Muscadine Daiquiri's

I have quite a bit of grape juice in the freezer from last year and the grapes are getting ripe already again. We decide to try making a cocktail like a berry margarita, only with muscadine grape juice and rum, not tequila. Ok, so it was not really like a berry margarita, but it was still good. Muscarita??

Procrastinators Anonymous - Meeting Tomorrow

I enjoy sewing for Journey but as usual I procrastinate and find myself in a time crunch. Stephanie asked me to make Journey's Easter dress MONTHS beforehand, even gave me the pattern she wanted me to use and the color. The pattern was vintage and she wanted purple/lavender. Everything else was up to me. I couldn't decide exactly what I wanted to do, so I didn't do anything until the last minute.

The dress pattern is a simple design with puffed sleeves, and a slightly empire waist. The date of the pattern was 1968 I think. It was really easy to sew. One thing that was a surprise is how SHORT the finished dress turned out.

I made an overlay on the bodice to add a little interest. It ended up making the dress look like it was from the 40's. I did a similar effect on the sleeves. I added ric rac everywhere. The pattern didn't call for any piping, but it definitely needed it, so I added it to the waist and sleeve overlay.

I adapted a design in Sewing With Whimsy by Kerri Mecca. The design features a lattice effect along the hem of a sundress with ric-rac flowers scattered around. The instructions said to create the hem on tear or wash-away stabilizer, flat, then sew it to the dress. The lattice hem "floats" at the bottom of the skirt. I was worried that she would snag it on something so I stitched the lattice on the skirt, and didn't have it "float." It turned out cute.

The ric rac flowers were super easy to do, but time consuming. The design called for glass beads in the center of the flowers, but I used pearls. They turned out really cute. I bought ric rac locally and had to make do with the colors and sizes I could find. If I make these ric rac flowers again I think I will order some ric rac from Kerri Mecca's website.

I don't have a picture of Journey in her hat, but I used a 1940's hat pattern, shown below.

So . . . Journey's birthday is in December - Stephanie thinks I should start on it now.

Mmmmm....Strawberries!

We get calls every day from people wanting to pick fresh, ripe organic strawberries. We've never grown them before so we decided to try some out this year for ourselves before we dive into commercial production. Marc planted 200 everbearing plants which will give us a steady supply of berries, unlike the "June bearing" types which ripen all at once.
Here's a pic of Journey picking the rirst ripe strawberries! Since we don't use any chemicals she can eat them right in the garden without washing.

Happy Birthday Caroline!

This ecard generated with Smilebox

Birthday Top for a Special Girl

Rylan is turning 7 soon and she's "into" dragons right now, so her Mom asked Grandma to make a top with a dragon to wear at her dragon-themed birthday party. I hope she likes it!

Before I got my first (I'm on #2 now) embroidery machine, I had no idea what-all you could do with them! I thought I could do monogramming and occasional designs, but I was afraid I would get bored with it soon, so the first machine I bought was an entry-level model. I didn't want to spend too much, just in case . . .

It wasn't long before I realized that I love machine embroidery! I quickly learned that there's so much more than just monogramming. The designs on this top include lettering and applique.

Applique back in the days before embroidery machines was a LOT of work, and always turned out looking "homemade". I mean, who could get that satin stitching just perfect?? With an embroidery machine it turns out perfect every time and it's SO easy. There are literally tens of thousands of designs available on the internet, which you can download to your computer, at a very reasonable price.

To machine applique, you first apply stabilizer to the back of the fabric, mark the placement of the design, hoop the fabric, and if necessary apply a "topper". The first stitching is a placement line, which shows you where the design will stitch. You place your applique fabric over this line. The next stitching is a tack-down stitch. After this stitching, you remove the hoop from the machine, but NOT the fabric from the hoop. You carefully cut away excess fabric from around the stitching using curved tip embroidery or applique scissors. Then you place the hoop back in the machine for the decorative edge stitching. That's basically all there is to it!

For this top, I used a dragon design from www.planetapplique.com, the set of applique numbers from Big Dreams Embroidery and the lettering was created in Monogram Wizard. I merged all three designs in my embroidery machine.

Here are a few hints for perfect embroidery or applique on t-shirts:

• use iron-on stabilizer. This keeps the fabric from moving as you hoop and stitch.
• always use a water-soluble stabilizer as a topper. It looks kinda like Saran Wrap and you stitch right through it. It keeps your fabric from distorting as you stitch and keeps the stitches from sinking into the fabric. I also use a topper when embroidering on minkee or terry. When you're done stitching, you cut away excess topper, then rinse in warm water. It dissolves in water.
• mark the placement of the design carefully before hooping. I use a water soluble blue marker and draw "cross hairs" where I want the design. There's nothing more annoying (or costly) than finishing up a really cute design only to find that it's off-center after you unhoop it.
• clip threads as you complete one color or area of the design to avoid having "tails" poking out when you're done. If you look closely you'll see that I missed one in my design.
• after clipping away excess fabric and before you do the satin or other decorative stitch, use a piece of Scotch tape and pick up excess fabric pieces, threads, fibers, etc.
• this top will probably only be worn once or twice, but if you plan for your garment to be worn and washed a lot, you might want to use an iron-on adhesive product (stitch witchery, wonder under II, etc.) on your applique fabric.
  

Bullion Bunnies

Last year's Easter dress for Journey was made with Simplicity 2392 pattern. It is a reproduction of a vintage pattern. It features A skirt gathered onto a scalloped yoke and a scalloped hem band. The sleeves are puffed, set in and (gasp) elasticized.

I used Spechler Vogel pink sateen for the main body with white for the yoke, sleeves, and hem band.

The yoke features three silk bullion bunnies, one in pink, one in lavender and one in yellow. Their bodies are brown. The pattern came from Sew Cute Couture by Gail Doane (the clothes in this book are adorable!). I had never done this before and couldn't seem to get it right - I tried several times on a practice scrap and was about to give up. Then I went out and bought the CORRECT size needle!! What a difference the correct tools make.

Here's a close up of the bunnies.

On each scallop of the hem band I embroidered a small rosebud, leaves, and french knots. This idea came from a bib featured in Jeannie's embroidery book Jeannie B's Book of Heirloom Embroidery Designs & Stitches.

Instead of simply hemming the edges, etc., I got the brilliant idea that I would LINE the bonnet, which of course made more work. Anyway, it's basically a rectangle with a casing along the back edge to insert the ribbon to gather. Pressed for time (surprise, anyone??) I didn't have any time left for hand work, so I used the machine to embroider scallops and feather stitching along the front edge of the bonnet and made a little ruffle as well. I used the same lace on the ruffle as I did on the dress. I used silk satin ribbons for ties, with little bullion rosebuds holding it in place on the bonnet.

Love Labels

I've always liked these little "Made with love by Grandma" labels. Not only will they serve as a reminder as to who made it, but they serve a practical purpose too. With home sewn pants, it's hard to tell the front from the back (the sewer knows the back is longer than the front, but a 5 year old doesn't), so I sew in a label so it's easy to tell the back from the front.