A labor of love

This was not my planned topic for today. The wonderful rains we’ve been having have saturated the ground and water seeped into a storage area in our basement. Among other things, I store some heirloom garments in there, thankfully all in Rubbermaid containers. I am blessed to own my aunt’s, my mother’s and my own wedding dresses, among other items. Of the three dresses, mine is by far the most spectacular. I opened all those boxes yesterday to ensure that no dampness had entered to encourage mold and mildew growth on these priceless textiles. I have documented the dress in my wedding scrapbook in a section called My Mother’s Masterpiece. I do not exaggerate. However, I had never thought to take close-ups of the details until yesterday.

Hubby, me, my parents, my sister-in-love, bridesmaid; and my brother, the head usher. The gore-shaped decoration on my skirt front is unfortunately mostly hidden in a fold. Mother made my dress, the bridesmaid’s, flower girl’s and one candelighter’s dresses, plus arranged all the bouquets and boutonnieres. I called her my one-woman wedding shop.

Close-up of the bridal couple. My dress was a combination of three different patterns, so Mother had to engineer its construction from a mishmash of instructions.

Since I had removed my dress from its box, I had to try it on. I’ve slimmed down quite a bit and wanted to see if I’d fit into it again. No problem. In fact, it’s a bit loose around the waist. I may be a bit thinner than I was then, but I certainly looked far more glamorous on my big day. Obviously, snapping my own photo in the bathroom mirror was not an easy task. Neither was trying to walk around our house with that long train. I had to gather up quite a bit of fabric in my hands to prevent dress from dragging on the floor. When I began returning dress to its box, I realized that I had never truly examined the dress and its details. I was blown away at the hours upon hours of meticulous, painstaking labor involved. My mother modeled excellence in her work. Looking at the dress forced me to choke back tears. I didn’t want them to fall on the dress.

This shows the bodice neckline, cross hatching and beading. Mother ordered a special sewing machine foot to do the cording, but it did not arrive until she had completed most of it. Until foot arrived, she had to sew one side of the cording, then another. I cannot imagine how tedious this must have been. This dress has LOTS of cording. (Mother tended to keep every shred of fabric she had left, so I found some of the leftover corded fabric in her fabric stash after she passed. I have preserved a piece of it in my wedding scrapbook.) I know that Grandma helped her daughter quite a bit in this project. Since Mother disliked hand sewing, Grandma probably sewed on many of the beads. They must have spent many companionable hours with Mother at her machines and Grandma with needle and thread.

This is the lace on the hem. Every scallop had to be stitched, a lot of rotating the fabric.

Skirt and train featured several of these corded, gore-shaped appliques trimmed with lace. Ribbons and fabric roses were the last embellishments added to the dress. These ribbons and roses tied my dress to the other ladies’s dresses, which were made from a fabric woven with a ribbons-and-roses motif. Until last evening, I had never noticed the lace leaf. Those were added just before the wedding. Grandma and my aunts sewed them on while we were decorating church and reception hall.

These roses are on bottom of the sleeve cap decoration.

This is the sleeve cap, covered with cording and beading.

Here are the sleeve roses close up. Note the lace surrounding that applique. I’d love to know just how many yards of cording and lace she used on this dress! What I do know is that this dress was designed and constructed from love. The materials and workmanship are just its expression. Saying thank you — even if I could — seems so inadequate.

Hubby the German

We recently hosted a polka band concert for the local performing arts organization. When Hubby learned that this group was coming, he decided that he wanted a German getup for this show. After all, much of his heritage is German.

He already had a hat he had purchased in Switzerland when he was in high school. This hat has its own story. After he bought the hat and its buck and feathers decoration, his tour group went to a Schloss Hellbrunn, a Salzburg, Austria, palace with numerous trick fountains. Hat got wet. Day was hot and humid, so Hubby took off his hat. In consequence, it shrunk badly, becoming unwearable. It sat unworn in his European trip souvenirs for years. From our friends Kevin and Cheri, we learned about Hatman Jack’s in Wichita. Kevin had the hat stretched as a gift to us. It’s still a bit small, but wearable.

Around Christmastime, Hubby took hat and those embroidered green braces to the local embroiderer. (Note the buttons on his braces. They celebrate another big chunk of his heritage, Irish.) Embroider had the stock deer art and created his crosspiece. It attaches with Velcro. Hatband looked pretty shabby, so the staff wove this beautiful braid and attached his deer pin. We were delighted with results. One of the band members had purchased actual lederhosen. They were used and cost $200. New would have been $400. Our improvisation didn’t cost nearly so much. From the (partial) Irishman in the house: Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Adventures in sewing

Sewing, especially sewing garments, makes me nervous. So much can go wrong. Will it fit when I’m finished? I’m always jittery throughout the process.

A friend wanted a snuglet/slanket/snuggie for Christmas. When I saw the commercial, I was shocked at the price. Some days later, I hit my StumbleUpon button. Website showed how to make a snuglet. Free pattern seemed simple enough, so I bought three yards of 60-inch wide fleece.

Instructions said to cut 9X6-inch armholes and 12X30-inch sleeve tubes. I obeyed. I thought my first sleeve tube was awfully narrow, so I tried to pull it on. I couldn’t pull it past my elbow. I tried, but ripped the sleeve tube. When I inserted this tube into armhole, I couldn’t figure out how I would fit them together. The size discrepancy was too great.

