Pure Baby Love

I finished Baby Love just in time for a visit from Her Royal Highness on Saturday. After hugs and kisses we snuck off and changed her clothes. Now that she is so active and mobile this can be a challenge.

We always sneak off to change into a new outfit. It's just a thing we do every time. I enjoy snatching her away and bringing her back in a new outfit. Although other family members often see new things I'm working on, her Mama and Daddy don't see it while it's in progress.

Here she is!

It's perfect to wear when you're trying to teach Granddaddy how to walk!

See how nice and full it is?

And it's great for sitting still for two seconds, too. In the next photo you can see the three buttons for the bottom closure. I really, really like this pattern, and that cute closure is one of the reasons.

And of course it's great for crawling. That's the main reason I decided to make this now, because dresses tend to get in the way and slow down the Royal Progress.

And she's off!

One last beautiful picture of my little Baby Love:

What else did I do this weekend? Well, I turned this:

Into this:

This is Coral Reef, a twin to Limeade. Same pattern, smaller size, for the Blue-Eyed Bombshell.

For some reason, every time I look at it I want a popsicle.

My husband is a Man With A Plan. Although I did take a couple of hours to vacuum and mop three rooms and clean one bathroom, he knew that I really wanted to do laundry this weekend. Why did I want to do laundry? Because the laundry room is upstairs, and the sewing room is upstairs.....so if I'm up here doing laundry, I'm also up here sewing.

Or playing with sewing stuff.

Or drawing off a pattern....Like this:

And this:

Once he caught on to what was REALLY going on upstairs, he came up with a Plan. He knew that if he Planned to eat anything, he needed to Plan to go grocery shopping, and he needed to Plan to cook it.

It was delicious. Thank you, SweetHeart.

It's Not MY Fault

The other day I undertook the Road Trip to buy one skein of DMC 958 in order to finish up Baby Love. Here it is:





Yet, when my SweetHeart came home from work, he had to jump over this to get in the back door:





His immediate question was:

Did you buy all that?

Well, no, darling, I didn't.

You didn't?

No, sugar, I didn't.

Well, then, how'd you get it?

It was a Door Prize.

A Door Prize?

Yes, honey, a Door Prize.

Well, then, how did you win it?

It was easy. I went in there with a checkbook, and on my way out of there, they gave me a Door Prize!




Four bags of pure joy! I'm blaming this one on Wal-Mart.

Now don't you think something in that pile will be cute with this pattern, from 1955?

Scalloped pockets! Scalloped bodice! Scallops on the little cover-up! Be still my heart!

I'm in love!

I hope to be back later today with final photos of Baby Love. Sewing on buttons and it's done!

The Cutest Little Sleeves

While I've been busy counting down the days until school is out for the summer, I've been passing the time on Baby Love. Here's a close up of the front bodice with collar and front bands:




Today I've worked on the sleeves. I added piping to the sleeve band, then gathered the bottom edge of the sleeve. After putting these pieces together, I had this:




I can tell already that these are going to be the cutest little sleeves!

See for yourself:




In the above photo I've sewn in the sleeves and stitched up the side seams.

Although different pattern directions give different instructions for installing sleeves, I prefer to put in the sleeves before stitching the side seams. It really seems much easier that way, especially when you are working with such small armholes.

I then moved on to the bottom facings. Here's what they look like before I turn them to the inside:



This is going to be a nice, full, lush little bubble. I'm crazy about it. I'm really glad I stuck with it, after that unfortunate incident Never To Be Spoken Of Again.

Here's a close up of the smocking. See the nice spread at the bottom? And, no, it's not quite finished. I will add the boullion flowers at the end. I didn't want to take a chance on catching the loops during construction.



Although it's a little bright, in this last photo you can see that I lapped over the front bands before attaching the bottom facing. I've done the topstitching, too.

I will stitch a channel in the bottom facing to create a casing for the elastic around the legs. Then it needs buttonholes, buttons, sleeve band finishing, and boullions.

I must say that I have been very pleased with this pattern and the pattern directions. Although the illustrations seem to be hand drawn, they are extremely good.

