Companies Here

I love this picture of my brother and I with Santa. I am not sure I was enjoying myself much, although I must have assumed I SHOULD be. I actually look more than a little nervous, check out the body language! Don't touch Santa!!

My company has begun to arrive, Saturday evening, my daughter, Tues. after noon my brother and Wednesday afternoon my nephew! The fun begins.

Company Coming

My brother and sister-in-law are coming today and my nephew and his wife are coming tomorrow. I have quilts on all the beds. Unfortunately we have a relatively small house, so age has it's advantage for this visit. The brother and wife being the oldest get the best bed, our queen size bed that we replaced with a sleep number that a neighbor gave us to try because she waited too long to return it, now has to deal with selling it on her own. We are doing the 60 day trial, but I already am pleased. I am a 75 and hubby doesn't have a choice, he's a 75 as well. I haven't heard any complaints.

Then the nephew is coming up on 40, well, at least in late 30's, so he and his wife get the sofa bed. Not always the most comfy, but I have boards underneath the mattress to help avoid feeling those bars that go across. It's a queen size and I have slept on it myself to check it out, it's OK!

Then the youngest, who, of coarse is an adult, but being the youngest gets put upstairs and get's a BowFlex as a room mate. And some WD-40 as it's also a bit of a work room. And the blow up mattress, albeit a NICE blow up mattress. And the youngest doesn't have to share a bathroom, one full bath, one person use, that gives extra points, plus will be quieter. So I guess I am trying to appease my own guilt at not being able to give each and everyone of my special guests the royal treatment.

I am excited and these are the quilts I am using this week. They are all very special, one by my grandmother, one by my mother and one by me!

A short break

I have all my sewing put away, well, most of it. With my youngest at home there is some fitting to be done and also checking through patterns I have accrued. I love it when the fabric stores have 99 cent patterns, I can get 10 for $10 and that is a great bargain when they can cost from $11 to $25 and more! So I have more than I need, but there are lots of good techniques and ideas that are valuable. I want to eventually create my own patterns and become extremely skillful at making beautiful, well crafted clothing. I have noticed there are no nice blouse patterns for little girls from sizes 2-6. Plenty of jumpers and dresses, but no blouses, so if I ever run across any, I will hang on to them.

I am excited about all my projects being put away as the house will be full of people I love and don't get to see very often. Worth not sewing for a week and I will be refreshed and ready to make new messes once they leave. I don't decorate for holidays, I would rather use that time and energy for purposeful creativity. I also DO NOT like all the cleaning up and putting away at the end, it brings on feelings I don't like, as if something is over or ending, and doing that in the winter does not have a positive affect on my mood, so I just let everyone else mess with that. We are going to several parties in Dec. so we will see lots of decorations. Festive, yes, but worth it in my home, NO! I like to focus on what Christmas is really about, those twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany. THAT is Christmas, THIS is Advent. Prepare in your heart, not your home!

Done for now

I have put all I have on my computer for now. So must take a break until I have time to scan and download. I am excited to see what I have done. I am a super duper "producer" and find I really like to SEE how I use my time. At the end of the day, if someone were to ask me "what did you DO today?" I have a huge satisfaction if I can SHOW them something, especially something FINISHED! There were many days/weeks/years when my day was spent with children, reading, playing, taking care of the necessary, then too tired to do anything once they were in bed, and I was fine with that. There truly is a season for things in life. Children were my absolute joy and I knew I would never regret giving them 110% of my time and energy. That is what it always felt like because I always wondered how I did it sometimes? Where did I find the patience, the energy, the TIME! But I did, and am the proud mom of three amazing adult children that are still the joy of my life. Every moment spent with them was rewarded 100 fold. This picture is of my "babies" and the jammies were made by their grandma! Hello Henry!

This little outfit I made without a pattern. I saw a picture of my granddaughter in it on her momma's blog with a little t-shirt. The top is made with lots of that elastic thread and I doubt was very comfortable, but the skirt is toooooo cute. Hey, mom, recognize that fabric? Fat quarters I believe.

Two cute dresses

These two dresses were also from "the stash". Some of the pieces of fabric mom gave me were not long on yardage, so needed to be used for small dresses. Many of the fabrics coordinated and so could be put together in fun ways. Here is a picture of Princess in the blue one.

