Two Dresses

Today I would like to share two dresses I sewed for my daughter. They aren't exactly seasonally appropriate, but I knew if I waited until fall to share them I may forget!

The first is my favorite dress, perhaps even my favorite sewing project of all that I've made. The pattern was a perfect canvas for embellishments, and it was a pleasure to select the fabrics and trims to sew this special dress.

The yoke is sewn from a fine wale corduroy in navy blue. I enjoyed being able to add a little hand embroidery that picked up on the colors in the calico portion of the dress. It was a hard decision when it came time to select a ric-rac, I had a few that coordinated with the calico. 

I loved adding crocheted lace trim to the waist and faux button placket!

The pattern included a hem panel that allowed for a neat lace border. The sleeves are sewn from batiste and also edged in lace. The dress was meant to include a back zipper, but I substituted buttons for the zipper.

Here is a picture of the pattern I used. It is a Gunne Sax pattern from the 1980's. I love finding old Gunne Sax patterns on Ebay. The detailing makes them extra special!

 

The next dress is one that I sewed last fall for my daughter's birthday. I loved this beautiful brown calico! It seemed to compliment the design of the dress and added to the old-fashioned appearance.

 

The shoulder ruffles look so sweet when worn! And I couldn't resist adding a little embroidery to the collar.

The most challenging aspect of sewing this dress were the pintucks. I had to sew the pintucks a few times before they were all straight and even, but I was pleased with the end results.

 

This dress was sewn using a Cinderella pattern from 1980's. I loved the cover art on this pattern. The illustration on the far left was my inspiration when sewing this dress. 

It is always bring me so much joy to sew dresses for my little girl! I have a couple of pretty spring time fabrics sitting in my sewing basket just waiting to be sewn into new dresses and skirts for her. 

I hope you are all enjoying a beautiful springtime season! I hope to share a post soon with some pictures of all of the lovely birds, blossoms, and blooms around here.

"And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it." Psalm 90:17




 

Pictures from July

 July was a beautiful and busy month. I always enjoy July, as I feel that it is filled with summer's best. Trips to the lake, picking berries, stunning sunsets, garden produce, family picnics, beautiful flowers, well as you can see I could go on forever!

We were very blessed with an abundance of berries in our garden this year. I was able to make jam from our home grown strawberries, black raspberries and rhubarb, so far. I still plan to make red raspberry jam from our garden at some point. I also had enough berries to freeze for the winter months ahead.

There is nothing quite like a pie made with fresh berries from the garden! It gives us such a good feeling to see the hard work of planting and caring for our plants come to fruition.

Although we have planted blueberries they are very slow to grow. The picture of the plant above was taken at a beautiful blueberry farm we visit each summer. Our annual trip is one of my favorite summer traditions! This year I went with my mom and sister, with her children. It was fun to see the cousins enjoy their time together and competing to see who could pick the most blueberries!

 

One evening Jemimah brought in a basket of bell peppers she picked. She likes to pick flowers from her wild flower garden and then arrange them among the vegetables. She finds great delight in surprising me with beautiful bouquets and displays of her flowers.

I am grateful to have a nice supply of peppers in my freezer for the winter ahead.

We are thrilled to finally have some ripe tomatoes. They seemed to be a little slow to ripen this year. We have a few different heirloom varieties, which is a real treat. Above is another example of Jemimah's creative expression in vegetable/flower arranging. : )

The geese have grown so fast! They are such characters and seem to find ways to amuse us nearly every day. Axel is a little aggressive with people he doesn't know and becomes very vocal at his annoyance when unknown guests arrive, like the gas delivery man yesterday! He also finds great delight in chasing our poor little dog Darla Mae and chasing Jemimah while she rides her bike. He has gone so far as to bite her bike tire. I'm glad to be on his good side, so far!

 

Jemimah spent time this summer working on her embroidery and learning how to sew on the sewing machine. After completing a couple of hand sewn projects she was ready to try her hand at using a sewing machine. She sewed a patchwork quilt for her dolls and did a great job! I was so proud of her hard work, and blessed when she won best of fair at our county fair for her quilt.

