Completed!

           Here are the little boy bubbles completed.

Samuel Robert is four months old today! What an angel.

So listen gals....This blog is not turning out exactly as I had anticipated. I never intended it to be a venue for me to showcase my work. I had hoped it would be a place that we could all share, ask questions, share and learn. If you have a question, you can be sure that somebody else has the same question. If you have not joined the blog, it is not difficult. You need a Google account. There is a button above the list of members about joining the blog. If the instructions there confuse you,  just Google how to get a Google account and join in! I am going to start the ball rolling by asking a question which may be helpful to our more novice members.  What is your favorite Bishop pattern? Please do not e-mail me your answer, post your comment on the blog so that everyone can read and benefit.

The Easter Bunny is Coming!

Really, I DO know it is February. But to complete your Easter finery in a comfortable time frame, this is the time to start.  I am making two little bubbles. One is for Baby Samuel and one is for the son of one of Chelsea's friends. I decided to make them the same since the boys are both the same size and I find when doing picture smocking, once you get on a roll, it goes pretty quickly. I am using Yvonne Denise's pattern. I really like the more tailored look of the pleats in front.

 This is the smocking plate and here are my lambies.

Here are the inserts piped and sewn into the pleated fronts.

     I will show you the finished products soon. We had such a nice visit yesterday with Baby Samuel, and of course Meredith and Scott. Samuel has become a very smiley little guy; until you put a camera in front of you face! Very hard to catch one of those smiles. Here he is sitting up to the table while we had lunch.

And here is snuggle time with Bampy.

And just being his cute little self, with a hint of a smile. I will see some of you later this week. Happy smocking, knitting, spinning and weaving! Now it is time to "knitwatch" the Superbowl. Go Pats!!

Snow Angel

     Hard to believe that we had four feet of snow by this time last year! I was pretty happy to see the few inches that fell over the week end. Adelaide came for a sleep over party and enjoyed lots of time playing in the snow. The usually pristine landscape of snow around my house was trampled, piled and had at least a dozen snow angels.....sorry to see them melted yesterday. We fed the birds and Adelaide was very proud to demonstrate her ability to identify the different birds to Uncle Kyle; specifically Cardinals, Chickadees, and a new one for her.....Woodpeppers!

     I thought you would like to see the Chicken dress completed. The little girl has been born, and I think the dress will be perfect for Easter. I have to say that I was not completely happy with this dress, because I chose to make it from Imperial batiste. 100% cotton is so much nicer....but I could not imagine this new mama ironing...as is true of most young women. I iron all of Chelsea's girls' dresses. My choice.  And I want this child to WEAR the dress, not have it be a lump of wrinkles sitting in an ironing pile!

I embroidered "peep" across the front of the hem three times, using a chain stitch and sewing thread. This allows a pretty small script. I have used this technique on little onsies as well.

I wanted to share this new pattern with you. Bonnie Blue patterns are by Janice Shelton. She used to work at The Corner Stitch, in Meridian, MS. This shop was owned by Kathy Hall and was my favorite heirloom shop for years. I used to stop there on my way to, and home from, New Orleans when Meredith was in college at Loyola. The Corner Stitch is no longer in business, but Janice has some really cute patterns. This one is just adorable and I am looking forward to making one.

Are you thinking about Easter? Well you should be! Today I am going to start smocking a Yvonne Denise bubble for baby Samuel, and a duplicate for the new son of one of Chelsea's friends. I love this bubble pattern because the smocking is a narrow insert, and the bubble has four pleats instead of all that pouf from the smocking pleats. It also has nice tailored sleeves. I will post as I go along.

Some of you may have seen this on my Facebook wall, but I wanted to share it with all of you. One of the gals I work with sent it to me with the message, "You and Adelaide out for Lo Mein?" So funny!

Good Bye 2011

2011 has been a very eventful year for our family; some of it not so great, but mostly wonderful. But all is eclipsed by the safe arrival of our first grandson, Samuel. Here are a few photos of Christmas 2011, including Adelaide in her new dress and Vivi in a gently used dress that was in Creative Needle several years ago.

Meredith, Scott and Samuel.

Mama and Baby

Scott's stepmother meets her grandbaby for the first time. Her name is Debbie. We have decided that she will be "Honey" to baby Samuel. Adelaide calls her Honey and Scott's Dad, "Honey's husband".

The girlie girls...Vivi looking very mischievous!