Flowers and Lace

This dress, made for granddaughters, is another from mom's stash. The buttons on the back included. I used lace around the button on the front to make a little flower. Just having fun, but it's cute. These are may favorite type of little girl dresses.

Summer/winter nightgowns

My older grand daughter has decided nightgowns are nice. I agree, I am a nightgown girl from WAY back, the first time I put on a nightgown, I never went back. Funny how we seem to prefer one or the other. I made these for her, the one matches her little sister's jammies that are posted earlier and the star/moon one is from my mom's fabric stash, I thought it was perfect nightgown material, and I love this pattern, so cute.

John Deere

In our grandchildren's home, John Deere is very popular. I have learned all about John Deere and when I found you can buy fabric with the logo, I knew I had a winner, at least with the boys. All of my oldest grandson's jamies are John Deere themed and he seems to think that is pretty cool. This outfit I made for the youngest, and as he gets older, he and big brother will have matching John Deere jamies, cool ones in the summer, flannel in the winter. I have even seen PINK John Deere, so someday, they may ALL get John Deere jamies and nightgowns.

The Crib

This small crib was used in the 50's when my husband was a baby, it was painted but I am not sure what color. It is smaller than a regular crib and only used the first few months. We used if for our third, not sure why we didn't get it until later, and we painted it yellow. When grandchildren came along we offered it and decided it needed a "face lift" so went down to the bare wood and finished it natural. I got a new mattress for it and made a waterproof pad and sheets as well as the dust ruffle and bumper pads. As I made the bedding, the prayers were for every little child that would spend time in it in the future. May each child they lays in this crib have blessings beyond imagination. May they have a safe and fruitful life and find happiness and joy in all that they do.

Baby Clown Outfit

I made this for my grandson for Holloween when he was very little. He wore it with a little red dot on his nose and without the scratchy collar, he was very cute.

Still learning

I have found I don't have many of the pictures of my creations on the computer so will have to find the time to scan them in, then add to my blog here. I am still learning and making many mistakes, but that is part of learning. Amazing how many mistakes I can still make when sewing. Recently I had laid out a pattern onto silk and managed in my flakiness to have one pattern piece upside down. Needless to say, that was an expensive lesson. At least it is not the $100,000 lesson they learned on the space station when one of the packets wasn't tied to the station and floated off into space. We were discussing how to avoid that. Get a little shooter with a sticky on the end, shoot it out and it will stick, then reel in back in! Easy Peasy!

Baby Heart Dress

This dress is out east. One of my daughter's friends had a little girl. She was one of the children that used to attend our annual Valentine Party, so of coarse, I had to do the heart theme. I made a bonnet to go with it, but must not have taken a picture of that! The NUCK label. Many of the trims and buttons come from the stash my mom gave me several years ago. She liked to purchase lovely things and I am slowly going through the bits and pieces, adding something here, something there. I have recently made myself a dress using silver buttons that she gave me, and they look as if they were made to go with the material. Since I have a regular film camera, one must wait for those 24 pictures to be taken to get the film developed, then scan the pictures to the computer and THEN publish. Worth the wait, there is nothing wrong with waiting. Waiting can be very good and very rewarding. Mostly . . . I don't mind waiting.

Big Girl Bluebonnet

This dress was made for Princess Granddaughter.

Baby bluebonnets

I made this dress for a little girl who lives in Norway but has connections to Texas.

The Flower Girl Dress

This is the flower girl dress that I made for my daughter's wedding. The blue sash matched the brides maid's dresses.

My beautiful daughterS (yes plural)

My dream, having grown up with four brothers, was to have GIRLS, plural girls. I have nothing against boys, after all some of my favorite people are boys/men and I love them to bits, but for some reason, when I was pregnant for the third time, having had a daughter and a son, I couldn't help having a bit of a hope/wish for a girl. I didn't pray for one, that was for health, but something inside of me wanted to be able to say I had daughters. I had my kids "back in the olden days" when we didn't know until they were born if they were a girl or a boy. I have noticed that after years of finding out the sex, folks are getting back to enjoying the surprise! Being able to "look inside" may have it's advantages, but come on, there is something amazing about everything that happens on a birthday, and the boy/girl surprise is a dimension that I truly enjoyed. I had the first granddaughter for my parents, after five grandsons, all of whom were and are precious and special, but I had the GIRL! I helped with the BALANCE. My brothers have only had boys and their sons have only had boys, now where would the world be if that trend continued? Yeah for GIRLS. Plus, girls really ARE more fun to sew for.

