Christmas is coming

For several years, it has been my habit to make Christmas sweat shirts for the women in my family to wear. (Well, at least for my sister, my niece, and me to wear.) This year, it will be my niece, her mother-in-love, and I who will have shirts alike to wear to the city Christmas parade or to wear shopping when it is cold. We have always tried to be sure that those shirts portrayed the meaning of the season.

Because I do have a sewing machine that will embroider this year, our shirts will have machine embroidery rather than being done by hand by me as I have done before. And so, my niece and I have been shopping via the computer to find the "right" design. It had to be "just right" to please my niece who was very specific about the design.

Now, after two weeks of finding and posting back and forth, we have a design.

I hope that I have it large enough that you can easily read it and see the differences in the colors of gold that show the baby as different from the manger and straw and can see the differences that separate the letters of J O Y from the rays of the light of the star.

I do think that the various golds and cream threads wil be beautiful against the deep blue of the shirt and I hope that all who see us wearing the shirts will acknowledge the "reason for the season."

the wedding dress rethought

Because several people had wanted to see more of the wedding pictures, I am going to post as many as I can put into one post. I won't particularly comment as the pictures of the many costumes is what they all wanted to see.

In the first two photos, you can see Kayci being laced into her wedding dress; and the next three photos are of the "castle," a wedding venue east of Dallas.

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The sixth photo is the groom in all white and gold with his attendants, along with the minister. And in the next you can see the Kayci's attendants in the long red velvet Tudor style coats.

At last, the bride is presented at the front by her father who is wearing black with a red trimmed cloak; and finally, she is given to Seth for the actual ceremony and Kayci and Seth stand before the minister to recite their vows, both wearing white velvet trimmed in gold embroidery.

Then the fun and the dancing began. I hope that you enjoy seeing all of the various costumes which different members of the wedding party wore along with the costumes worn by many of the guests.

Oh! and yes, the wedding party and many of the guests wore masks for the ceremony and they were very interesting in design, several having been ordered from Italy; but, to me, the most interesting of the wardrobe embellishments was Seth's plume in his hat. That was quite a white feather and it really made the costume for me.

another maker of clothing

There is someone else who makes clothing in the family. My niece's husband has been making costumes for himself, her, and his friends for quite a while.




One of the first things he made for my niece was a chain mail bodice to wear to Scarborough Faire, the local renaissance fair, and that was how we learned that he is an excellent craftsman with chain mail. I am guessing that that means that he should be able to make beautiful gold and silver wire or wire ring jewelry; but I haven't seen the evidence of that yet, although I do know that he designed her engagement ring.


In the pictures here, his sewing and mine, you see first, my niece's last year's costume for Scarborough. Her husband made the skirt and I believe that he bought the carved leather bodice for her. Her shift is one, I think , that I made for her when they were first dating. (I could be wrong.) That was when I was living 250 miles NorthWest of here and she was in college 120 miles on South. She came flying out to our house one weekend with the news that we had to make a costume quick. We made the simple shift. I don't know what she wore with it, but soon he had made her a skirt and the chain mail bodice to wear over it.






I really like this costume she wears. You did notice that it isn't Renaissance, I'm sure. Yes, well I did too; but they belong to a crew of Pirates and this is what she wore last year. Why she wasn't wearing a pirate costumes from the 15th or 16th century, I don't know. I know that they are planning a 16th century costume for her for next year, something rich and elegant to be worn next to his leather armor. I rather hope she wears red and black also with gold embroidery. Wouldn't they be smashing? But I do think that this costume is so cute. Love the hat! And the ruffles around the face. I do hate to see it go.

And I know that you have been looking at the suit of leather armor. It isn't quite complete as it lacks some parts and I know there will be some chain work on it. But just look at all of the leather. He cut and dyed all of the letter and fastened it together so that all of the small parts are articulated. And yes, he painted the Blazing Sun on his breastplate as the crew is the crew of the ship, Blazing Sun.

I really like this costume. He should be as big a hit wearing this as he was last year in his all leather green dragon armor.