Here is the Strandberg Family in their matching nighties and PJ bottoms. Santa, played by big Sam, brought these on Christmas Eve afternoon. (A Swedish tradition)

And here are the pajamas that Santa brought Christmas morning for the American Girl Doll Twins (Both boys, both named Baby Samuel)

And two overall outfits.

I will leave you with a picture of my very cute son in law with Baby Samuel, mixing Bloody Marys on Christmas morning.

Happy New Year to all!

Ooooooh, I like this!

So, I have a friend whose sister is soon to have a baby girl. This soon-to-be new mama, loves purple. And my friend has asked me to make a dress for the new baby.
All she asked for is something with chicks smocked on it and it needed to PURPLE. I convinced her that a newborn would look better in white with lavender accents in the smocking. Here is the smocking.

I use this tiny trim on baby dresses quite often. It is available from many places; I usually buy mine from Old Fashioned Baby because Jeannie always has it in stock. I like it because it is sweet, simple and soft. I really don't like lace near a baby if it is scratchy.

I'm sure many of you have seen the technique of using entredeux and threading floss through the little holes, like beading. This is a very pretty technique and a nice way to pick up the colors of your smocking. However,  entredeux is a bit stiff for the edge of a smocked baby sleeve. Soooooo, I attached this sweet little edging by hand, and then threaded it with one strand of lavender floss. I love how this looks and my "client" will love the additional purple. Here is the sleeve. I will do this on the collar as well.

I wish you all a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year, which will include lots of smocking, sewing,embroidery, knitting and spinning!

Oops, no picture of Egg Girl

I just looked at my last post and realized that the picture of my egg ornament, made by a dear friend did not make it to the post. Here it is.

Almost there!

I keep saying, "I'm done!".......and then I start just one more Christmas project. Here are the Lucy jumpers I made for Adelaide and Vivi. I found the snowman button sets at Joann's and had 95% of the materials required in my stash. I tucked little Christmas tissues in their pockets.

Lucy is a versatile, quick pattern. The hemming by machine and the turning right side out can be confusing. The first one I did went great. No problem; I didn't even have to think about it. The second jumper was another story. What a mess I made,
but finally figured it out. I think Lezette has a You Tube video on this subject. Did I go back and refer to it? NO! I will try to be more thoughtful and organized when I make my next Lucy.

Here is my tree, decorated, and a few of my favorite ornaments. It is a homey, New England tree. When my kids were growing up I really wanted to have all white lights on my tree. But the kids really liked the colored lights. Now I am sentimentally attached to the colored lights, but guess what? My kids have all white lights on their trees! Go figure!

This ornament is not homemade, but has two of my  favorite things: kitties and cardinals!

  

 

I have carefully wrapped and protected this ornament through two moves and 34 years of Christmas ornament storage. It was made for me by the mother of a terminally ill infant I cared for early in my nursing career. We went on to become lifelong friends, and thankfully she and her husband went on to have two very healthy children. This little girl was made from an egg, in a likeness of my older daughter, Chelsea. She is front and center on my tree every year. I have given my children almost all of the ornaments which have been purchased or made for them over the years, but I can't part with this one just yet.

caption

This is a new ornament for my tree this year, made by the newest member of our SAGA chapter, The Charles River Smockers. What  could be better than a handmade item for our annual Yankee Swap? And the story of her last minute finishing was hysterical. Stuck at home with no car, she found a scrap of gingham for the backing, used cotton balls for stuffing and dismantled a swag to get the cording. That's Yankee ingenuity! Thanks Karla!


And here is my little Samuel, the newest grandchild, born October 9th. We woke him from a sound sleep for the photo opp with Santa! Poor little guy. Santa doesn't need to leave me anything under the tree....these precious grandchildren are all I need to make my holiday perfect.

I promise pictures of the girls in their finery! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season.

Christmas is Coming!

 I went into the grocery store today and realized that every person I came across was stressed and unsmiling. I am usually pretty stressed by Christmas as well, which is the reason Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday! Anyway, I decided today that I will enjoy the parts of  the holiday that are important to me. Sewing, baking and crafting with Adelaide and Vivienne.  If the house is not decorated perfectly, who cares. Monday the girls and I are making Nutcracker themed cupcakes and a tree garland made from card stock circles and red and white baking string.

