Cupcakes and Balloons Bishop

This is a repost from a post I wrote yesterday on my sewing blog. Enjoy!

Smocking is one of my very most favorite things to do—I’ll admit I’m addicted to it. My husband jokes that if I haven’t smocked something in a few days I become hard to be live with. I don’t know if I’m that bad, but smocking is very relaxing for me.

My latest smocked bishop was a first birthday dress. The birthday girl’s mother saw a smocked bishop that was perfect for the theme of the party. However, the design was discontinued and a dress in the size they needed couldn’t be found anywhere. Like most of my projects, when they can’t find what they want, they call me.

She sent some photos of the original dress and asked if I could make one like it. I said that I could, but as with all garments made with only a photo for reference, it wouldn’t be identical, but I would get it as close to the original as I could.

  The dress is made from pastel green batiste, with a three inch deep hem. It turned out so precious! There is a bright cupcake in the center with balloon bouquets on either side, with ribbon bows.There is a tiny pink hearts border around the top, and a light purple scalloped border around the bottom. It almost made me forget my dislike of picture smocking when it was finished, it turned out so sweet.

I also made a pair of Vivianna Bloomers from the batiste to match.

I’ve been promised pictures of the birthday girl in her dress and when I receive them I’ll share.

24 weeks—an update

Yesterday was the 24 week mark—now we have more behind us than in front of us and it won’t be too much longer before we are holding our little princess in our arms. I cannot wait to meet her! Between the little girls at church and my baby cousin we got to see yesterday, our arms are aching to hold our Livie and see who she looks like.

Olivia has introduced me to several new things over the last few weeks: sciatic nerve pain, heartburn, feeling like a beached whale, waddling occasionally, and NESTING. Nesting hit me full force last week and I was ready to repaint and redecorate everything. Suddenly I urgently want to get things done before the baby gets here. Some of my projects amuse Jacob and some of them make him cringe—like wanting to repaint the bedroom and make a new headboard and build the co-sleeper and get the flowerbeds ready….

I love feeling her move and kick all day. She is so active and now her movement are starting to be more than just kicks and flutters. She makes my belly move so much that we can see it and sometimes it feels like she is gently patting me from the inside. I love it! I never knew it would be this much fun <3

My belly is ever-expanding, but I can still see my feet! Adjusting my wardrobe has been, well, let’s say it’s been a learning experience. I’m finally starting to break down and make some maternity clothes. I’ve bought a few outfits but it is getting hard to find what I want and like. I’m currently working on a pattern for a knit top. It might be finished by this weekend, but who knows? ;)

Gifts have started arriving in little spurts for our girl. Sweet little dresses and shoes are hanging in the guest bedroom closet next to her Daddy’s work shirts. I started a smocked dress for her last week. All the smocking needs to  be finished is a few little purple flowers around the wreath.

After all this time of making little dresses for other little girls, I’m finally making pretty stuff for my own angel ;)

Olivia loves to listen to her Daddy’s voice—she gets very hyper when he talks to her. She also LOVES church. When I play the organ or piano she moves and jumps so much that it threw me off and made me lose my place a few times until I got used to it. This last weekend I was listening to a song that our choir is learning and as soon as I turned it on she started acting like she was at church. So far the only kind of music that she really responds to is black gospel and some classical. The black gospel is understandable since we are at church a lot ;) This song always gets a reaction from her—it is the new one that our choir learned:

I’ll close with that. I’ve got to play catch-up today after our long weekend and anniversary service for our church. Laundry is taunting me and it needs attention.

Hope you have a great week!

Smocking and baby stuff :)

Here is a detail from a baby dress I made for a shower gift. It was so much fun to make. Hopefully I'll have pictures of the sweet little girl it was made for wearing it soon ;) This is the bodice before assembling the dress. The mama loved it!

And here is the baby...well, sort of :) you can't really see her very well.

Adventures in Smocking 2

My path towards better smocking became much, much easier this week. A lady from my church loaned me her pleating machine. Up until now I've been pleating everything by hand. That would take me hours, literally, to do one dress front to get it ready to embroider. My hands felt like they were about to fall off. :) Some of the pleats would be uneven and imperfect and it was difficult to make the embroidery look neat.
   All that is past me now.  With the pleater it only takes me about 10 minutes to do what normally take several hours. Below are some photos of projects I have going and some pictures of the amazing pleating machine.

 Newborn dress. Pleated by hand.

 Size 6 dress pleated by hand. Still in progress.

 The amazing, wonderful pleating machine, all threaded up and ready to go.

 Perfect pleats.

 All ready to smock.

 Finished :)

Close up detail of smocking.

Adventures in Smocking

Recently I decided I would teach myself to smock. Having embroidered for many years I thought it would be easy. I wasn't disappointed :)
Below are two photos of a little girl's dress I am working on. Enjoy!

Close up of smocking on the front bodice.