And that is the last photo you see, he in his dragon armor and she in the beautifully carved, leather bodice.

See what I mean about more than one person sewing in this family? I don't know whether he would be interested in all of the boxes of lucious fabrics and embellishment ribbons, but I think that my niece would know what to do with that. And he will take good care of my sewing machines (maybe). But all of that is for much later. Right now, I am sewing from my stash, but they are most welcome to anything in it if they want to sew. They make such interesting garments. His sewing makes me want something in leather; but I do think that lamb suede is more my style than the heavy thick cowhide he uses for armor. Yes, that's it. I want a lamb suede boot skirt in turquoise. Wow!

Oh .... one more photo, taken at the Texas Rennaisance Faire, fall 2006 in his new costume, with the smashing carved leather and the painted BlazingSun, his costuming beats that which he could purchase.

simplicity patterns, a wedding dress, and I

I thought that I would add some of the things I have sewn in the last few years of which I am rather proud. Actually, I wanted to try to have most of my pictures of sewing projects all in one place. (I still haven't been able to determine why you cannot add comments, but I will. And btw you can always click on the pictures to enlarge them.)








You all recognize that first dress: the wedding dress I made this year for a friend of my niece. She came to me because she knew that I had made a Renaissance wedding dress for my niece and that I would not be afraid to try another. She wanted a much simpler dress than the one I had made before, but she did want the same sleeves.







Next is the picture of my niece in her wedding dress. (Yes, the shift under there should have been pulled down further to look authentic, but I wasn't there when they dressed her for the picture!) She had asked for a Renaissance style wedding dress and so I designed one.









I made a very simple charmeuse shift style top and skirt to go under the more elaborate bodice. The bodice I designed with princess lines and a basque waist to fit over a gathered skirt, both made from a very interesting piece of fabric. The bodice had long, wide sleeves that arched over the elbow in front in order to show off the long charmeuse sleeves on the under shift and hung down longer than her fingertips in back. And the sleeves were embellished the same as the front of the bodice with pearl roping and beading on either side of organza ruching.





The fabric for the bodice and skirt had been given to me by a dear friend. Her daughter had found a bolt of creamy off-white shantung that her grandmother had gotten from her cousin who lived in North Carolina and had bought the bolt of fabric at a garage sale. She had just enough left over for me to have it for this wedding dress and she wanted my niece to have it.







I carefully cut out the bodice and the sleeves (each of which took a little more than a yard); but when I began to cut out the skirt with train, I discovered that I lacked enough fabric to make one side of the back skirt. What was I going to do? The entire dress had been cut out and yet ..... I made a flying trip to Dallas to the various fabric outlets there (Flying is right. At the time, we were living 250 miles from Dallas and I had one day to find what I could find and drive back.)







I had no idea of what I would find. We walked into the first outlet store on Harry Hines and saw table after table of fabric filling a warehouse. I took the 15 inch square I had brought with me to match and headed for a section in the back labled "wedding" or "formal" or something that sent me back there. And there it was: a roll of fabric that looked exactly like the fabric I had in my hand. I unrolled a yard of it, tossed my scrap down on top of it and walked away. When I turned around, it wasn't there. It had blended totally into the fabric on the bolt. As far as I could tell or anyone who saw the dress could tell, the fabrics were exact, even though one was probably 15 to 20 years older than the other.

Anyway, the dress was a fairly common Renaissance design, but the headpiece which I put with it really didn't belong with that style of dress. But that was the headpiece that I wanted for her face and hair. It was a crescent shape much like the ones seen worn by Anne Boleyn and others from the mid 1500's. Besides, I didn't want to cut that beautiful piece of Alyncon lace. Instead I put lace and pearls around the edges and let it fall over her dark hair. I really liked that headpiece. It was embellished with handmade silk organza roses which my mother had made for my wedding dress forty years before as well as the pearls and ruched organza from the bodice and sleeves.

