Wedding Dash Blues

 

My daughter's blue heeler Dash was in her wedding adorned in a doggy tux as ring bearer.

During rehearsal the wedding party was lined up as the minister explained the details. Dash went up to Hayley, the bridesmaid who was wearing flip flops, and peed on her foot. Too bad I didn’t catch her reaction because it was priceless. She shrieked, made this face,😮and raced to the pond nearby to wash off her foot. 

During the wedding Dash was the ring bearer. When Rachel made her appearance, Dash had a doggy temper tantrum, broke loose from his tuxedo costume, and ran and sat on Rachel’s gown train. I ran over and grabbed Dash so the wedding could proceed. 

Over than the Dash fiascos, the event went off without a major hitch. We had friends attend we hadn’t seen in over 20 years. A lot of preparation and planning went into the event with 100+ attendees. 

They received packaged pieces of bride's fruitcake. 

I was recruited to the flower arranging team. 

There was a caterer failure - all of the dinner and dessert dishes were left unwashed to the next day. Guess who became the impromptu dishwasher?  

I had a wonderful stay at the North Canyon Inn Bed & Breakfast in Camino, California. I spent my down time on their screened back porch. 

Still unpacking all of the China plates, it is nice to be home and back at my usual antics of sewing and selling. 

Baby Girl Dress

This McCall's mom and daughter combo came through with the adult pattern found at thrift. The child pattern I picked up at Hobby Lobby for 99 cents. This will reside in my project box for a little awhile - the right event might come along. 

This 1950s retro pattern is the one that I first chose to make. I am betting my daughter will xnay that one. 

One of my fav local thrift shops came through with their usual 4 sewing patterns for $1. I was able to pick up more girl dress patterns. Keeping the McCall's Special Moments for any upcoming events. Fingers crossed my son will get married one day. 

My daughter likes modern clothing, she picked the Project Runway look for Baby girl Malcolm. 

I've chosen the lime green print fabric with the fairy print fabric. Now, if I can just figure out where I placed the fabric. Must be a senior moment. 

I will start on this project after all of the wedding festivities. Two batches of cookies have been baked, vacuum packed, and refrigerated for the rehearsal dinner dessert. I plan on making at least one more batch of cookies to round out the assortment of chocolate chip cookies, cherry macaroons, and applesauce cookies. 

A big HELLO to my blog visitors. I am seeing a lot of traffic and am loving it.💞

One Week to Go to the Big Day

My daughter's wedding day is fast approaching. The lead-off image is one of the table arrangements. The second image is the arrangement for the buffet tables. 

Below the table vases are packed and ready to be filled with flowers. All were purchased at thrift for just a few dollars each.  

The rehearsal and dinner is on the Friday before. I will be bringing dessert to the event, a couple of fruit pies and an assortment of cookies, including chocolate chip. Bride's fruitcake will be packaged and labeled later in the week. 

Segueing to the subject of Baby Girl Malcolm - the baby shower is scheduled for October 25. The baby quilt was finally bound and ready for gifting. 

The backing on the baby girl quilt matches the baby girl jacket. 

That image I took before I trimmed down the sleeves and finished the hem. 

Next up for baby girl Malcolm is a dress from this Simplicity 2392 vintage 50s sewing pattern I pulled from my stock. My next post will include the fabric pull to audition fabric for the right look. 

Cute as a Button Baby Jacket

Here I am a sewing pattern seller and have been for many years. The last time I sewed clothes from a pattern was my maternity clothes in the late 1980s. 

The pattern is a 2009 Jackie Clark Designs Cute As A Button Baby Jacket. I am not an accomplished seamstress so a lined hooded jacket was a stretch for me. After many viewings of different YouTube tutorials, I got on the right track.

In the image below, I demonstrate that the sleeves were too narrow. Only 2 of my fingers would fit so I cut 1-1/2 inches from the sleeve length. 

Attaching the hood and the hems to the sleeves and jacket were hand sewn.  

Back of the baby jacket. The fabric is a remnant from the baby quilt backing.  

Seems sewing blog posts are much, much more popular than quilting posts. Since a baby girl will be entering my life, I will be sewing more little girl clothes. 

These two fabrics came through the batch from the community sale at the senior trailer park. 

I made many mistakes on the first go through on this pattern. The biggest mistake was sewing the hood to the jacket without hiding the seams. 

Here are the two jackets, mistakes I made on the first one, I corrected on the second one.

On the subject of sewing patterns - The women's and men's pajama patterns are from 1962. Both are keepers, even though I rarely keep cut patterns. 

Ending the post with Camo Build A Bear modeling the jacket prototype, and newly-rescued $1 thrift shop bear modeling Baby Girl Malcolm baby jacket. 

Altering the Rehearsal Dress and the Fabric Find

While my daughter chose none of the maternity dress patterns for me to sew, she did ask for alteration of her rehearsal dress. A knit crocheted v-neck maxi we are hoping the baby bump will accommodate. 

I removed the eye hook fastener and the zipper on the back of the dress. I have had this bridal ribbon in my craft stash for I don't know how long. Delving in to new projects highlights the fact that it is a good thing to hoard craft supplies.  

This YouTuber The Sewist showed me the way on how to alter this dress. 

