Everyone loves a bride

It was a glamorous trip through more than 100 years of fashion viewing the 27 wedding dresses on display at Expressions Art Centre. One dress in particular, a French silk two piece, has been worn by 6 brides, starting from 1875 and most recently in 1995. All the brides wore the skirt, with the bodice been altered and adjusted to suit. What a wonderful piece of family history.There were two “flapper” style dresses, stunning in their simplicity of line. One had a beautiful lace overlay stitched with pearls, and a small lace train. I just loved the older style gowns with long sleeves, high necklines, bustles, and tiny waists. Girls were certainly much smaller back then, and of course everyone wore corsets, didn’t they.

Bride’s gown worn by six brides and a beautiful lace and pearl flapper style dress

I was really interested to see the rare 1945 gown made from parachute silk. Imagine the story that goes with this wedding dress! It was made from an Allied parachute picked up by the groom’s brother in Japan after the Hiroshima bombing. What a prize that silk must have been in war time. Plainer gowns were also on show, including a muslin dress made in the Depression, and a more modern short broderie anglaise cotton dress.

Several modern coloured gowns were also shown. I noticed a pretty little green flocked nylon dress, found by the bride in her grandmother’s basement, which was originally a bridesmaid dress. Most unusual was a purple wedding gown, designed by the bride to reflect the colours of the stained glass windows in Old St Paul's church.

Modern wedding gowns

All the gowns were beautifully displayed, and ranged from the 1800s up to the present day with two to three dresses from each decade. All the dresses had photos and stories of the brides special day. It was great to wander around the exhibition and view all these special gowns.

Stitching Mondays Christmas lunch

This time of the year is certainly busy with groups getting together for their last meeting of the year. The Stitching Monday group, an off shoot of my Pinestream Patchwork Quilters group, meet monthly and yesterday was the last meeting of the year. We took a shared lunch to enjoy together, and as someone remarked, there wasn’t a chocolate to be seen! Probably with all the Christmas break-ups happening, everyone decided to bring a plate of healthy food for a change. The table looked lovely set with a cloth and serviettes, with all the goodies temptingly set out.

Ready for our shared Christmas lunch

During the day we all stitched together on our own projects. I noticed two Christmas stockings that were being finished off in time for Christmas. A couple of sewing machines were humming away, with both ladies making pieced borders to complete their respective quilts.

Pamela’s Lone Star quilt with pieced border

There was plenty of hand stitching being done, from applique, sewing down bindings, stitching on ric-rac. The club light box was put to good use as patterns were traced. Of course, we had to check out what everyone else was working on, and put the world to rights too.

Thanks, ladies, for your company and friendship during the year. I enjoy the Stitching Mondays so much that I take a day off work to attend. How’s that for dedication?

A little birthday gift

Most members in our Caravan Club have handy little timber slat tables that fold up flat for easy storage. These little tables are just the right size to have beside our seats as we sit outside for morning tea (or lunch, or 4zees) enjoying the sunshine. Eileen was having a major birthday so I made her a little tablecloth to use on her caravan table. Used some special fabric that was printed with various English brand names. This was quite appropriate as both Eileen and her husband were born on Good Old Blighty.

However, on close inspection, the brand names were a letter or two incorrect, a way to get around copyright I expect . Such as Crys instead of Frys chocolate.

The birthday table cloth

I had two fabrics from this range and used a terracotta fabric for sashing and borders. Where was the label, Eileen wanted to know? Oops, better fix that up for her, I should know better than that, shouldn’t I?

Happy Birthday Eileen

I’m so excited!!

The apron I made for the great Christmas Apron Challenge has been featured on Karen’s Selvage Blog at www.selvageblog.blogspot.com. What an thrill this is!!

My Christmas Apron with selvages used on the bib

I shudder when I think of all those selvage strips that I used to cut off and throw away. Not any more – the Selvage Blog has so many ideas of what to do with them all. This is my first selvage project, but I certainly have plans for more.

My selvage collection

Cute little bags

I have made about eight of these cute little bags this year. Kept two for myself, a pink and a blue, and I use them for storing threads, needles, small scissors and the like, all the different things you need for stitching projects. The others, all made in this fabric featuring jars of buttons, I have sent away for overseas gifts during the year. The last little bag went as a birthday gift to my pen friend Carol in South Dakota, posted last week. The postie delivered the parcel on the correct day, how lucky was that! Now it has been received, I can finally show a picture of the cute little bag. I added different coloured buttons to the bags.

Christmas Bon Bons

The sewing machine has been humming as I’ve been hard at work trying to get all my stitching up to date in time for Christmas. At this time of the year, it’s rush, rush, rush with a million things to do. One of the easier projects I’ve done is make a few Christmas Bon Bons. Made from festive fabric with a nice toning or contrasting lining, I think they turned out out really well. The idea is to fill them with delicious wrapped chocolates or something similar. They would make cute little gifts to give away, or you could put one on each place setting on the Christmas Dinner table.

Christmas Bon Bons waiting to be filled with goodies

Jeans Bag? Yes, please!

Isn’t it great when one of the family want you to stitch them a gift! I had made a jeans bag some weeks ago for my eldest grand-daughter for her birthday and asked the younger one if she would perhaps like one for Christmas. “Yes please Nana, they’re cool. Could I have black jeans and red lining?”. No, she didn’t want any added embellishments, just a plain bag. So I went op-shopping looking for a pair of black jeans. The size didn’t matter. Plenty of blue demin jeans hanging up, then at last I found a nice black pair, and they had fancy details on the back pockets too. Just what I was looking for!

Black jeans bag with bright red lining

First thing was to give them a good hot wash and hang them out in the sun to dry. Then, chop the legs off and hem right across. Make a shoulder strap from one of the legs and stitch in place. Then make a lining, stitching that securely under the waistband. Last of all, cut down the triple seam on one of the legs, thread through waistband and knot ends. So easy, and best of all, I know Megan will love it. Perhaps I’ll put a little something extra in one of the pockets for her.

Back pocket detail

The original pattern was by Jan Knight and featured in Patchwork and Stitching Vol 4 No 2.