The only problem I have encountered was with the sleeves. Both notches and dots are marked on the sleeve piece, but the notches don't match up with the bodice notches. The dots do match. I went back to the master pattern before sewing in the sleeves to make sure it wasn't just me, Being Stupid again.

I have a feeling I'll be making this one again, real soon. More later.

Baby Love Update

I'm back at work on Baby Love, since I finally made the road trip to buy floss. I thought I'd share my technique for attaching the smocked piece to the piped bodice.

First I baste the piping to the bodice by machine. Then from the right side, I layer the piped bodice over the smocked piece, aligning the piped edge precisely where I want it to be. I pin right along the join, like this. Pinning it like this through the piping and smocking lets the bodice part flop free, which is what I want it to do:



Then I hand baste it all together in the ditch where the piping meets the bodice. I used red thread when I did this so it would show up in the picture. Clicking for a larger picture may be required!



Then I flip the bodice part free so I can see the underneath side of the smocked piece. See the little red basting stitches?



Now I machine sew on the little red line! I end up with perfect spacing and alignment of the smocking/piping seam. Easy. Works every time. Worth ten minutes. Do It.

See?




I've also put on the front bands, which worked out just fine this time, now that I have recovered from that case of Massive Stupidity.

Next up is the sleeves.

Twirly Girls

We had a birthday party Sunday evening for the youngest Random Teenager, and the gang was all here. What did we do besides eat, eat, eat, and eat? We tried on dresses, of course.

Here's Limeade, getting the final fitting on the shoulder straps:



Look at that smile! And the back:



The full skirt was a big hit, too. Little sister went shopping in the fabric pile and picked out fabric for her own version, TBA.........

Here's Cornfield. This young lady is practicing curtseys for the Queen:



And she's making sure it will be comfortable on the trampoline, too, in this practice jump:



And Golden Tulip went home, amid high hopes the weather will warm up so it can go to school this week:



She likes the pockets almost as much as I do:



And here it is again, in mid-twirl:



Baby Love Update

YES, I took it all apart.

YES, I pressed all the pleats out of it.

YES, it took a tremendous amount of steam to do so.

YES, I had to trim a bit off the side seam (yall remember, when I was wearing the dunce hat I mistakenly smocked that side).

YES, I have smocked one of the fronts.

NO, I haven't smocked the other front.

And NO, Wal-Mart doesn't carry embroidery thread any more.

And YES, I have to drive 45 MILES to get embroidery thread to finish smocking the front.

I may never go to Wal-Mart again. Am I the only one who feels this way about it?

Baby Love Going to Pieces

I am in the process of taking Baby Love apart. Here's what she looks like right now, the back with bodices, collars, and piping:



Here's the two front pieces.



I offer up a challenge--compare those two photos and see if you can determine why I am taking Baby Love apart.

La la la la la la la .......la la la la LAAAAA la la la la la......... (hummed to the tune of Jeopardy)

While you're trying to figure that out, here's a closeup of one front piece that I'm now removing the smocking from (if that's not a great hint to the underlying probem, I don't know what is):





I made the following photo in response to a question by Candle, who wanted more clarification about the long embroidery threads hanging off the sides of the work:




If you click on the photo, you can see where I did little running stitches into the seamlines on each side.

When I smock a piece, the first thing I do is count the pleats. Then I mark the center pleat with a piece of thread. I begin smocking at the center pleat, always, and work to the right side seam. Then I turn the whole shebang upside down and go back to the center and work to the side seam.

By doing it this way, the smocking design is automatically centered on the piece. That's why every smocking plate has the center pleat marked, so you know where to begin.

Another benefit is that I never run out of embroidery thread in the middle of the row. I start with a nice long piece of thread, (stranded, of course), go into the center pleat, then make sure that I am beginning at the midpoint of the embroidery thread. This way, I have half the length of thread to work one side, and half the length of thread to work the other side.

So when I get to the end of a row, I take short running stitches into the seam allowance and let the ends just hang there. If I need to make an adjustment to the row later, it's easy to accomplish since I haven't cut the thread off.

After I finish a row I sometimes find that I've made a mistake in smocking. My personal rule is that if the mistake is 2 inches or closer to the edge I will unpick it and restitch it with the same thread. If it's farther than 2 inches from the edge, I take out the entire row and redo it with new thread.

