Before and After

Sweet baby Jane turned one year old this week. The before and after pictures speak for themselves.

Wild Thing!

Here's a photo of my oldest granddaughter Jorden wearing a new smocked silk dress. It's a adaptation of one of the dresses in my 'Sew Cute Couture' book. The project was a little exercise in smocking an entire dress without any of the actual smocking stitches showing on the right side of the dress. All the stitches are either beaded or back stitched. I plan to use this dress as a class project in 2011. Jorden could not resist popping off a cartwheel before we could rescue the dress off of her.

Some Things Are Just Perfect

Still rock'in hard at 68 - maybe there is hope for all of us. A big thank you to my good friends Wendy and Randy who gifted me these near front row tickets. Perfect night, perfect outdoor venue, perfect music.

Matt's Graduation Day

Congratulations to my beautiful boy. Today was your 18th birthday and high school graduation all rolled into one. You have always been comfortable in your own skin and not ever afraid to be exactly who you are. I can't wait to see what the future will hold for you. You are one smart cookie as evidenced by all those cords hanging around your neck. You are loved beyond measure - what a lucky mom I am.

Jen's Wedding Dress

Here's a little look at the wedding dress I hesitantly altered and highlighted a section of in an earlier post. I just love this dress. Jen is my neighbor and I've known her since she was about 10 years old. She has grown into a very stylish young lady and I think the 1950's fitted silhouette looks fabulous on her. We put our heads together to come up with the style of the little cropped jacket and I made it out of ivory silk shantung. It seems a perfect compliment to this beautiful dress.

Finished Floofy

I was in Boston a few weeks ago teaching for the Bewitching Stitchers SAGA group. After class one day some of the SAGA girls took me to a wonderful little knitting shop to see the 'Floofy Skirts'. It was love at first sight for me. I love to knit and this project allows you to sample all those interesting textured yarns you never know what to do with.


All you need to get started is 6 to 10 skeins of interesting textured yarns in one to three color families. The skirt is worked from the top down on circular needles following a very simple formula. You do not have to count anything or follow any stitching charts - just plain knitting. It is not boring because every few rows you get to start a new and interesting yarn. I really like the way the colors and textures play against each other. This skirt will be a welcome addition to my somewhat conservative (that's code for BORING!!) mostly black wardrobe. You can see lots of pictures of finished floofys and get the instructions from www.yarnsinthefarms.com

Trip to GNO SAGA

I'm soooo far behind with my blog posts. At the end of March I had the opportunity to travel to New Orleans for classes with the GNO SAGA group. They have a long time tradition of being a very well organized, active, SAGA group. They bring teachers in for weekend classes several times a year and are a really great group of accomplished stitchers. On the last night I was treated to a real Louisiana style crawfish boil.


Martha Stewart could probably have taken some entertaining tips from my hosts - the entire evening was beautiful. After dinner we retired to Suzette's amazing sewing room and I was beyond pleased to see she had completed four complete dress and jacket sets from my book.


Suzette had also completed the dress and jacket set I had taught for the guild way back in 2002. As a teacher, it is greatly satisfying to see such beautifully embroidered and constructed FINISHED class projects.


I already have plans to go back to see my stitching friends in New Orleans in September of 2011.