Heirloom Sewing by My Mom
There is a new baby in this house! I'm in the process of scheduling little Jack's baptism and it occurred to me that I never shared pictures of the gorgeous baptismal gown sewn by my mother for our firstborn. This darling model here is my second child, ZouZou, as these pictures were all taken a couple of years ago.
Mom does amazing work by hand and machine.
She used a combination of new and antique laces and indulged my great love for monograms by putting one front and center.
The last monogram mom embroidered for me was for my wedding gown (a slip that you could see when the dress was bustled).
My mother learned these techniques by taking an heirloom sewing class at a local fabric store. If her beautiful work has whet your appetite for more heirloom inspiration, check out Martha Pullen's Sew Beautiful magazine. My mom has subscribed for years and loves it!
these dresses are beautiful and it has inspired me to do more sewing. I have started making some baby dresses,mostly simple patterns for now as it has been years since I have sewen. I love these designs and would love love love to make something like that. How and where can I get the hand embrodiary patterns. I have been looking for transfers but I know most of the time they don't really wash out and I really want to do one of the Christianing gowns. Can you help me out. skwitt55@htomail.com Thank you so much and God Bless
ReplyDeleteI'll send you an email, but also comment here just in case anyone else has the same question. I spoke with my mom about how she does her embroidery patterns and she said that she lays the fabric over the pattern and traces it lightly with a No2 pencil. Because the fabric is so light, she can see right through. She said if there are any parts that she doesn't need to trace (say she knows the type of flower stitch by heart or something) she will skip some of the tracing. She also said that she tries to hide the tracing with the stitches by stitching on the outside of the trace lines instead of directly on the trace lines (in the case of leaves or monograms). I apologize, I forgot to ask her exactly where she found these patterns, but I've been in her sewing room enough to know that she has heirloom sewing patterns for the outfits like you can find on the Martha Pullen website. I also know that there are pattern inserts in the middle of the "Sew Beautiful" magazines. Hope this helps, but feel free to ask more questions.
DeleteMy daughter is having our first grandchild in May. I had a christening dress, bloomers, and bonnet made from my wedding gown. It is beautiful.
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of making baptismal clothes from a wedding dress! So symbolic and beautiful. Congrats on having your first grandchild and prayers for a safe delivery! ~ Liz
ReplyDeleteI had planned to make a gown to use in the dolls shows by using a ladies formal dress but after seeing this I am changing it to the vintage linen I have. Beautiful work.
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