Over the summer I hand embroidered a little runner/dresser scarf. I found the stamped embroidery kit at a little quilt shop in our area; they were selling a number of vintage stamped embroidery projects for 50cents- $1. I purchased several, some appear to be from the 1950's. 

I also added a couple of new (to me) vintage apron patterns to my collection. I am hoping to find time to sew them over the next few months, and maybe add them to my shop. I really like to button back closure of each design.

I hope you are all enjoying a wonderful summer! 

"O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" Romans 11:33

April

Earlier this month we enjoyed the first of our springtime flowers, crocuses. My little girl loves flowers and was excited to pick dainty bouquets for our kitchen table. In the picture above you can see her collection of bouquets in her tiny tea cups.

 Jemimah loves to color, and I am grateful to find a wonderful variety of coloring pages through Pinterest. I am always especially pleased to find scripture verses for her to color. Over the past two months Jemimah has memorized all of the verses comprising the Romans Road. It truly blesses my heart to hear my daughter recite the many scriptures she has memorized over the past year.

 Our new hens have begun egg production! After a long winter of not collecting any eggs it has been wonderful to have an abundance of eggs to share once again. Since we have a variety of breeds this time, it is nice to take note of the variances of the egg shell colors. My sister commented how some of the eggs are almost mauve in their hue.

 Over the winter Jemimah learned to embroider. Embroidery was one of my favorite pastimes when I was a youngster, however I will admit I didn't learn to embroider quite as young as Jemimah has. She spent many painstaking hours creating this precious kitty tea towel for me. I know that I will treasure it forever!

 My most recently completed project is a crocheted afghan. It has been quite a while since I crocheted an afghan. It had been on my mind that I would like to crochet an afghan for our living room.
My grandma was quite prolific in her crocheting of afghans. All three of her children, as well as some grandchildren were gifted with multiple hand crocheted afghans. Growing up I always loved to nap under one of grandma's afghans. I thought of my grandma a lot while crocheting this afghan. It was my grandma who taught me to crochet, and this pattern is very similar to a pattern she crocheted a number of times.

 I am really pleased with the end result! It is super cozy and I love the stitch pattern. It was fun to crochet as it was not overly repetitive, but was simple to memorize.

Did you all have a nice Resurrection Sunday? We did, even if it was quiet and different. One of the special treats we enjoyed this Easter was chocolate cream pie. I thought I would share the recipe today. Over the past few years it has become a family favorite and one of my most requested desserts to bring to family gatherings. In fact my one sister always asks me to make her a chocolate cream pie for her birthday and wedding anniversary. : )

Chocolate Cream Pie

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp. salt

Mix ingredients well in a medium saucepan. Then add:

3 3/4 cups milk (I recommend whole milk)
Cook over medium-high heat. Stir constantly. Mixture will come to a boil. Boil 1 minute or until the pudding is thick. Then add:

3/4 cup chocolate chips
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Mix well. Pour into an already baked pie crust. Chill in refrigerator until completely cool. I typically allow my pie to cool overnight in the refrigerator. Then top with homemade whipped cream, and if you are feeling extra festive maybe some sprinkles.

To close I would like to share a devotional I recently read in David Jeremiah's daily devotional Turning Points.
********************************************************************
 Unwavering

The Lord has promised good things.
Numbers 10:29

In his commentary on the book of Joshua, John Calvin wrote, “Our faith, unless founded solely on [God’s] promise, must be continually wavering…. Faith ought properly to recline on the truth of God alone.”[1]

Are you troubled today? The Bible says, “For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion” (Psalm 27:5).

Do you feel weak? The Lord declares, “My strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Are you anxious about how a situation will work out? Proverbs 3:5-6 says: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.”

For every pulsing thought, there is a pulsating Scripture. There’s always a Bible verse waiting to be requisitioned to your need. Search it out and write it on the tablet of your mind. If our faith is founded solely on God’s promises, we’ll be unwavering.

That which God promises to us in word he seals by act.
John Calvin

 

 "Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,
 According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:
Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust."
2 Peter 1:2-4

A New Favorite Dress

As you may guess from the pictures, this is a dress I sewed sometime last year and it has taken me quite a while to find the time to write this post. In fact I sewed this dress sometime last summer, as it was one of my entries in our county fair!