The combination was lovely, I thought; and apparently, so did someone else. A year or two later, I walked into a bookstore and saw the cover of Renaissance magazine. There on the cover was a beautiful bride wearing a Renaissance wedding dress, a duplicate of the one my niece had worn right down to the headpiece. I was delightfully surprised when I opened the magazine and saw that the cover dress was a Simplicity pattern. Of course, the pattern was simplified, no princess seams, no basque waist; but the look was the same and the combination with that particular headpiece was a real kick.

Of course, it could have been "just one of those things." I don't really care. I just thought it was a hoot that my design had made it to a magazine cover.

If you would like to see that magazine cover, go to

http://www.renaissancemagazine.com/backissues/issue21.html

and see whther you think they are that similar. As I said, the dress design is common, but the headpiece goes with an entirely different style dress. The embellishment on their dress is also similar to the one I made as is the arrangement of the two necklaces. And btw, their photograph of the dress is better than mine! And they pulled the shift top down into the right place. Oh well .....

roses on a shirt

I am daily becoming more and more computer savvy. Today, I took some pictures of the new project that my niece and I are working on and came to the computer to download them. I found the USB cord, even found a slot in which to plug it. (Note: I must get one of those USB hubs as I had to unplug something -- who knows what I disconnected? -- in order to plug in the camera.)

But nothing happened. When I went to "Programs" to open the Kodak Share manually, it wasn't there. Where had Kodak gone? And then I remembered, last week, one of those MS do-it-all programs kept asking me if I wanted it to clean up my desk and hide all of the unused shortcut icons. Well, I tried that once and it hid things I really wanted to see. So, I said "no." I could do that myself.

Then, I remembered that I thought that I had outsmarted that program and had actually gone to the Control Panel and uninstalled some old programs that I no longer use and will never use. And because I had begun to use Picasa for working with pictures, I actually had deleted the Kodak program because it kept stealing pictures that I wanted to use with other programs. My thought was that if I deleted it, it would no longer keep getting in the way. I forgot that deleting it would also make me unable to download pictures from the camera.

So, today ... no pictures. Just writing. But wait ... In the middle of the night, I remembered something... and thus, there is a picture and you can see the roses on the sweatshirt, a deconstructed and then reconstructed sweat shirt.

My niece had worn this shirt last year and wanted to practice on it before she worked on the brand new pigment dyed sweatshirt she had bought with which to make a short jacket. I had some fabric with rose and peach and cream six inch roses and dark green leaves. And it matched the rose of her sweatshirt perfectly.

After cutting off all of the ribbed pieces collar, cuffs, waistband, and slicing the shirt up the front, we attached dark green piping to the jacket front and then put the facings on the outside. And the facings were large panels of the rose and cream roses. Linda took embroidery scissors and carefully cut around the roses and leaves from the shoulder down to the hem so that the roses stand out against the color of the shirt.

You probably cannot see that I am now in the process of satin stitching around all of the roses and adding bits of other stitching around petals as it suits my whims. I have used one spool of thread and am not even finished with the first side. Before we added the piping, we had stitched on wide satin ribbons to use as a closing for the front. They will tie above the waist and the tails will then hang.

Right now, we plan to stitch roses on the back and on the sleeves as well and bind the sleeves, the neck, and the bottom with wide dark green binding. Although I do have other ribbons and decorative trims in various shades of fuschia and magenta and hot pink, I think we may leave this with just the magenta satin stitching and the green piping and binding with perhaps the addition of a scattering of a few green and pink Swarovsky crystals.

When you can see the pictures in a day or two. I do hope that you think it is as lovely as I do. (But then, I don't finish things that I don't like. Do you?)

cats again

As long as I was installing pictures of those handsome cats, I thought that I would add these three. First, Moya in the bathroom sink. What is it about that sink that she likes so? It has to be more than the toothbrushes!

Then, Inara looking quite beautiful posing there on a pillow; and last the very photogenic Smokey. Doesn't he just look like the dark, scowling Byronic hero of romance novels? Anyway, I really liked that picture and wanted to show him off one more time.