After about 6 attempts, I finally got the hang of making spaghetti straps. 

While I didn't understand half of what the Sewist said, I got the gist of it. 

Thrifting update: A trip to a community yard sale at a senior trailer park resulted in a tub of quilting cotton fabric for $40. 

The seller said she hadn't sewn in 10 years, more likely closer to 30. Here are highlighted fabrics from the late 1990s. 

1994

Power Rangers! A TV show I used to watch with my kids.

1995

1996

1997

I am running out of places to hide the fabric. Sewing seller did include one nearly finished quilt top that I will feature in the months to come.  

Finally found my gloves

Yikeyity bikeity first time I have ever seen 12,000 views in one day! Is it the wedding stuff? Have I hit the big time? 💜

In my mother of the bride image wedding-countdown, I mentioned that I felt "hand naked." I found hand-crocheted navy blue half gloves on Etsy. I do appreciate that you can still find handmade items on that site. These were purchased from StunningCashmereLace.

Wedding is 17 days away. The search is still on for fine China dinner plates, 10 more to be safe. We are gathering together all of the flower vases we picked up at thrift. 

There will be 30 at the rehearsal dinner to be held at the wedding site. 120 have RSVPd to attend the wedding. 

This is my rehearsal dinner outfit. My first crocheted dress and I LOVE IT!!!!! 💜💛💙💗 The earrings are handmade by my stylist Sara Sheehan, goddess_seeds_ on Instagram.

Movin' on to seller update: The sewing patterns from the estate sale and others were just listed for sale on eBay. This pattern is the oldest of the series. While undated, that tell-tale hairdo says 1960s to me. 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/187558207831

On the subject of sewing patterns, I have decided to delve back in to clothes sewing. I made all of my maternity clothes soooo that would be over 30 years ago. With my daughter pregnant and due in December, there is more than enough motivation for this project. 

I sent her the image of the three sewing patterns I had in stock dated 1991, 1998, and 2000.

The Butterick pattern on the far right is the most recent as 2000. I can't imagine pregnancy fashion has changed that much. We will see if she chooses any of them. 

Estate sale in the middle of nowhere

I feel fortunate I was able to pick up this gold pinion pine garland. I have had my eye on that type of decoration for a few holidays now. Retail pricing on Christmas garland is eye-watering. 

I thought I had discovered the outskirts of my town but no, a new to me subdivision was where this estate sale was located. I couldn't get there until the afternoon of the first day so things like the crafter's project boxes were already gone. I did avoid the mob of 50 at the sales opening, one of the workers informed me. 

Tried to make a deal with Tinker O'Brien who was holding the estate sale on a massive amount of needlekits. First time my offer of $50 was outright rejected. She wanted $5 per kit. I took home none of them. 

What I did take home for $60 was high quality quilting fabric. Not the hit and miss stuff you find at thrift. In that take was a sewing machine travel case, sewist's pillow, 25 sewing patterns, 19 completed quilt blocks, 1984 publication Vogue Christmas, and the garland (shown in the lead image). The fabric now resides in my secretary desk. 

The thrift shop items you see in between the fabric are the first shelf - girl holding poodle and white poodle miniature; second shelf - Bratz doll with platinum hair; third shelf - lady head vase. 

The Vogue Christmas book will be featured in a couple of months in my Countdown to Christmas. My attempt at craphts is sooo much different from the polished looks in the books. 

Lastly, I must be appearing somewhere on the internet, page views have skyrocketed. I just do what I do, fun stuff with the fabric arts, thrift shopping, and eBay selling. 

Sewing Stuff

September is National Sewing Month. Calls for a couple of funny images.  

Seller update: I have been kicking around the idea of live selling. I have applied to eBay live selling but I don't think I fit their age demographic (they like them young). TikTok live selling is another option. It all sounds like more work, maybe I won't go there. 

Lurking and hoping that a local estate still has all of the crafter goodies I saw posted online. I can make it to the sale on Friday afternoon so I hope to post all kind of goodie images. I have nearly gone through all of my death pile stock. 

Wedding Countdown

1960's wedding Midge leading off the post. 

My daughter Rachel's wedding will be at the end of this month. There has been so much preparation. From purchasing the dinner/dessert plates and champagne flutes at thrift, to sewing the wedding bunting, and preparing the fruitcakes months in advance. The image below are the bags and labels for the bride's fruitcake. 

It has been over 20 years since I have attended a wedding. Of course, you go through the spate of them when you are young and your friends are getting married. 

My son's wardrobe - Nunn Bush dress shoes, slacks and socks at Nordstrom Rack, and the sport jacket (not shown) and shirt at Men's Wearhouse (not an ad for either). Upscale shopping has moved into Folsom, California, so we don't have to travel to the mall in Roseville. 

I have four dark blue dresses I purchased secondhand online. Dress No. 1 I had altered and may still use it for some kind of event.  

I settled on Dress No. 2 for my mom of the bride dress. No alteration needed. 

The other two dresses are a strapless mini and a halter-top maxi, all the same color and material as the one shown. I may wear one or the other to the Friday wedding rehearsal. 

Feeling kind of hand naked without gloves on with the gown. Gonna have to buy the ones I have on wishlist.