  It quickly became one of Jemimah's favorite dresses! The ribbons, ruffles, embroidery and bows made this dress irresistible to my ruffle and ribbon loving daughter!

 The pattern is from the early 1980's. I was drawn by the details of this pattern. You don't often see patterns with this many options for embellishments. It was hard for me to choose which style to sew first! I look forward to sewing the option with the cream sleeves and apron at some point, maybe come fall.

 I decided to sew view three, as I was especially drawn to the ribbon inset. I had hoped to find a fabric that would coordinate with red ribbon, since it looked so lovely on the pattern envelope. But I was pleased with the navy calico I was able to find and the gold ribbons are a more subtle accent.

 My daughter was very pleased with the little bows on the wrists. They seemed to make the dress extra special to her.

The "V" shaping of the bodice gives this dress an old-fashioned fair tale look. My little girl looks a bit like Goldilocks whenever she wears this dress! : )

We were also extremely pleased when this dress won best of sewing at our county fair.

I hope you have all been enjoying a peaceful and cozy winter so far. Have you been working on any special projects?

Recent Sewing

 Today I thought I would share a couple of the dresses I recently sewed for my little girl. I took these pictures last month, hence the turkey on the side board. ; ) As I have mentioned before every fall my sister Rachel hosts a German dinner at her home and the children wear dirndls or lederhosen. 

The dirndl/jumper pattern is one that my mom and I designed years ago.The blouse pattern is one the I purchased from Puperita. This was my second time sewing this blouse. It is such a sweet little blouse pattern! I love the gathers and binding.

This time I decided to make the dirndl extra special by adding some additional embroidery. The embroidery along the seam edges was done by chain stitching and then alternating between each chain with a french knot. It was a little time consuming, but I was pleased with the finished results. Embroidering the dirndls is my favorite part.

 This peter pan collar dress has probably been the most useful addition to her wardrobe this season. I found the fabric at a local Mennonite fabric shop and just love it! The pattern used to sew this dress was Butterick 6084.

It is a fast and easy pattern. In fact I have sewn another dress using this pattern this week. However this time I eliminated the collar and added trim to the neckline.

 This particular dress did not fit the dress form, it was a little too small. The dress looks far better on my little girl. I purchased this pattern from Puperita as well.

I really like the raised and rounded design of the yoke. This dress looks adorable with leggings. I know that this is a pattern I will sew time and again!

And to finish this post I will share a little knitting! I knitted this pair of mittens using a pattern from the Lion Brand book Irresistibly Snuggly. Jemimah is especially pleased with her new mittens. One of her favorite books at the moment is The Three Little Kittens. In fact she often quotes lines of the story while wearing her mittens. : )

I hope you are all enjoying a beautiful start to the Christmas season. We are enjoying the light dusting of snow that has fallen here today. It definitely is a pleasure to see this time of year.

"I keep my eyes always on the Lord.
With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken."

                                                     

Psalm 16:8

Embroidered Pillowcases

   Awhile ago I found this image on Pinterest. I just loved how the letters in "dream" where created with flowers. I also really liked the colors and the addition of pink crocheted trim. I decided to search for a similar pattern and found the exact same design here! I just knew that my little girl would love to rest her head on such a pretty pillowcase.

In the evenings I would spend time embroidering this set of pillowcases, and Jemimah would often watch me working and tell me how pretty they were. Adam also took notice, and commented on how much fun it looked. He asked if it was like coloring in a coloring book and I agreed it was a little like that. : )

 Growing up I remember seeing pillowcases that my great-great grandma from Germany had embroidered and crocheted. I thought they were so pretty and wanted to learn to make something like that myself.

The pillowcase set above is a set I made as a teenager. When the set was completed I tucked them away in my hope chest (which can be seen in this picture).

 Currently they are being used decoratively on our bed. They look so lovely and old-fashioned.

This was also my first attempt at adding crocheted edging to a pillowcase. Here is a link to a post from last year about creating your own crochet edged pillowcase!

 And to close, I thought I would share some pictures of my very first embroidery project!