And now, back to sewing. Can't you just see me attempting to work with those three all on the sewing table at the same time, trying to be a part of whatever it was that was going on. They walked all over the notions we were using; determined that they did like the fabric as it was good for lying on; investigated the sewing machine; and, in general, tried to help. Or were they really trying to get our attention away from the sewing and on them? Nahhhhhhh, they wouldn't want that. Would they?

And now, as I said, the next post will be back to sewing.

cats

It seems that most women who love to sew also love cats. The truth is that I am really a dog person; but although cats will never be the companions that dogs are, I have sometimes found cats to be nice to have around.

My niece and her husband have cats: three of them and except for the other night when all three wanted to be in the middle of the sewing table at the same time, I never notice them when at their house. The cats are friendly, agreeable, unobtrusive and all the things that cats are rumored not to be.

Because of some sewing I will be doing next month, I thought that I would introduce the cats to you and let them have their moments in the blog. They are such interesting characters that you need to know them.

First, there is Smokey which Linda literally took from her DMIL. Smokey just became Linda's cat, no matter that he belonged to someone else. He demanded to be carried or better, worn around her neck like a live fur piece or a comfort pillow. He and Linda carry on full conversations and I would swear each knows what the other is saying.

Then, there is Moya. Moya is the acrobat in the family who has been known to wake the family in the middle of the night by falling from the upper rails that hold the drapes above the four poster bed. It seems she likes to walk those rails like a tightrope. But in the middle of the night? She also is the one who climbs the shower door and peers over the top of it to find her "people." Moya is also the one who loves the bathroom sink and who last week seems to have chewed on Linda's toothbrush. Noooo ... cats wouldn't do that, would they?

Last is Inara (don't ask ME where they get the names), the baby in the family. Inara was rescued from a life of living on the streets and eating from dumpsters and she has NO interest in ever going past the threshold of the door. The most striking thing about Inara is her coloring. She is black with tortoise shell coloring, amber streaks in that black that match the color of her eyes. She is gorgeous. I am sure her heritage is something interesting.

No, none are anything special, none registered, none full breed anything. Oh, Smokey must be related to a Russian Blue somewhere and Inaura is certainly a something; but they are all just found cats, taken in and loved. They are all distinct and beautiful and pleasant to have around. They all seem to adore their "people" and want to be around them most of the time; they try to hold conversation; and they seem to want to play with people whenever given the chance. In other words, they just don't seem to be the "I am ignoring you" cats we so often hear stories about. These three would almost cause me to change my mind about having a cat in the house. Almost.

the perfect jacket

The ragged jacket: some people love them; others don't. But if ever there was a perfect jacket for our friend, this one was exactly the right one. She has touched it and exclaimed over the softness. The colors are soft and gentle on the senses, just as she is. The lace, the homespun fabric: all suits her perfectly. Somehow, the jacket seems to embody everything she is. And she loves it.

When Judy said that she wanted to make a ragged jacket for the box, I really didn't know what she was talking about; but I loved the fabrics she selected for the piecework and I looked forward to seeing whatever Judy made with them. She kept saying that she didn't know anything about cutting out and sewing a jacket and so I told her to piece me some "fabric" and I would show her how to make a jacket.

She brought the pieced fabric to my house; and as we sat and I showed her how to cut out the simple pieces, we talked and drank iced tea, and listened to music and had a wonderful time together. Isn't that what sewing is so often about: good friends sharing something they love.

The jacket had been made from fat quarters and there wasn't a piece of fabric from which to cut sleeves; but I had an idea that we didn't want plain sleeves anyway and suggested the insertion of heavy cotton lace in the sleeves in order to stretch the fabric. Besides, the sleeves needed the pieced look also. And that is what we did that afternoon, even buying narrow cotton lace to add at the collar and at the wrists. Somehow, lace at the wrists was going to look so perfect for her as she wore the jacket.







While I made the collar and the sleeves at my house, Judy was clipping seam allowances. I cannot imagine the work and the effort that took; but she did a beautiful job of it; and after the jacket body was washed, what a lovely, soft jacket the ragged seams made.

