Thank a Soldier

Memorial Day. No matter what your opinion about current, past or future conflicts that the United States may be engaged in, thank a soldier for your right to express it.

Thank you to my Soldier!

Getting ready...

Not sure what is more fun, going or getting ready to go. I am busy pulling together stitching supplies, doing the last bit of laundry and packing so I can head south on Monday. I will be spending a couple of days with two of my daughters before I head to Avery Island to sit and stitch for five days. Below are the two projects we will be working on. Pulled thread with Mirella Arroyo and Fil Tiré with Wendy Schoen. Five days spent with fellow stitchers and a needle and thread. Just this side of heaven. In between stitching there should be time to walk among the live oaks, delight in the snowy egrets and spot a baby alligator or twelve. Avery Island is not only home to the McIlhenny family, founders of TABASCO® Sauce, it is also a wildlife sanctuary.

It will be good to see my girls, I may even get to meet the new fella that baby daughter is dating. Do you sometimes feel like you need a score card to keep up with your children some days? I sure do.

More reading than sewing

Well I have spent days reading dozens of sewing blogs instead of sewing. I have learned a lot, now to put into practice what I have learned.

I am so excited, two of my daughters are learning to sew. Makes this sewist mom's heart sing. I am going next week to visit, can't wait to see what they have done. I will also be attending classes on Avery Island hosted by Wendy Schoen. It will be 5 days of handwork, I can hardly wait.

Idol Fever

Only one more week until the finale. I think America got it right this week. Loved Sayesha but she just wasn't able to compete against the two Davids. Next week should be interesting.

Smocking Arts Guild of America
What I am working on right now is my Artisan Level II for Smocking artisan certification. There are several parts to each submission. I am working on the original sampler right now. I would love to have it ready to submit for this year. I need to get cracking. After the sampler there are 3 garments to smock and construct. YIKES! It has to be submitted before July 1.

Bees doin' it; birds doin' it....

So I guess I might too. Create a blog that is. Not really sure what I will do with a blog besides join the masses that have one. I enjoy reading other blogs so I figured "Why not?" The down side will be that it puts my poor grammar skills out there for the world to see. OUCH!

I plan to share my projects and perhaps some knowledge along the way. Please bear with me as I learn how to post and format these pages.

I will post pictures of some of my passion.

This is one of the gowns I have done in recent years. It is smocked and hand embroidered. I love monograms on gowns with the intent that the gowns will become family heirlooms. This is a basic square yoke gown with an embroidered inset down the center. The embroidery took about 100 hours to complete. I loved every minute of it. My husband also had the privilege of baptizing the baby who wore this gown. What a blessing.

This gown was a challenge in that I had never made a gown with a rounded T-yoke. I used Sarah Howard Stone's French Hand Sewing Vol II. I ended up unstitching the center panel three different times. Doesn't sound like much until you realize that the seams were all trimmed and roll and whipped by machine. That is a lot of teeny stitches to take out. But the result was worth it.







This last gown is my most recent. I am always on the lookout for "victims." This was for the first grandchild of a friend of mine. At first I was sad that this grandmother didn't want a lot of embroidery on the gown. I was quickly won over by the lusciousness of silk organza over silk batiste. What a dream to work on! It is not snow white but it is whiter than it appears here. Its more of a natural white. The bullions are done in pale pink.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing some samples of my passion. Until the next time.