Smocked Bonnets Part 2 & An Attitude of Gratitude!

Hand Smocking is probably my most favorite type of handwork to do. I find it very relaxing and really enjoy working on something in the evenings while the TV is on. Probably my most favorite item to hand smock is a baby bonnet. I have been working on two smocked bonnets in the past several weeks, which are baby gifts for friends. Two lucky baby girls will receive these baby bonnets this weekend! Nothing is sweeter than seeing a baby in a bonnet! You can click on the pictures to get a bigger picture of each bonnet and the smocking.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

I am VERY honored to have been given the The Attitude of Gratitude Award! 

My friend Sara, nominated me for this Award, which was soooo very sweet of her! Sara has become a good friend of mine! I met her via the internet, and in June of 2008, I had the opportunity to meet her face to face! We hit it off immediately and it was like we had known each other for years! Sara was honored to have her gor

geous baby layette make the cover of Sew Beautiful Issue #121

Sara is an amazing seamstress - please take time to visit her blog and website to see all her beautiful creations!

The Rules of Accepting and Sharing this Award

1. Put the logo on your blog or post.

2. Nominate at least 10 blogs that show an attitude of gratitude.

3. Link to your nominees within your post.

4. Comment on their blogs to let them know they've received this award.

5. Share the love and link to this post and the person who nominated you for the award.

Tell us how you've come to have an attitude of gratitude:

I have an attitude of gratitude first and foremost to God for giving me a loving family. I am also grateful for the many talents He has given me! I feel very blessed to have the ability to design and sew! Since God has given me the talent to sew, I am also honored to use my sewing talents to minister to tiny premature infants and little ones that don't make it. Thru my chapter of Threads of Love, I make tiny little gowns, bonnets & blankets for little angels that don't make it and for Preemies, who have an extended stay in the hospital. I enjoy using my sewing talents in serving the Lord, and hope that it ministers to those families who are faced with the loss of an infant or dealing with a tiny preemie in the NICU. I have been following alot of blogs lately that deal with little ones who haven't made it, little ones hanging on to life and those who have been hospitalized - these are the families who really tug at my heart-strings. Many of these blogs, who I am awarding the Attitude of Gratitude Award to, have ministered to me in so many ways! I want to send a special Thank You to them for their bold faith in God! Here is a list of blogs I am awarding The Attitude of Gratitude to - some are sewing blogs, some are blogs that just inspire me & some are blogs that I regularly follow b/c I have just gotten caught up in their lives! LOL!

Rufflebunnies by Sara

Goosegirl Sews

Lasewista!

Southern Matriarch

Boutique Cafe

Shutterbelle Photography

Bring The Rain

My Charming Kids

Kayleigh's Story

Little April Rose

Smock'in a bonnet!

I have 2 smocked bonnets I am working on - both are baby gifts. I thot I would share on my blog my progression of just the smocking. This is bonnet #1. I just made up the smocking as I went along - no pattern to follow. Sorry for the color differences in the pics - lighting wasn't the best for some of them.

All pleated and ready to smock - I pleated 5 rows.

On Row 1 & Row 5, I stitched the cable stitch.

Sorry, forgot to take a pic in between here, but I added 3 cables

above and below Row 1 & 5 in a darker shade of pink. I then decided 

to do 2-step trellis waves on Rows 2-4 in the darker shade of pink.

Using an even darker shade of pink, I stitched 2 stacked cables in every other 

diamond, and I wanted to work it in a diagonal, but since I was making it up, 

I wasn't sure just where I was going to go from there.

I decided to go back and stitch 2 stacked cables on the top & bottom rows of diamonds.

To finish it off, I then decided to add a little bling to it and stitched 

2 stacked cables on the middle row in green.

Here is the completed sequence - I am calling this design "Confetti"

Once I completely finish the bonnet, I will post pictures, but first I am going to 

smock Bonnet #2 - once again, I plan to just make it up as I go along and see what

I can come up with! :)

Wooly Felted Easter Eggs

Several weeks ago I had big plans to get started and finish 5 Wooly Felted Easter Eggs. Well, I managed to get 2 of them completed for Easter and I will attempt to get the remaining 3 completed this week and enjoy them a bit before I pack them away for next Easter. These really are a fun project. I purchased the pattern, wool & kit from Erica's Crafts.

I began with cutting my pattern pieces out of freezer paper. I ironed the freezer paper to the felt and cut out all the parts for 5 Easter eggs. Here are all my cut parts:


Using 505 spray makes it MUCH easier to place your parts onto the portion of the eggs for stitching - it's soooo much easier than pinning them and trying to work around pins.

Once all the parts are 505'ed to the egg portions, it's time to start stitching.

