A Fall Dress For Emma

Emma was a pretty good sport about modeling for Nana Shay as long as Grandda Rex was close by. That is his hand in the picture. Although she had not seen Grandda since she was 4 months old she went to him like they were old friends! I'm sure that the strong resemblance between him and daddy helped, but she is a friendly girl.

The dress is made from Fabric Finders print #973. I ran across the fabric back in the summer and loved the purples and olive greens. I spent quite a bit of time picking out the floss color and ended up using DMC #153 and #553. The dress is a variation of pattern #131 which I also used for her dedication dress. The directions can be found here.

For this size 12 month dress, I pleated 16 rows and stitched a 5 step Trellis Stitch. The dress is also Back Smocked with the 5 step Trellis design.

You might be glad to hear that Emma's Christmas dress which was interrupted with my mishap is now in the mail and Christian's outfit is ready to construct! What are you working on for Christmas or is your sewing all done?

Michie'

What Happened While I Was Away

Our boy decided to sit alone while Nana Shay and Grandda were in Arizona visiting Emma. I guess that will show us not to be gone for two whole weeks! So, for those blog followers who remember Christian's arrival into the world in May, you will understand how thrilled we are that at 6 months, he is doing everything right on schedule.

You might also notice that in a matter of weeks he lost his brown baby hair and is going to be a blond for now. He looks so much like Anna at that age, including the blond hair, blue eyes, and dimple, that it is kind of creepy.

And although his mommy has a special place in his heart that only a mommy can fill, he looks just like his daddy when he is thinking and knows that when daddy is around it is play time!

Michie'

The Sewing Mishap....

I'm calling it the "Sewing Mishap" since it is the results of getting really really excited that I had completed the smocking and hem and Emma's Christmas dress and all it lacks are buttons. In my excitement, I got up off the couch not paying attention to the fact that my foot was partially asleep. With my hands full of sewing supplies I had no way of catching myself so we made an evening run to the ER where they kept asking, "Can you put weight on it?" Were they kidding? Why would I want to put weight on a foot that was swelling that fast? Other people in the ER were even commenting on the amount of swelling. Our visit resulted in a bandage, crutches, and visit to the orthopedic doctor the next day where they diagnosed the worse sprained ankle in the history of the world. The good news is that I no longer need the crutches which were an accident waiting to happen. The bad news is that I am in a hard cast for two weeks. What fun!!! :)

So, please bear with me, between the two week vacation and the cast it might seem like I am no longer sewing and sharing. I am now home, not needing the pain meds as often today, and have plenty of pictures and ideas to post and share over the next few weeks.

What am I thankful for this year? Besides all the special things that are too numerous to mention, I am thankful that the cast is for only two weeks and that Thanksgiving dinner was not at my house this year!

Michie'

The Birthday Girl

We just got back from spending two glorious weeks in Arizona! The main purpose of the trip was sweet little Emma's 1st Birthday, but we managed to squeeze in some fantastic sightseeing while we were there. Ben (our oldest), Tiffany, and Emma were able to drive us all the way from their home in Sierra Vista, which is south of Tucson, to the Grand Canyon. Rex had always wanted to see the Grand Canyon, and let's just say that he wasn't disappointed!

The birthday girl was all smiles and enjoyed a dress made by Nana Shay and Auntie Anna that she was allowed to eat cake in.

And the monkey outfit was perfect for the birthday girl to play and learn to pull up in while we were there! Yes, I still can't believe that Rex and I happened to be there and watching the first time Emma pulled up. Within two weeks she progressed from, "Oops, I accidentally pulled up." to pulling up on our pants legs!

Michie'

Birthday Outfit #2

After completing the birthday dress I found the perfect smocking plate and fabric for a birthday outfit the very next day! Fortunately there is still a lot of college football going on which only means that there is a lot of time for smocking. I smocked Ellen McCarn's "Monkey Business" on white Imperial Broadcloth and used the insert with the print twill fabric.

I didn't have the pattern that I had in mind, so I combined the top of pattern #132 to the bottom of pattern #103. A little math was involved to the get the length right, but is was relatively easy. An old pattern that I had on hand was used for the blouse.

Aren't the monkeys cute? I can hardly wait to see Emma wearing it at her party next week!

Michie'

A Dress For The Birthday Girl

It seems impossible that Emma is about to turn 1 year old! Even more impossible was how much trouble that I had deciding what to send for her to wear. It is still pretty warm where they are in Arizona, so I decided that I would go simple for the dress and we can always put a sweater with it. The dress is made using pattern #122 and the applique' is from planetapplique.com. Since I envisioned Emma getting to eat a cup cake in this dress, I decided to use a really inexpensive cotton polyester twill blend fabric.

I used white seersucker and green gingham for the collar and applique'. I decided to dress the collar up a little by hand stitching white rick rack to the piping before constructing the garment.

You can watch the next blog for the "back up" birthday outfit!

Michie'