Sewing by Proxy-revisited

Remember this post where I helped a grandmother make a chirstening gown? Well she was gracious enough to send me pictures of the gown ON the baby. Now the gown is gorgeous, but the gown on the baby is over the moon.

If you can tear your eyes away from this gorgeous child, notice the beautiful smocking, precious teeny tiny piping, great pintucks and lace frill around the neckline.

The fabric she used is my absolute favorite, silky voile. This gown by this picture has been washed a couple of times and yet the fabric keeps it filmy floaty appearance.

And just one more to leave you with a smile. She is going to be a little heart breaker once she is a teenager. Beautiful baby. Beautiful gown.

This grandmother considers herself a beginner, I would beg to differ, but if you take a project slowly, ask for help when needed, start with the best materials you can afford, you too can create a wonderful confection.

Sewing by proxy

Remember when I posted about the reader who contacted me because she wanted help making a christening gown for her granddaughter?

Well a few hours on the telephone, a dozen camera charges and a couple of hundred emails later and here are the results. She has done a gorgeous job. I knew all along she could do it. She hadn't smocked since this baby's mother was a child. Just like riding a bicycle, she is back at it with great results!

She used Eternal Love from AS&E Issue 42. She purchased her supplies from Bessie Mary. Thanks Jan!

It was delightful fun helping someone rediscover a forgotten passion. I just know that her granddaughter will benefit from this refound love of smocking and heirloom sewing. The christening is this Sunday, and I know it will be a day for all of them to cherish. I am glad to have been a part of it.

The pictures may have my stamp on them, but the stitching was all hers. Great job Mary!

At long last, the latest gown

How sweet is a tiny puff sleeve with just a teeny bit of lace?

The finished gown! No its not green or green in my house, the sun is blazing outside and there is a huge tree right outside this window. The gown is an adaptation of the round yoke gown in Sarah Howard Stone's French Hand Sewing for Infants. Many heirloom shops carry it, or it can be purchased through Amazon. The patterns do have to be purchased separately, but are so worth it.

I used silky voile by Spechler-Vogel. I purchased it at BessieMary and then when I realized that I hadn't gotten enough for the slip, and Jan from BessieMary was sick, Suzanne from Adrienne's Attic came to my rescue. Please patronize your local heirloom shop if you have one or from the many independent ones around the country. They are owned and operated by the most wonderful people who share our passion for all things lovely.

I LOVE this fabric. It is sheer but not so sheer it can't support the embroidery. It is not real expensive. And it keeps its soft, floaty hand even after being washed. Remember the Peter Rabbit bubble? I loved the fabric but after it was washed it became crunchy. I didn't like that as much. It is still pretty, but a little crisp for a newborn.

This gown was made to replace a family gown. The family that I made it for had a generations old family gown that made it down to the next to the last baby in this baby's mother's generation. A sister in law had it right before the last baby of the generation would need it. She independently decided the gown could not be used for future babies and CUT IT UP! So this granma (no I didn't misspell that) did not have a gown for her youngest child, or future generations. So this gown was made to create a new "family" gown. She plans to give it to all of her children to use for their babies, so it has the family monogram.

I used a Celtic alphabet that I found at Needle and Thread. I stitched it used a tiny chain stitch and seed stitch filling in the loopdy loos.

The Celtic trinity and Celtic cross are shadow work. Remember the hoop burn? I told you it would come out in the wash.

My second daughter, who has an Irish name, has already claimed that she wants the shamrocks etc. for her gown when the need arises.

The back yoke. All things can me made okay. My applique cord did not end up in quite the same spot on the yoke backs. I did not realize this until the yoke panel was complete and cut out. So a strategic placement of a button makes it look as if it is continuous. I didn't point out to granma that it was supposed to be any different. Don't tell everything you know!

The baby's name and baptismal date are embroidered on the back of the gown. Some people stitch it on the slip. Sometimes the slip gets separated from the gown, so I started a few gowns ago stitching it on the gown instead. I blurred out the baby's last name. I didn't think his parents would appreciate me blasting it all over the interwebz. The fancy band is lace insertion separated by bands of machine twin-needle pintucking.

The slip. I did a small section of pintucking and lace on the slip bottom and a shell stitch hem around the neck and armholes. The little bullion flower is really so they will know what is the front of the slip. I will take pictures of the shell hem stitch tomorrow for those that have waited patiently.

Well there it is. The baptism is Sunday. I am sure he will be handsome because I hear he looks just like his mother. Can't wait.

Ahhhhhh that feels good.

There is no original thought..

Bunny of La Sewista is in the process of making what promises to be a gorgeous christening gown. I had commented on her blog last week while she was planning to pleat the fabric for a bishop gown with a lace overlay. When pleating two layers of fabric most patterns, books and instructions will tell you to baste the fabrics together and treat them as one as you send them through the pleater. This makes great sense on the surface. As sewists we want to control things. So it sounds like it will help us control the fabric. But a pleater works by sending the fabric through 3 ridged rods that look like gears and onto the needles. Much like the feed dogs on a sewing machine there is no way for the fabric layers not to shift as it goes through the "gears." And one fabric is going to feed faster than the other. By basting the fabrics together, you don't allow the fabric to move freely as it goes through the gears, and it fights against itself and the basting. causing skipped and y-pleats. Otherwise known as a hot mess. One of my son in laws would say "its a physics thing." Now understanding that statement may help his phenomenal golf game and probably makes a lot of sense to a lot of people but life science was my gig not physics. I may not understand it, I just know that it works.

The best way to pleat two layers is to roll each fabric on its own rod, put both rods through the handles, feed the fabrics in at the same time. Each fabric enters the pleater on its own. Very rarely will you not have one layer of fabric come up shorter than the other. As you pleat pay close attention to the fabric as it is enters the pleater, not the rolled fabric on the rods.

Bodice of silk organza/silk batiste christening gown.
Fabrics pleated as one.

Now in reference to the post title, before anyone bows down to my infinite wisdom and knowledge I must confess I was clued in by someone else. I sought advice from Gail Doane when I was embarking on a christening gown made from silk organza and silk batiste. Gail has been featured several times in Australian Smocking and Embroidery, Sew Beautiful and teaches for SAGA and other groups around the world. So when it comes to questions about construction, Gail is the one I ask.

That is what is great about the sewing world, we all learn from each other.

I've been found out!

It appears as if oldest daughter has found me, and linked me! Geez louise now I have to be careful of what I say about her. I think she is just stalking me because her two sisters have pictures and she doesn't. But I can fix that, and you have to always be careful what you ask for.

Age 4
First dance recital
Spring 1983

Gotcha!

Truly though she is the apple of our eye

Age 8 months
Wearing Mommy's Christening Gown
(shown in post below as most prized possession)

and its hard to believe how grown they all are. I started sewing for her when she was just walking, but I didn't start smocking until she was about three. I don't think I still have this dress but when I think back on it, it was pretty awful. It was done with the iron on dots you pick up by hand, there was no back smocking. I didn't know about back smocking so the ruffle on the top was all sprung out. It is amazing how far you come over the years. I have taken lots of classes in recent years but for most of my sewing life I have been self taught from books. So not really too bad in the scheme of things I guess.

Flower girl
Age 4





Dress for her flower girl
Adaptation of Australian Smocking and Embroidery Snowdrop Issue #30
Sleeve and collar from AS+E Storybook Issue #66
The smocking is a bit better 20+ years later.


Blushing bride and handsome groom
Nov 11, 2006

Love you honey. Now go back to that blog of yours and clean up that language! You weren't raised that way.

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.