I’m inches taller than my friend, but her arms aren’t smaller than mine. Besides, aren’t these garments supposed to be loose-fitting?

I bought more fabric and cut a 14-inch sleeve tube, not bothering to measure the length. I could always trim that later. When I tried on that tube, it fit great on my arm and much better in the armhole. Hallelujah!

I haven’t set in a sleeve for probably 30 years. I looked for instructions. Everyone said to sew basting stitches on the sleeve. Pulling the basting stitches would fit the sleeve into the armhole. And I was supposed to match the notches. What notches?

Besides, I had the opposite problem. Armhole was bigger than sleeve. So I pinned them together, placing pins wherever I saw the fabric bulge. Then I sewed them together.

All went well on the first sleeve. Sleeve seam was at bottom of armhole and armhole seam was right side out.

Second sleeve wasn’t so cooperative. First the armhole seam was showing. I ripped it out and resewed it. Then I turned the sleeve inside out, so the sleeve seam was showing. I ripped it out and resewed it. I carefully checked my pinning the third time and thought all was well. What was I looking at? The armhole seam was showing again! I ripped it out and resewed it.

Finally, on Attempt No. 4, sleeve went in correctly. Whew. A girl can only take so much frustration and I was nearing my limit.

After topstitching all edges but the sleeve ends, I tried on snuglet again.

My wingspan is about 6 feet. The sleeves dangled 8 inches below my wrists. My friend’s wingspan is certainly not that long. I folded the sleeves to fit me and pinned them. I wanted to remove the excess 8 inches. Since the serger cuts fabric at the stitching, I decided to serge the sleeve ends. That would get rid of the excess fabric. Or so I thought.

My poor serger couldn’t handle two layers of polarfleece. The stitching looked terrible. I was embarrassed. And I had another problem. Yes, I was cutting the cuffs, but I was stitching them together at the same time.

Hello rotary cutter. I removed both cuffs, then topstitched them with serger. Whew. Now I could stop being a nervous wreck.

By this time, I was sick of the entire project and abandoned it in my sewing chair.

I sure hope she likes this thing.

Boo and the Christmas trees

Mr. Boo Kitty loves Christmas. Or maybe he just loves the Christmas trees!

As soon as we put up the trees and cover the base with a tree skirt, Boo has to curl up underneath them. He seems to favor the little tree during the day and the big tree at night. He doesn’t climb the tree or swat the ornaments as he did when he was a kitten. I do tie the little tree onto the sideboard so he can’t knock it off and we hang fragile ornaments out of the kitty’s reach, just in case.

When we began putting the Christmas village under the big tree last year, I thought Boo would no longer be able to curl up underneath that tree.

I thought wrong.

He daintily between the houses and curls up around the tree pole. I think of Azrael chasing the Smurfs. “Papa Smurf! Papa Smurf! Azrael is looking in the window! What are we going to do?”

Azrael/Boo Kitty doesn’t seem to notice any village dwellers. He just snoozes amid the buildings.

Unfortunately, Boo’s black fur shows up rather too well on our little tree’s white skirt. The big tree’s skirt is red and green, so the fur isn’t as obvious.

The white skirt is the first tree skirt I remember. It was originally just a piece of white felt cut to size. My brother and I received the stockings as Christmas gifts a couple years apart. (Mine is visible at far left.) For several years, our mother hung them from the door between our living and dining rooms.

I remember her standing in the doorway examining them. I wondered why. A few days later, she bought red and green felt. She cut out red felt bells, felt holly leaves and berries. She top-stitched the stockings, bells and holly to the skirt, then added Christmas ribbon around the skirt edges.

Several years later, she decided to make quilted tree skirts for herself, my brother and me. She stitched red and green Christmas fabric triangles for the top, then added a red ruffle around the edges. Bottom is the red fabric. Skirt ties in back. Since she would no longer be using the original tree skirt, I asked for and received it.

Boo Kitty loves them. And so do I.

The decorator's best friend

As I finished our October decorating today, I decided I’d like two more fall dresser scarves, one for our antique secretary and another for our stemware rack. I had already made two small tablecloths and an occasional pillow case out of this fabric, so I knew I couldn’t have much more of it.

I wanted nothing fancy, just some pretty fabric instead of the doilies that are usually covering those furniture tops. When I looked through my very modest fabric stash, I found two pieces of this fabric. To my delight, they were just the right sizes for the surfaces I had in mind.

A few minutes with the White 534 serger and, voila!, I had my dresser scarves. Having this serger enables me to whip out decorative pieces in a short time without the trouble of hemming and I didn’t have to cut off that annoying white strip listing the manufacturer’s brand name. Lovely serger’s cutter nipped that ugly piece right off.

It’s hard to believe that I was afraid of that machine when I first inherited it from my mother. I knew I wanted the serger; I’d seen her work magic with it. My mother was an excellent seamstress, but I was just hoping to be able to make simple projects with this machine. However, looking at that tangle of threads was very intimidating. How did a person thread that thing?

I took along the serger on a business trip and attended “open sewing night” at a quilting shop I called upon. The ladies there instructed me in the machine’s use. That night I whipped out a table runner, a fall tablecloth and a bunch of napkins. I was delighted.

I still use my mother’s old Pfaff 1222 for regular sewing. I adore that old machine on which I learned to sew, but I would never want to be without that serger, either.