Our beautiful Christmas tree is up, but not decorated as yet. I will do that tomorrow along with the annual baking of Swedish Cardamon Bread. We went to Seasons Four today for little Samuel to get his picture with Santa. NO LINE!! And a great Santa with real long white hair and beard, and a very generous girth! Sam again this year challenged me to purchase the first tree we chose. I think this is the third or fourth year we have done this, and again the tree is just perfect. We have a lot of laughs doing this. It takes approximately two minutes for me to hone in on a tree. I do not profess to have great "tree choosing" ability......I just think all the trees are perfect!

Here is Miss Adelaide's Christmas dress. Most of you have seen it. Just wanted to tell you a few details. It is a combination of two patterns, Lee and Anne. It is basically a Lee, but I used the yoke from Anne as that pattern has a deeper yoke, and I did not want any more rows of smocking, and needed the bottom of the smocking to match up with the bottom of the back yoke. I also used the long sleeve from Anne, but made it less full and made a narrow bias rather than a cuff. I really love this little  "candy cane" dress, but I cannot believe she is old enough to fit into this big girl dress!

Christmas 2008....How time flies!

My Favorite Christmas Craft

What is this?

If you guessed a bowl full of peppermint and wintergreen candy you would be

WRONG!!

It is cutest Christmas Tree garland that you ever saw...... and it took 20 minutes to make.  I can't take credit for the idea; it came from one of my favorite blogs, Sew 

Many Ways. She used all peppermint, but I like mine because there is no printing on the cellophane. (Starlight Holiday Mints purchased at Stop & Shop.) She suggests using a low temp glue gun on the twisted ends and then press them together. Donna and I bought one at Michael's for $2.99. Much better than burning my fingers and I think a regular glue gun might melt the cellophane. This would be a fun craft to do with a child, but one older than three or four. 

Hope you enjoyed this, and that you will make one for your tree!

                                                                                                                

Swedish Festival

Today was the Swedish Festival at the Cyclorama in Boston. Adelaide has been attending Swedish School since September and much of the past two months has been spent rehearsing for the St. Lucia processional and singing. Well Miss Adelaide has refused to rehearse. She either cried, just walked away or spent the time doing a solo dance routine. So today our whole family was biting our respective nails. Will she? Won't she? Well she did!!! And she knew every word to every song!Her papa was so happy! Kids....you just never know. The little girl in the gingerbread girl dress is Nora, Marcia Anderson's grand daughter. They were both perfect. Little Samuel spent his time in a sound sleep. Cute family, don't you think? The Swedish Festival was great...lots of vendors selling beautiful Swedish items, most Christmas related, and amazing pastry.

More sewing on another day. We spent the rest of today getting the outdoor decorations up. Bring on Christmas!

Nutcracker Coat

I recently tackled my first coat. It is done, it is cute. However, I have to say I really did not enjoy making it. I think if I lived in the South and could make a coat out of wool challis, I would have had a great time. But living in New England, a winter coat needs to be warm and so I used a lovely red heavy wool; I think it is called Melton. The pictures really do not do the color justice.

I also interlined it with flannel. Just made the whole thing awkward. I also made a muff, with a pocket. I remember having a muff as a little girl. Mine was white fur, rabbit, I think. I loved that muff. I hope Adelaide will enjoy hers. Chelsea is taking her to the Nutcracker tomorrow and although it will be in the 60 degree range, Adelaide will insist on wearing her new coat and muff. Sewing for that little soul is so rewarding! Now on to her Christmas dress.

As some of you know, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. No hype, no gifts, just good food and family time. We had ten around our two tables in this tiny doll house, plus little Samuel in his car seat. Both Vivi and Adelaide were a bit under the weather with colds, but were darling in spite of it. The food was fabulous, thanks to lots of help from my daughters. Adelaide and Vivi made their contribution by helping me make the cranberry sauce, a version with orange zest, Grand Marnier and chopped, toasted pecans. Here are the tables before the chaos.

 And here is a sample of our place cards. Surprise..... they were pins as well and everyone was required to wear theirs. The girls just loved it.

My gratitude this year revolves around the name Samuel. I am so grateful for the safe arrival of our new grandson, Samuel. I am also so grateful that hubbie Samuel was at our Thanksgiving table eleven months after his heart attack. This could have been a very sad Thanksgiving for our family, but thanks to Dr. Christopher Pyne and the superlative care at Lahey Clinic, Sam will be carving the turkey for years to come!