I blanket stitched all the felt applique pieces to the eggs. Once all the egg portions are done, machine stitch together, leaving an opening. Fill with polyfil, then whip-stitch the opening. Using DMC Perle Cotton, feather stitch to hide all the seams. Here are 2 of my completed eggs - they are soooo cute and fun to make! I hope you enjoy seeing them!

When I finish up the rest of them, I will "antique" them by coffee-staining.

"Peep-peep" & Easter Finery!

One of my fondest memories of Kindergarten was when my class placed several chicken eggs into an incubator and waited to see if any would hatch. It normally takes about 21-23 days for eggs to hatch, which is 3 LONG weeks for a kindergartner! It was very exciting to go to school everyday anticipating the hatching of the eggs. I remember the day that all of us watched in amazement when one of the eggs started to crack, as the little baby chick inside worked to peck away the egg. Finally the egg hatched into a very wet sort of ugly bird which once dried became a cute fuzzy little yellow baby chick! It seemed like it took forever as that baby chick worked and worked to get out of that egg! Our class named the little chick "Peep-peep" and it became our classroom mascot for several weeks. We each got to take turns taking it home over the weekend. I was the lucky girl that got to have it over Easter break! I had soooo much fun with "Peep-peep" - and it is something that I will NEVER forget! Here are some pictures of me & "Peep-peep" on Easter Morning! Look closely, "Peep-peep" is sitting on my shoulder! LOL! You may already be wondering what happened to "Peep-peep" when she grew up - I will tell that at the end of this post, so keep reading! By the way, the big bunny rabbit was an Easter gift from my oldest brother. I remember he won it at some sort of Fair or something!
And here is "Peep-peep" in my Easter basket, which brings me to discuss Easter dresses.
I was the only girl with 3 older brothers in my family, so I am sure my mom & grandmothers had a great time dressing me up for Easter! I can always remember wearing smocked dresses, tho few, if any, were handmade. This one appears to have smocking on the front.

Here is another picture of me in a smocked Easter Dress - I was probably about 4 or 5 years old. This is a cute pink classic smocked yoke dress. 

I have a daughter too, and since I LOVE to sew, you can be sure that she was dressed in a hand-smocked or heirloom dress for Easter too! 

Times have really not changed much in children's dress styles since I was a child and since when my daughter was a child.....the classic remains just what it is - a Classic! Really the only thing that seems to change is the length of the dress. Here is a dress I smocked for my grand-daughter last Easter. As you can see from the 1960's to 2009 - the peter pan collar, puffed sleeves and classic smocked yoke style has not changed too much! This is great because you can get alot of milage out of a classic pattern using it for generations to come!


Lucky for me, I think she is going to be able to wear this dress again this year! The dress is made from Pink Linen and I would probably never do that again - as you can see, it looks great freshly ironed, but after it's on & sitting in church for an hour, it gets pretty wrinkled! 

Many of you are still in the midst of finishing up the last of your Easter sewing for 2009! I hope you all have a wonderful Easter and remember that Easter isn’t at all about new dresses, Easter bunnies and Easter eggs as such, though these things are nice to have at Easter time. I’ve heard it said that the Easter egg represents new life, just as a chicken hatches from an egg. It is okay to enjoy chocolate bunnies and Easter eggs at Easter time, but let's not forget the real meaning of Easter - the Resurrection of Jesus Christ's victory over death. His resurrection symbolizes the eternal life that is granted to all who believe in Him.
Oh, and what ever happened to "Peep-peep"? Well, after "Peep-peep" made her rounds to our homes, our Kindergarten class went to Mott Hashbarger Children's Farm and let "Peep-peep" live out the rest of her life on the farm! Of course, my brothers being the big brothers they were, would often tell me that "Peep-peep" ended up on someone's dinner table!!

Well, my newest internet time-gobbler is Etsy. I think most people have heard of Etsy, but in case you haven't, it's a pretty cool website that features all kinds of handmade stuff for sale - I mean you can find all kinds of handmade stuff at this website - you can also gobble up alot of time just looking at all the stuff and searching for more stuff! LOL! It's really an online marketplace where you can buy and sell items that are handmade, as well as vintage goods and craft supplies. Take a look at what I have listed at my Etsy store & please pass my etsy link on to your friends and please heart my shop as your favorite!

I think my next tutorial is going to feature tatting, but first I hope to get up an Easter post before I work on the tutorial. My tutorial time, tends to get a little limited these days, as I keep my 15 month old grandson everyday and tuts just don't work when I have a tot here! LOL! Anyway, if I can get my mom to send me some pictures, I have a special Easter post that I will add to this blogger before Easter arrives!