Why? Because pulling the thread through pleats thins it and it gets worn. If you reuse it you will see a big difference in the actual smocking stitches. I learned this by experience. So I'd rather take it out and start with new thread (which means I've smocked the row twice), instead of reusing the thread, being unhappy with the results, taking it out and redoing it (which means I've smocked the row three times).

Back to the original question. Everybody give up? Here's the correct arrangement of the two front pieces:




Compare that to what I had before and you will see that I have smocked the SIDES of the darn thing!

I am such an idiot.

I had forewarning that a serious problem was about to happen, but I was overcome by Baby Love excitement and ignored it.

My warning? When I counted my pleats, before I did any smocking AT ALL, I had fewer pleats than I was supposed to.

I pondered that for 3 seconds. Then I assured myself that it was due to the difference in the pleater brands (you know, maybe theirs made more pleats than mine, or some other such nonsense), marked my center, and smocked away.

Yall have all seen how far I had gotten on this project. When I realized what I had done, my first impulse was to throw the whole thing out through the window and into the yard.

And I would have let it lie there until one of the children retrieved it, or better yet, a neighborhood dog carted it away.

(A warning here to all my offspring and their friends--if any mention is made in the comments about the Tea Pitcher Incident, you will be disinherited.)

I discovered the problem when the front button bands wouldn't fit on the fronts. Once I realized what I had done, I ran to the window with it, clutching it like a baseball---yes, I was ready to fling it to the great out of doors.......

Then I thought of my readers. And I felt a RESPONSIBILITY to you all. To show FORTITUDE. And to exemplify PERSERVERANCE. And to ENCOURAGE others when something like this Happens To Them.

So, because of you, dear readers, I am taking it apart. I will pleat it and smock it AGAIN. And I will sew it together.

Yall have made me a better person. I thank you.

Baby Love Getting All Stitched Up

The first thing I want to show you is the pleated fronts, before I did any smocking:



I have to say that I really love the way this cotton twill pleats up. It is a nice and firm fabric, yet soft and lightweight. The pleats stand up nice and straight like little soldiers. Once I started smocking it, I loved it even more. I think I will be extremely happy with this project's appearance once it's finished.

I have almost all the smocking done, except for the boullions. I'll save them for last. Here you can see the sewing progress so far:




I have attached the fronts to the bodice pieces, attached the back to the back bodice, piped and added the collars, and applied the bodice facings.

See the nice spread on the back? This will be a nice, full little romper.




And the front is nice and full, too.

A close up of the bodices:

In the comments, Candle has asked why I have the long embroidery threads hanging off the end of the smocking. That's very easy to answer. I'm paranoid. I have Fear of Cutting. I always leave my ends like that, although I do run them through the extra fabric so the smocking doesn't loosen up. When I am Absolutely Positive that I don't need to loosen up the smocking, or tighten up the smocking, or heaven forbid, take out the smocking, I zigzag over the ends and use Mr. Scissors. Until that point, I play it safe and ignore the thread ends. In a way, they are a Great Comfort just hanging there.

Believe it or not, my SweetHeart just came upstairs to tell me that we are under a tornado watch.

Surely, not again. I can't do it again.

Baby Love, Oh Baby Love

Next up is this delightful little bubble from Issue 26 of Australian Smocking and Embroidery, aptly named Baby Love:



Yes, this is the same issue I seem to be stuck on. The more I look at it, the more things I find that I must absolutely make! I have already used two smocking designs from this issue. The designs for Purple Passion and Little Miss Sunshine came from it.

But this time I am not only going to use this smocking design (called "Confetti") I am also going to use the pattern. This will be the first time I've used one of their patterns, so I have my fingers crossed. I know several people who have used AS&E patterns and they seem to love them. So, here goes!

This is the fabric I am using, a soft cotton twill that I bought at Sweet Treasures:




The background is a beautiful medium shade of aqua with little tiny orange and white flowers. I hope it's as pretty on your monitor as it is on mine!

And why yes, I have already cut it out. And started to smock the fronts. See?




I want to quit work and stay home and work on this. Anyone else ever feel that way, too?