Monthly Archives: October 2019

Fall Smocking

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The fall weather in NC has been so hot for so long that it was hard to get into the mood to do any type of fall sewing/smocking.  However, I had this beautiful cotton lawn print that I knew would be beautiful with smocking on it.  A few different trips, with hours in the car, gave me the opportunity to get the smocking finished on this dress.

The pattern is Children’s Corner “Amy” – which has been out of print for several years.  I love it because it is smocked both front and back.  The blouse is Children’s Corner Blouse pattern – again, an out of print pattern, but there are so many blouse patterns that you could use.  The Mary De comes with a blouse included in the jumper pattern.  😊  I did switch the sleeve and used the Ruthie sleeve – sorry, another OOP pattern.  However, I recently learned that the Eleanor sleeve is nearly identical to the Ruthie sleeve, so, problem solved!

You will have to excuse the poor “fit” on the mannequin – she is a size 5 and the outfit is a size 7 – it’s the best I can do.  🤣

On the back, I chose to not do the embroidered flowers.  However, smocking on front and back means that one will look fabulous both coming and going!!!  LOL!

I didn’t want to have to refer to a smocking plate while in the car, so I did my own thing and am quite happy with the outcome.  Initially I had embroidered smaller flowers, but they didn’t show up well on the print, so I went to larger flowers.  Much better!

Although I’m not particularly a fan of adding pockets to a smocked dress, I had to do it!  Livvy loved her welt pocket dress because the pockets gave her somewhere to put her change/tithe for the collection at church!  💕  How could I not add a pocket to this dress?

I’ve had other projects in the works as well, but nothing to show yet.  The weather has finally cooled some (if you consider 70º cool!) and I will start on another project soon!

What are you smocking for the fall?

Sewing Wee Care Sets

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‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’ (Matt. 25:40)

October is National Infant Loss Awareness Month, so in honor of our 5 grand babies in heaven and their strong mammas, I’ve chosen to work on sets for these little ones that will be donated to both our local Smocking Arts Guild (the guild donates to local hospitals) as well as to Caleb Ministry (they provide memory boxes as well as counseling for women that have suffered infant loss).

I have had several gown sets in the works and living on my dining room table while waiting for the finishing touches – this month was the perfect time to start finishing them.  All of the gowns are made from the SAGA Wee Care #1 pattern, available to all SAGA (Smocking Arts Guild of America) members.

I have taken this opportunity to work on the pleated sleeve option for the gowns as well so that they are a better fit for these tiny babies, so I cut out boy gowns in all the sizes from under 1 lb. – preemie.  The cute frog embroidery was from the A to Z bullion book, but revised to be slightly smaller.  The diaper set is from Teeny Tears.

This set is a preemie size.  The cute sailboat embroidery is from appliqueforkids.com.

This sweet set is also a preemie size.  The smocked bonnet pattern is the tapered smocked bonnet  pattern by Laurie Anderson.  The hem & blanket embroidery design is from Fromtheneedleofanne.com, though I cannot remember the name of the set.  I use it all the time because it takes only about 8 minutes to stitch out and it is beautiful.

This next set is a 1 – 2 lb. size.  The smocked bonnet pattern is by Judith Marquis called The Preemie Baby Boy’s Bonnet.  It compliments the rest of the set perfectly.

This sweet gown set features embroidery by appliqueforkids.com called Nap Time.  The bonnet pattern is now available in my Etsy shop.  I had previously had only the preemie (4-5 lb.) size available but now offer the micro-preemie sizes (1 – 4 lb.) as well.

The embroidery design from Appliqué for Kids was so cute that I had to use it twice.  The smocking design on this gown was the giraffe from the Little Memories S. S. Noah plate – just revised a bit to use for the tiny gown and stitched with 3 strands of floss rather than the usual 4.

I have a few more gowns in the works and will complete them as time allows.  However, I wanted to share these sets and hopefully raise awareness for all of those families touched by infant loss.  If you are a seamstress and looking for a worthy cause, there are so many organizations that would love to have you sew these tiny gowns for them.  There are plenty of non-smocked options such as this one for tiny gowns.  This kimono pattern comes from 7pinedesigns.com and the bonnet pattern is my micro-preemie pattern.  Other organizations accept hand knit blankets.  If sewing or knitting isn’t your thing but you still want to participate, Caleb Ministry accepts donations so that they can buy the supplies needed to create the special boxes that they provide (for free!) to all of the area hospitals in Charlotte.

I pray for the families that will receive these sets in the future.  I am happy that I can do something that might help them during this difficult time.   I hope that this post will inspire others to use their talents to bring a measure of healing to families that have lost their precious little ones.