Everyone who came by had to touch the jacket. I don't know whether it was the very soft fabric that Judy chose or the ragged seams, but the jacket drew everyone to touch it. And its owner says it is so soft and so comfortable that she really enjoys wearing it often.

I think that all of us like to own something to wear that makes us feel good, feel as if we are wrapped up in warmth and love. I think that this jacket is just that for her and I know that she will wear it for many years. And if ever a garment was the perfect garment for its wearer, I believe that this jacket is the perfect jacket for our friend.

it fits!

Among the many things that we packed in the box were brightly colored and wildly embroidered socks, a few CD's and a skirt and jacket that I could only hope would fit. And last night, she wrote that they both truly fit well. Now, I have no real idea of how that happened other than this project was one inspired by G-d and He must have done some assisting in the fitting.

To begin, the skirt was a simple six gored, elastic waist skirt, with a trumpet type flare at the hem. I had found some beautiful "clouded teal" (that was the name of the color and I love it) rayon twill that washed and dried like a dream. Yes, of course, it also raveled beyond raveling and I was so very glad that I had a serger to stop that. I topstitched the gores and my Creative Feet edgestitching foot made that stitching absolutely perfect. (well, almost)

Her daughter had told us that she wore size 12 Eddie Bauer jeans and so we had gone to the store and actually measured the waist and the hip. And so I had made the skirt's measurements conform to those measurements. And it fits.

But I had all of this fabric left over; and wanting to do something with it, I designed a waist length collarless jacket with long sleeves and used every bit of the fabric. (We also knew her bra size and we went with that.) I decided to line the jacket with bright stripes since the blue stripe almost matched the blue fabric of the suit and I lined it to the very edge. (I was out of fabric for facings!)

The jacket was so simple and plain when the lining wasn't showing that we wanted something special there for her. I found three or four really nice corner embroidery designs that would sit in the bottom, front corner of the jacket front and we tested them and looked at them and played with them until we decided on one very simple, light design which seemed just made for the jacket front.

When I began putting it all together, something was lacking. After looking at it for a while, I decided to pipe the edge of the jacket. It would look gorgeous, but I had nothing but little snips and funky triangles of fabric left. Oh well, off I went to JoAnn's and Wrights had piping in the same exact color as this piece of bargain fabric I had found on sale in a color I hadn't even noticed in clothing anywhere this summer.

Because I hadn't expected such a color of piping to exist, I hadn't taken a swatch with me and had just gone looking for whatever might be. But as soon as I saw the package, I knew this was the right color. I grabbed it and a package of navy (Although I know that my color memory is better than average, I never quite believe that I will be right; but I was.) As soon as I put the piping next to the jacket, I was thrilled. No one would ever know that it wasn't self piping. (Well, you do!)

Now, piping that edge was an experience. I have piped lots of straight lines, but this was a little different and I couldn't remember whether you stretch or push piping on corners to prevent it from cupping. I found out the usual way by doing it wrong on the first curve and having to take it out and redo it. I will remember from now on as I did four of those tight curves.

I started out using my zipper foot to stitch the piping in and I didn't like the way it looked. The stitching wasn't close enough to the piping and the line wasn't straight. It was wavering. After fishing around in my box of feet, I pulled out my Creative Feet piping foot and the sewing was then a snap (almost). I did feel that I could have inserted the piping without looking as the piping rode along in the foot just as it was supposed to and the piping went in quite nicely.

Yes, there were a couple of places that I could have taken out and redone; but you all are teaching me the three foot rule and so I left it. No one will ever see those places but me.

Oh! You noticed that I had some of the lining fabric left. Yes, well, all I could do with that long straight piece of bright stripes was make a tie or a belt or whatever she might want to do with it. If nothing else, it looks nice on the hanger.