I will never forget the warm summer day I learned to embroider. I was nine, and was feeling a little bored that day, so I decided to tinker with some old sewing thread and scrap fabric. Much to my mom's surprise I had satin stitched a little flower on the fabric. Mom was so pleased she took my sisters and I to the store where she purchased two sets of pillowcases to be embroidered, a box of embroidery thread, along with needles and hoops.

I was a little overwhelmed, but tried to work on the stamped design. However, within the next few days we went to visit my great grandma and she taught me the basics of embroidery: how to separate my thread, make a French knot, etc.

Grandma ended up having as much fun teaching me as I had learning! She embroidered this pillowcase while I embroidered mine.

 I was so proud of my finished pillowcase! My great grandma was too. For my tenth birthday she gave me two embroidery kits. I am so grateful to have such sweet memories of sitting beside my great grandma learning to embroider with both of us working on our matching pillowcases. I look forward to someday soon passing along this gift to my own little Jemimah. : )

September

It is hard to believe tomorrow is the last day of September! Where did this month go?! It has been quite a while since I last posted here - the summer months just flew by. Summer is always a busy season for us: working in our garden, canning, picnics by the lake, day trips and just enjoying time outside in our yard. 

 I enjoyed canning a variety of foods this summer. There are so many wonderful recipes on-line, I thought I would share a few of the new recipes I tried this year. The two quart jars contain soup, this was my first time canning soup and I am so pleased to have delicious homemade soup in my pantry! The two recipes I made are French Onion Soup and Tomato Vegetable Beef Soup (if you click on them you will be taken to the recipe). I am also hoping to can chicken soup within the next few weeks, which will be nice to have on hand during the cold season. It had been years since I made pickles and this year we had an abundance of cucumbers, so pickles were a must! I made "The Best Dill Pickles", they are delicious, but be forewarned the red pepper flakes do make for a zippy aftertaste. I also made pizza sauce for the first time, I eliminated the red pepper flakes from this recipe. : ) Two of my favorite recipes from last year that I made again are: Zesty Salsa and Spaghetti Sauce. I made a couple of different jams this year, but the unanimous favorite was Vanilla-Rhubarb Jam!

It feels good to look at my pantry and see so many jars ready for the winter ahead. It is always a treat to enjoy a taste of summer throughout those long cold months.

Over the summer months I completed a project that has long sat in my work basket unfinished. I am so please to have this beautiful design complete and ready to frame! This is my second embroidery project from Clementine Patterns. You can see the first one here.

I did make a few changes in the pattern's colors. I love bluebirds and changed the original robin colors to bluebird colors.

As a side story, we put up our first bluebird box this summer. Within two days of having placed the box in our side yard we discovered a bluebird couple had begun a nest! I was so pleased! They had a successful family of four babies. It was truly a blessing this summer. : )

 Another project I completed over the summer months was this doily. I have enjoyed revisiting this handicraft.

Our garden is pretty much done for the season. The pumpkins were a surprise since we never planted them. We think they must have been in our compost from last fall. Due to the rainy season they never did ripen as they should have, but I rather like the unusual color.

Our hens are spending their days scratching through the newly fallen leaves. They are comical at times! Adam says they make him think of a biker gang. They travel as a group at all times and have poor Winston (our cat) terrified of them!

This week I finished reading "Out of The Storm" by Grace Livingston Hill. It was a wonderful story of two brave young people meeting during a ship wreck. As you may know Grace Livingston Hill is one of my favorite authors. While I peeled vegetables to can this summer, I listened to a couple of her books on Librivox, it really made the time fly! I would highly recommend her Marcia Schuyler trilogy! Here are the links to all three: Marcia Schuyler, Phoebe Deane and Miranda. The series takes place in Upstate New York during the mid-1800's. Each story had me on the edge of my seat, I couldn't wait to see what would unfold next.

With the days growing chiller I have resumed my evening knitting. The scarves shown above are so practical and cozy! They are knit from a variety of lovely fibers, including alpaca, wool, cashmere and silk. You can find them in my Esty shop.

I hope you are all enjoying a lovely start of autumn!

"As for God, His way is perfect:
    The Lord’s word is flawless;
    He shields all who take refuge in him."

Psalm 18:30