Toe in Water

Phew.  I finally did it!  After spending the better part of a year stalking reading the blogs of bazillions of super-talented sewists, I have decided to join their ranks.  Well, hmm.  Slight correction.  I don’t mean that I am super-talented, but I do love to sew.  I hope this blog will help me catalog a few of my favorite things, including sewing, design (clothing, interior, and landscape), shoes (erm, I am slightly obsessed), and other creative pursuits (aka “stuff”).

Easter, mid-60s:
Dress sewn by my mom;
bangs cut by me

Some of the blogs I've come to love are Mushywear, Lindsay T Sews, Diary of a Sewing Fanatic, Sew Silly, Miss Celie's Pants, Eugenia's (Fabulous) World of Fashion, Yoshimi the Flying Squirrel, I Made This!, Sewn, The Sewing Lawyer, Gertie's New Blog for Better Sewing, Sewaholic, 10,000 Hours of Sewing, Erica B's DIY Style, Gigi Sews, A Little Sewing on the Side, Communing with Fabric, Pins and Needles, What I Wore, Kadiddlehopper,...and the list goes on and on and on.

My mother and grandmother were excellent seamstresses.  My mom taught me to sew, and I also took sewing in 4-H.  For about nine years, I ran a business designing and selling custom doll clothing for 18” dolls.  Loved it!  I sold the clothes, shoes, and all sorts of accessories via mail order and at special events throughout California.   I designed and created school uniforms for dolls (these matched the various San Francisco-area private and parochial school uniforms), Chanel-type suits, ball gowns, poodle skirts, fur coats, ice skating outfits—well, you get the idea. 

One of the things I’ve learned from reading other blogs, is that I really like to see photos of the various projects.  Therefore, tomorrow I am going to buy a timer for my camera and see what I can do.  In the meantime, I think I’ll work on creating a photo display of outfits and accessories.  Kinda excited about this, because it harks back to my college years (and well into my twenties) when I did window and store displays to supplement my income.  Such fun!

Okay.  Enough of my blather.  Now it’s time to post some pics!  As I mentioned, I haven’t figured out exactly how to photograph my sewing projects (but I’m working on it!), so here is a home-designed and sewn outfit from the past.  This is a picture of my parents on their wedding day in the mid-50s.  My mother designed and sewed her outfit, a waltz-length dress of white lace over pale yellow taffeta.  Her shoes were gorgeous:  pale, pale yellow peau de soie appliquéd with pearls and rhinestones.  I coveted those shoes!  And I wore them for “dress-up” for years; unfortunately, my feet grew too long!

~ Peggy