Playing Dress Up

This is the Circa 1920 Gown posted here by The Old Fashioned Baby. Mimi loves to play dress up.

Too precious.

I also ask you, faithful reader, for prayers for our baby mommy. She is quite ill and has been hospitalized for a week now. Hence the reason for my absence of late. I have been dividing my time between my daughter's home to help my son in law and the hospital. Enough about me. We all need her well, her baby needs her well and she misses her baby terribly.

A touch of gloating

I admit it, I am gloating. I finished first............ Hey a girl needs all the kudos she can get and if she has to go out and grab them, so be it.

To spur students to finish what could be seen as an intense class project Jeannie B over at the Old Fashioned Baby Sewing Room, offered a certificate when you completed the project.

What is it about a certificate that makes you get something finished? It is not like it will garner any public acclaim or financial reward. Hey I am a nerd, what can I say? Now all of the other members of that class, get out your gown and get to stitching. A certificate can be yours as well.

Circa 1920 French Handsewn Gown

Well the "car dress" is finished. This is the gown that I have shown progress reports on here and here and here. This gown is stitched entirely by hand. As always click on the photos to enlarge them.

Seams, entredeux, buttonholes, etc. All by hand. A hand project like this travels well. And since I drove to so many destinations since September, it was quite convenient. The pattern is by Jeannie Baumeister of The Old Fashioned Baby. It was the class I took at this year's SAGA convention held in Atlanta. This gown was featured in an old Creative Needle magazine but the pattern had never been printed. I don't know if Jeannie plans to publish this one as part of her pattern line or not.

The ruffle for the hem is gathered with snail shirring. I enjoy the look of it, but wasn't wild about the process. I really do like the look of it though with the wider entredeux.

 Another challenge with this gown is that the yoke is inset into the gown front. So there are no seams to set the yoke into. Here is an advantage to doing this by hand. I think you have way more control of what happens to the pieces as you stitch them together when you are doing it by hand than by machine.

I did run into a small tragedy when I thought the gown was finished. I inadvertently left a needle in the gown when I left it soaking in the sink to remove the blue marks. Imagine my distress when I discovered the rust spots left behind. Who knew that a needle could rust in less than 24 hours? In the photo above you can see the shadow left by one of the rust spots. I posted my dilemma on a Delphi forum and received many hints. A friend posted this link about rust removal. I have gotten most of the rust out using vinegar. I will try it again to get the rest out.

Initially I thought that there were only three little spots on the back next to the placket so I did some additional embroidery there to cover it up. The trick with doing a fix like that is, you have to do embroidery on the other side of the placket to make it look like it was meant to be there. I hadn't discovered the vinegar solution at that point.

All in all I really love this little gown. I need to make a slip for it. The Vintage T-Yoke gown needs a slip as well. I think I will do one that can be used for both. Which means that both gowns will have to go to the same recipient for that to work. Also have to check that they are close in length. Jeannie has done a couple of blog posts about slips over at the Old Fashioned Baby Sewing Room and is in the process of doing some lessons on a Gertrude baby slip.

I hope you enjoyed seeing the finished car dress. I think it will forever be remembered as such.

Ahhhhh, good to be home

Ten days is too long to be away from my own bed. Lets see where have I been? Over 2000 miles in the car, yes you read that right. We made a huge loop from the midwest through the mountains of West Virginia to the coast of both North and South Carolina, a fly by in south Georgia to drive up through the deep south back home. My bed felt like heaven on earth last night. We saw a lot, rode a lot, walked a lot, ate wayyy too much, and of course I stitched a lot in the car. Four of those days my husband worked all day.

If I had a driver everywhere I went, oh the stitching I would get done. The above picture was taken in the car as we drove through the mountains of Virginia. It was a test between three different flowers. I thought the flower on the right, the color was too bright, the flower on the left was way to pale so I settled on the color of the flower in the center. I used one strand of each of the other flowers to get the center one.

It reminds me of  Baskin- Robbins Strawberry Cheesecake ice cream.

I didn't just stitch in the car, I did lift my head and look out as well. And we stopped. I was a really bad photographer this trip.

We stopped at the New River Gorge and then drove to the bottom of the gorge. My husband nearly croaked when he looked back and saw how high the bridge was that we had driven over.  He is not a friend of heights.

But what a wonderful taste of autumn this was. We drove through the mountains of West Virginia. Even stopped for a quaint train festival in Hinton, WV.  Then it is back in the car and to North Carolina we head. No pictures taken there. I stitched in the hotel while he worked.