My turn to sew for a wedding

30 years later, I had the opportunity to do the same thing and made my daughters bridesmaid's dresses as well. It was a bit tricky as the girls were all out of town, so I had to keep things VERY simple and elastic was involved! The splash of color, if not the style was what we were looking for and they did lend that splash of color. I made the wedding dress from the same pattern as her senior prom dress. We knew back then that the pattern was a keeper. I had to make adjustments to the tea length dress pattern. There were several layers down the back . I did end up doing a second version of the back, but used the material from the first version for the ring bearers outfits and the flower girls dress. The material was on sale and we were pleased that the bridesmaid's dresses were less than $15 each and the wedding dress ended up costing less than $100 in materials! Hours of prayer and love, but not in $$$

My mom sews for my wedding

I come from sewing. My mom didn't make my wedding dress because we found something that was amazingly awesome, but she did make ALL the bridesmaid's dresses, the flower girl's dress, our precious neice T, and even the suit for my Godson, our little ring bearer. I got to pick out the fabric, my favorite colors, purple and light blue, they were so lovely and the girls looked so nice. We even had to accommodate a pregnancy so mom was clever to find a pattern that adjusted for that!

K's dress and jamies

These were fun to make and the jamies are SOOO cute. The black jumper is ultra suede, very fancy for a toddler, but very comfortable and easy to keep clean.

Little K

My younger granddaughter. I don't have any pictures of her actually modeling the outfits I have made for her, and she is nearly two now, but I couldn't leave her out. This is my favorite picture of her when she was about five months old. She is a yummy one!

The Complete Cowboy

When my little cowboy tried on the vest, he reminded me that cowboys need chaps as well! Of coarse!! I had enough leather left over to fashion a pair of chaps . . . after a fashion. He must have only felt the love that went into making them, as I had NO idea what I was doing. He loves them. So . . . the complete cowboy look.

The Leather Vest

The leather vest I made for my little cowboy. I had a leather coat that was worn and faded, but after cutting it up there were some great pieces, and since my little guy is only 5 there was plenty to make a very nice vest. That little tag inside is "my label" the NUCK brand. Nanut's Unique Clothing for Kids. I put that in all my kid clothes.

Going to the Beach

Grandson number TWO in his beach outfit. You are NOT going to lose him on the beach in this colorful number. And ya gotta love the cap! Keep the sun off that delicate skin, eh??

Rodeo Ready

The three of us ready for the Rodeo.

Big Cowboy, Little Cowboy

Since I am not sewing at the moment and won't be for at least a week, as we are having guests from OOT for Thanksgiving, I will begin posting some recent and older projects. My cowboy grandson has been fun to sew for. I have made him jamies and shirts so far. These days, he is really enjoying the cowboy look. He came with his daddy for the Rodeo and I had several cowboy shirts ready for him to wear during his short visit, and had sent him one earlier. He even had a cowboy shirt to match his Grandfather!

Easter Egg Dress detail

The Easter Egg Dress

This is my granddaughter in one of my favorite recent creations, her Easter Egg Dress. It was sewn in the spring of 08 using one of the Daisy Kingdom patterns. I bought the fabric at my favorite fabric store downtown and enjoyed making all the extras, the hat, the purse, the little jacket with the perfect little yellow buttons, and then the doll dress and hat just for fun. She looks like she is having fun, and she is the cutest, sweetest little granddaughter. I have sewn for her since before she could walk.

Easter Princess

Sew and Pray

I am going to join the masses and begin a blog. I know I have enjoyed the ones that I read on a regular basis, and if this ends up being only read by my mom, my daughters and myself, that is fine. For me it is a record of where I came from, where I am at, and where I am going. I have always wanted to blog, but never had anything that I could connect to. Designing and sewing clothing is my thing and will be easy to document.

It is called Sew and Pray because that is what I do! I pray, while I sew, and I sew a lot. If I am making something for someone, they are prayed for while I sew for them, and probably their families. When I sew for myself, I pray for people I don't sew for. I have sewn so much lately I am amazed at what I have produced, and by keeping a blog I will have a record. A bit like stepping back and looking at the big picture.