket

This jacket just makes me happy. I made it for my oldest daughters 31st birthday which was on January 1. It's so her. She's a little tiny thing and a bit of a fashionista and always likes things a little left of center so this suits her perfectly. It's made from a superfine 100% wool and Simplicity pattern 2730 - no design changes whatsoever to the pattern. Please excuse my somewhat cluttered photography - I need a lesson on cropping photos!

A series of 13 reverse darts around the neckline make for a really cute fit on this pattern and also an interesting design detail. The fabric flowers were quite heavy when completed but actually sat quite nicely around the neckline once firmly stitched down. I added a few beads to the center of the flowers. I keep gently nagging at her (that's what mom's do, isn't it?) for a photo of her wearing it. Her family just had pictures taken at Christmas time. Hunter is 9 and Jorden (wild thing!) is 7. Her really great husband Bart shall remain ageless.

An Inside Peek

Some time ago Rosa asked about using fusible interfacing on the front yoke and the skirt front of a smocked dress. My apologies to her for being so slow in responding. I dislike using the words 'always' and 'never' because it 'always' seems to come back to bite you. But... I almost always interface the front yoke of any smocked dress. It just makes sense to me to stabilize the little yoke that has the big job of holding up a somtimes heavily smocked and embroidered skirt. The extra layer on the yoke helps to eliminate puckers and other nasty business that can sometimes happen along that piped seamline. It also helps pad the lower edge of the yoke to help prevent the sometimes quite bulky seam allowance from imprinting on the right side of the yoke front.




I turned this smocked dress inside out, as best as I could, to show the interfaced front yoke and also the interfaced smocked portion of the skirt front. This particular dress is made from a Liberty Tana Lawn which is 54" wide and seems to pleat down to almost nothing. On lightweight fabrics like this I will usually fuse a strip of lightweight interfacing to the area that will be pleated. Once pleated this helps form plumper pleats and keeps the fabric from collapsing down to nothing. It makes the job of blocking out a skirt front much easier.


I also like to add a single layer liner to the back of the smocked section of a yoke dress. This covers up all the yoke seams and the inevitable knots on the back of the smocking. It helps stabilize the smocked area and is comfortable against the skin.

A Blast From the Past

This all started when my daughter in Texas sent this photo of her daughter wearing a velvet dress and heirloom pinafore vintage about 1989. I dug out the photo of her mom and sisters wearing the original pinafores. They were about 4, 9, and 11 at the time and are now 24, 29, and 31.


I love that good Swiss cotton batiste and Swiss cotton laces have the beautiful ability to come back to life with a good wash and a press after many years in a trunk. A couple years after the above photo was taken Lauren (the youngest) modeled a similar pinafore for Creative Needle Magazine. I'm still sad every month when there is not a new Creative Needle in my mailbox - they are greatly missed.




These photos were taken with the Utah Symphony. This pinafore features lots of hand embroidery in the paneled skirt. The Creative Needle issue is Nov/Dec 1991 if you want to take a look. Tina Lewis, a VERY talented designer and stitcher who lives in Park City organized the photo shoot and created many of the garments. A funny little side note - Creative Needle came to Salt Lake several times to do photo shoots and on two occasions I managed to have a baby the VERY NEXT DAY after they left. That might give you some indication about how stressful photo shoots can be with unpredictable children and delicate clothing. As I said earlier - they are greatly missed.

Goodbye 2009

I can not even begin to explain my long absence. The one year mark of Michael's death was a bigger slam than I could ever have anticipated. The holidays came and went with all of us still struggling to sort out what our new 'normal' is going to be without Michael. I am grateful beyond measure to my six children who do so much everyday to fill in the gaps. This year also marked the last Christmas outfit I will make for one of my girls using a children's size pattern. My youngest daughter is almost twelve and is just outgrowing girl's size patterns. This outfit was made from Simplicity 4518 (Lizzie McGuire) and she seems to be quite pleased with it. I will try to post of picture of her wearing it if I can get her to sit still long enough.


The jacket is 100% cotton velvet (stash left over from her oldest sister's wedding 10 years ago!) and the skirt a poly/rayon Asian brocade. She will probably wear the jacket with jeans the next few months as I fear she will grow out of it before next fall.

I've been busy getting class samples ready for teaching next year. I like to size check all my patterns so these next pictures are different size versions of the four piece set previously shown .






The navy blue set is made from feather weight corduroy paired with a navy floral brushed twill. I completely interfaced all the jacket pattern pieces with fuseable baby interfacing from Farmhouse Fabrics (www.farmhousefabrics.com). It gave the corduroy just the right amount of thickness to make it a pleasure to embroider on. Happy New Year to all my blog friends.

Magazine World Versus The Real World

So here is the lovely image of one of my dresses on the cover of AS&E #80. The model, such a cutie, looks charming and serene.



My oldest daughter who lives in Texas sent me these pictures of her daughter wearing the dress. Miss Jorden is a bit of a wild thing and her mother who has a terrific sense of humor thought I might like to see what happens to my dresses in the real world.

You have got to love a real girl who can wear a fancy dress and turn a mean cartwheel at the same time!

Home from Australia

I'm home after seventeen days away in Australia. The first few days were spent with my good friend Susan at her home in Geelong, about an hour out of Melbourne in Victoria. We are both quite content to sit and stitch so the first few jet lagged days went by all to quickly. We drove from Geelong to Adelaide along the Great Ocean Road which is pictured above. Such a beautiful place.


The next 8 days were spent in Adelaide at the Beating Around The Bush needlework convention. The photo above is one of the shop windows at the Country Bumpkin retail store - clearly heaven for smockers and embroiderers. It was a beautiful week filled with students from all over the world so eager to learn. Even language barriers seemed to disappear once everyone had a needle in their hands. Margie Bauer and her staff at Country Bumpkin out did themselves to make everyone feel comfortable and welcome.


The drive back to Geelong was filled with many pleasant surprises which included an up close and personal encounter with a koala (this is NOT in a zoo or enclosure!) and Logan's Beach at Warnambool. If you were to sail directly south from where I am standing the first thing you would encounter is Antarctica. This was my favorite spot. I'm planning a trip back to run the 20 plus miles of completely open beach.

We flew to Sydney for the last few days for a taste of something completely different. It is a fabulous, cosmopolitan city filled with beautiful scenery, shops and great places to eat. We probably spent an hour in a spacious Armani boutique having fits over the elegant fabrics and spot on construction of the garments. An early morning run around the famous Opera House and the adjoining Botanic Gardens was another favorite memory. I can not thank my dear friend Susan enough for taking such good care of me and showing off her wonderful country.

Baby Jane is three months old!

I'm sorry if this is getting boring but I just can't resist the monthly update on Jane. Her hair cracks me up. She is a sweetie pie but not so fond of modeling Grandma's sewing projects yet. I'll have to work on her a bit.