Down the coast we go, we stopped at Lee's Inlet Kitchen in Murrel's Inlet, SC for dinner. OMG, the hush puppies. We then get to Charleston and do the whirlwind tour of Charleston in two days. Take it from me, two days is not enough.

We started our whirlwind on a carriage tour, then we walked through some of the cemeteries, and up and down King Street and the old City Market. I bought a sweetgrass basket for a souvenir. For dinner we went to Hank's for dinner. FABULOUS! I highly recommend their shrimp and grits.

 

 

Day two we saved our feet a tiny bit by taking a pedi-cab down to the Battery and then walking back up to our hotel.

 

We toured the Calhoun Mansion and the Nathaniel Russell house.

The day was winding down but we did squeeze in the Old Exchange and the Provost's Dungeon, then walked the waterfront before we crawled back to rest before dinner at the historic restaurant, McCrady's. Wowzer, talk about fabulous!! I have raved about the heirloom tomatoes and house made buratta ever since and the corn bread pudding. Wonderful.  Kudos, there was no "George Washington Ate Here" sign even though it is a part of their storied history. The hostess was wonderful enough to hail another pedi cab for us because my feet were revolting by this point and were not going to make the mile walk back to the hotel by the end of the second long day.

Next morning we attended Mass at St. Mary's, the oldest Catholic Church in the Carolinas and Georgia. Beautiful. It made my heart sing to see all of those babies and children in smocking and heirloom sewing. On our way out of Charleston we stopped on John's Island to see the Angel Oak Tree.   Magnificent and humbling. And back in the car.

We traveled to south Georgia to see our oldest daughter. Too quick of a visit. Dinner was great, company even better. And yesterday we are in the car once again to trek home through 6 states to get home.

Of course being in the car I could work on my French Handsewn dress previewed here, here and here. I think I am going to dub this dress the "Car Dress" since so much of it has been stitched in the car.

 

It is almost finished.I have to gather and attach the ruffle  and sleeve lace, then do the embroidery. Then my first convention class project will be done.

I hope you enjoyed this little impromtu tour of the southeastern US. Hopefully I will be back with more stitching to share soon. Till then faithful reader.

Attaching lace

I have moved on with my OFB gown from convention. I am up attaching lace to the rolled and whipped edge. This will be the ruffle at the bottom of the gown. I will admit that I have been more successful than in the past with this project. As I responded to Robin in the comments, the things I have done differently this time is to use a TINY needle, and to mark the seam allowance on the fabric before I started rolling and whipping. The edge is much more even and doesn't look like a drunk striped the highway. Remember to click on the pics to enlarge. If you look up in the right hand corner of this picture you will see the needle highlighted in reference to the markings on the pinning board. I wasn't kidding when I said tiny, a 12 between.

Some other things that are important to use, a very fine thread. I used Madeira Tanne 80 thread and instead of beeswax, I have had better luck with Thread Heaven. Another secret to my success this time is to pin down the pieces that I am working with to keep them straight and somewhat taut. I by accident discovered this when attaching the entredeux to the yoke piece and it has served me well in attaching the lace. See the above picture. I did not pull the lace, as that would stretch it, but smoothed it out and pinned it down. There is a certain amount of tension applied to the rolled and whipped edge though. I found it easier to run my needle under that roll if it was taut.

Before each stitch I run the point of my needle under the roll before piercing the roll. This has ensured that the needle exits the rolled edge at the TOP of the roll, thus eliminating, or at least minimizing stitches showing on the front. The bane of my existence when it came to French Handsewing in the past.

 

Do you see those stitches on the front? And it looks like I used knitting yarn to stitch them with. Now admittedly this is a tiny peek at a very early FHS project. But this is not what you are striving for.

Back to the task at hand, here shows the needle exiting the top of the roll and catching the header of the lace. I have pretty much but not slavedly (Is that a word?) followed the whipping stitches made to stitch my rolled edge. Because those stitches are pulled snug, it naturally makes little dimples that my needle falls into when attaching the lace. If I didn't land on each stitch I didn't worry about it.

Here is a closer picture from a slightly different angle to show the needle exiting the top of that roll and catching the lace header. 

There is a method that Jeannie showed us to simultaneously attach the lace while rolling and whipping the edge. It wasn't working for me. I had better results and it seems to be going quicker doing them separately, for me at least.

This is the wrong side of the rolled edge with the lace attached. I almost dare you to find the thread on there. That 80 weight thread just melts into the lace header.