And it all fits. Now, I can make other simple skirts for her and perhaps a nice suit also, nothing with a tight, exact fit. That isn't what she needs or wants. We have a fit and she can have more garments. We fit her with one long distance telephone call and we can do it again. It fits! (Can you imagine how concerned we were about that? I have never even met the woman.) And it fits!

butterflies

Anyone who knows my embroidery design and my embellishing of clothing knows that the butterfly is one of my very favorite design motifs, reminding us of our "New Life."

Look at this beautiful butterfly that Judy stitched onto the simple tee. It is open work and thus is light enough not to weigh down a lightweight tee shirt. Perfect.

But she thought that it needed something more and she was right.

She brought the Swarovski crystals over and we added them around the butterfly. What a difference! Be sure to click on the picture to enlarge it (actually, you can click on the symbol on the bottom of the enlarged picture to make it even larger) so that you can see the details of the design and the crystals at work.

The addition of the scattered crystals in no particular pattern gave the butterfly its own shimmer of new life.

maranatha

We knew that she would be delighted with this V necked tee (and another similar one with long sleeves) with the Maranatha dove scattered over the front of the shirt. Of course, we added some on the back also. We were pleased with the look of the dove in red against the black tee and so is she.

turquoise and purple beads

A simple teal tee with a scooped neck, bright turquoise ribbon, and bright purple beads that swing from loops of turquoise colored glass beads makes a nice top to wear with skirts, jeans, or even under a jacket for casual business wear .

she has the box

I had written that Judy and I were sewing for a friend. Well, we finished our "collection," shipped the box -- all 20 pounds of it -- and it arrived yesterday. Today, I should hear how things fit.

The box contained things we thought that she would enjoy wearing. When she called last night, thrilled, she kept asking how we could know what colors, what fabrics, what designs she would like and could wear. In other words, she was thrilled with everything in there. And we are blesssed beyond measure.

One thing we did was embroider several tee shirts for her. Knowing that she wore jeans and tees to work, we bought several plain tees in the colors that we knew would be complimentary for her. And then we worked out machine embroidery designs for the shirts and even found other embellishments that would make the shirts anything other than plain tees.

When you see these, you will notice immediately that I took the pictures before we pressed everything, but be assured that all was pressed before it went ino the box. You can see lace trim, beaded trim, purchased appliques, and machine embroidery on the shirts.

Next time, the story of the little suit I made.

great garment photos

Today, Judy and I took several digital photos of all of the garments that we now have ready to mail. I was going to post them tonight; but guess what? I cannot find the cord to attach the camera to the computer in order to download the pictures so that I can include them here for you.

So, they are not posted here yet. But they soon will be. Just wait until you see them. Until then, put some happy sewing into your life.

collaborative sewing

Tonight I finished the first jacket and skirt of several that Judy and I are making for a friend. This is sewing by long distance. The friend's daughter and husband gave me some idea of her size and I have attempted to make these garments for her with no measurements and never having seen her. Smart? I doubt it; but these are a surprise. After this, I will ask her to send a few measurements to make this a little easier.

This has been so much fun. Judy and I first made a pieced jacket (well, Judy did all of the piecing and the sewing and the cutting. I just made the sleeves and the collar.) I have really enjoyed collaborative sewing. Judy did some tone on tone embroidery on the front of the jacket I made and I piped all of the edges of the jacket in order to give it a more finished look. It is pretty classy looking (except for the very loud lining, but we all need some private fun.)

The color is "clouded teal" and I was so surprised to find both thread and piping in that color. (Yes, I could have made my own piping, but I was busy making a wiggly lining from a bright stripe in the slipperest stuff I have sewn in a long time.) I had never had trouble inserting piping before, but this was not an easy job. It is not a perfect job, but I am trying to learn the three foot rule.

Judy and I have really enjoyed this project as it gave us an opportunity to get together more often than usual and we sewed and listened to PBNRadio.com and drank iced tea like good Texas women and talked about everything that we could think of, mostly about how happy we both are.

Sewing is like that. Women sit down together as they have for thousands of years and laugh and talk and make things with their hands for the people they love. We didn't solve the world's problems, but we did create something lovely from flat fabric and thread. Come and join us.