And this is the front edge. Looks a LOT different than that early example. Thank goodness, since that early example is 25 years old. I hope I have gotten better. So yes Jeannie, I am happier; much, much happier.

Rolling, whipping and a wedding

I am not leaving to go anywhere for a while now. I hope. Quick trip out of town for the wedding of my son's best friend. It was like watching one of my own, (I admit to being a bit misty eyed) they have been best buddies since they were sophomores in high school. Fun, but tiring. The above is not the best picture, but my two youngest kids are sure having a good time. They could take their show on the road I think.

And as always I stitch in the car. I think I get more stitching done there than anywhere else. And since it was a get out the door quick, the closest thing at hand was my bag of convention projects. So I worked on this gown from my class with Jeannie Baumeister. I talked about the class in this post.

My rolling and whipping doesn't look too bad. The is the bottom of the ruffle. It is quite even and straight if I say so myself. I have used Madeira Tanne 80 weight thread and a 12 between needle. In other words a TINY needle. But I prefer that. 

 

 The sleeve is only gathered the tiniest bit and then attached to the beading that will have ribbon run through it to gather it a bit more.

 

From the front you can see a few stitches showing but not many. I really had good luck pinning it to my lace shaping board next to one another and stitching it together that way. When I attach the lace to the ruffle I will try to remember to take a picture of it.

Later faithful reader, what are you stitching on? I may have to put this aside to whip out another baby gift.

SAGA Convention, the story continues

Ahhh the fun continued. Wednesday and Thursday. I did not take any pre day classes this year at SAGA convention. So the first day of classes for me was Wednesday. For those that don't know or haven't been, at SAGA convention, there are classes each day. Wed., Thur. and Sat. These are 6 hour classes with a long break mid day for luncheon. On Fri. and Sun. are three hour classes. My absolute favorite are two day classes that span both Wed. and Thur. LOVE IT. You don't have to pack up your belongings, you feel like you are able to pace yourself at a more leisurely pace but at the same time also accomplish something. On the flip side of the coin, I am a project person. Not a real fan of classes that involve doing "samples." Just my preference. So my process of class selection is, what is offered as the two day classes and then what are the projects?

 

I am not letting out any secrets when I say I GRUMBLED about this particular class. It was a French Handsewn Daygown with Jeannie Baumeister of The Old Fashioned Baby. French handsewing involves rolling and whipping the cut edges, roll, whip and gathering, hand stitching the French seam, inserting the entredeux by hand. Did you get all that "by hand" business? Now I LOVE hand embroidery, love it. But I had warned Jeannie in several emails about the amount of grousing she could expect out of me about this rolling and whipping nonsense. I have rolled and whipped in the past but have not been happy with my results. I will admit that this time I was happier. So perseverance does pay off. And a TINY needle. I got an "award" for the most improved attitude.

I can't wait to finish it so I can wash it. Not sure why it looks as discolored as it does. The thread wax does discolor it some but not as much as this picture appears.

This is what I am attempting to achieve. This was Jeannie's sample gown. I have my yoke roll and whipped, and the entredeux 75% attached. Then to inset it into the gown front. We'll see how I make out with it.

Another technique that will be used on the gown is a gathering technique called snail shirring. It is relatively quick and very simple to do. This was just my quick sample on a scrap. It is fun.

One of the wonderful things about attending something like this is the inspiration that you get from the other stitchers as well as the teachers. Jeannie has a wonderful gown "in progress" from back in the 30's. I promised I wouldn't post any of those pictures of that gown. Jeannie wants to adapt a design from it. So out of respect for her I won't do that. But the above pic is just a teeny peek at the edge of an eyelet that was on another piece by the same embroideress of the 30's. That is a handmade eyelet! Isn't it amazing?

She did say I could post a picture of the bag! LOL

At almost all of the meals during convention are little table favors. Now we already know what a sucker I am for table favors. So at lunch on Wednesday was a tissue case trimmed with pearls and a skein of floss. Considering how stinking cold that building was the tissues came in handy.

Wednesday night we went out to dinner and I discovered my new favorite cocktail. I have been a Grey Goose Cosmo gal for years, but that all changed in the blink of an eye as soon as I had this delectable little treat. A watermelon martini!!!!!!!! OH MY GOSH! I have said a hundred times it was like drinking a melted watermelon Jolly Rancher.  It may be said that I probably embarassed myself licking the edge of the glass to get every bit of heavenly goodness. We ended the night, laughing, cutting up, stitching and staying up way too late.

I'll be back tomorrow with the next installment of how to have more fun than the law should allow.