Special Wedding Keepsakes

 My niece had a lovely wedding at the beach last Christmas and I had a grand time helping her and her mom create special touches for the wedding. They searched the internet for a ring bearer pillow and couldn't find anything like they liked so they asked me to create one for them. It had been a very long time since I had made a pillow but I got busy! Here is a picture of the finshed product.

I used white Maline lace, white pima batiste, white entredeux, Mother of Pearl buttons, and white satin ribbon.
Here is a picture of the back of the pillow.

An elastic enclosed band  was added to the back so the young ring bearer would have something to hold onto and hopefully not drop the pillow! The body of the pillow measured 8" x 8" and ended up being the perfect size.

The bride also wanted custom handkerchiefs for herself, her mother, groom's mother, plus the groom's grandmother. I decided the father of the bride would definitely need a handkerchief! The female handkerchiefs were made using linen fabric, hemstitching, and french Val lace. The blue thread used coordinated with the bridesmaid's dresses and other wedding colors.

The handchief for the father-of-the-groom was different. I didn't think he would be too thrilled with lace on his handkerchief so I made one of my linen hemmed and hemstitched handkerchiefs. Here it looked and he definitely needed it before and during the ceremony for some happy tears.

When I sent the package to the bride before the wedding, I included a few surprises. I made a lovely set of garters for her to wear. One for her to wear and save as a keepsake and one to wear and throw at the reception.

Something I did for my daughter when she married last summer (another post about it later) was make a custom satin ribbon label for her wedding dress. I thought my niece needed one, too. In addtion to a label for her dress, I made two more labels for the father of the bride and groom ties. She loved the special touch. Again, I used the same blue font font used on the handkerchiefs. I hand stitched them into the garments after I arrived a few days before the wedding.

Below is a picture of everything before it was shipping to my niece. 

I hope you have enjoyed seeing the special items I made for the wedding. Handerchiefs can be ordered from my Etsy shop Monogram Elegance

Heirloom Easter Dress

It's that time of year again when southern mamas start planning Easter outfits for their children. It is an age old tradition in the south for little boys to wear Eton suits, sailor collar shirts with button-on pants, and Jon Jon's. Heirloom dresses out of cotton Swiss batiste fabric in an array of colors adored with rows and rows of french lace are the proper attire for little girls.

Last Easter a good friend asked me to design and sew a blue batiste dress for her granddaughter. The mother of the little girl is a busy working mom so she needed an easy to care for dress. For that reason, I selected to use baby blue Imperial batiste fabric from Spechler Vogel Textiles.. Imperial batiste is a poly cotton blend fabric with a beautiful finish and is a great alternative to 100% cotton Swiss batiste. Here is a picture of the hem of the dress as I was working on it at the sewing machine. You can see the beautiful French Val lace and the tiny holes in the fabric are called hemstitching. The lace is attached to the hemstitching usung a zigzag stitch with the machine needle going into each hole of the fabric then catching the heading of the lace.

Pintucks or little folds of fabric were sewn on the yoke, sleeves, and skirt fancy band of the dress.

Here you can see the sleeve details. Lace beading was used on the sleeves bands. Any color double faced stain ribbon can be woven through the holes and tied in a bow at the top.

Wider pintucks were stitched on the fancy band and a hand embroidered design was stitched down the center of the band. Ecru feather stitching and pink bullion roses were used in the embroidery design.

The bottom of the skirt was scalloped with pintucks. Then hemstitching and lace were added for the finishing touch.

The mother and grandmother were thrilled with the dress. I loved working on this dress and knowing the little girl who would wear it made the dress even more special to me.

Here's a link to my other blog post about heirloom sewing Heirloom Sewing - My First Love

Some of my heirloom creations are available on my website The Polka Dot store and here are the links to a few of them:

Cluny Lace Christening Dress

Cross Embroidery Christening Gown

A sweet little white Swiss batiste dress with ecru lace will be listed soon. Sign up for email and be the first to know when it is up on the website. Scroll to the bottom of the page here to sign up for email.

I hope this blog post gives you inspiration for planning your next heirloom outfit.

Chadwick Heirlooms
Peanut Butter n Jelly Kids
Delicate Stitches

Heirloom Sewing - My First Love

Welcome to Behind The  Monogram! I know many of you are snowbound, but earlier today in south Georgia the temperature was 87 degrees. Yes, shorts weather! Now it is raining and getting cold. Two exciting things are happening to Thomasville, Georgia this week. We have what is called "First Friday Night" here in Thomasville. It is just as it sounds, there is a celebration, street dance (Swinging Medallions this week), and shopping at our participating downtown shops on the first Friday night of each month. Thomasville is really lovely at night. Here is a picture I took a few weeks ago outside Sweet Grass Dairy while downtown at a meeting with friends:

This is the store front at Sweet Grass Dairy.

The second really exciting thing happening is that HGTV is in town shooting an episode of "Restore America". One of the old homes on Monroe street is getting a makeover. Since I drive within a block of it every day, I shot a picture from the car to show you. These guys are hard at work and it is lunch time!

The HGTV crew has been seen at different locations doing interviews, eating lunch, and taking on location shots. Pretty cool!

O.K., enough rambling and onto the blog topic. Since the first of the year, I have been trying to make time for one of my passions, Smocking and Heirloom Sewing. If you have read the "about me" section of the blog, you know I have been doing smocking and heirloom sewing for over 30 years. I've taught it and done custom sewing using the techniques. Life and has been crazy the past few years (can we say 5 - 10 years) and I haven't been able to find time for it. I am so excited to be enjoying it again! Here are a few of my latest projects hoping to make an appearance soon on the website:

Smocked Imperial Batiste Baby Dress with Scalloped Hem

Smocked Roses Daygown with Tatting

Smocked Heirloom Daygown made with Imperial Batiste and French Lace

There are more projects planned and I look forward to sharing them with you later! Until next time, remember to shop at The Polka Dot Store for the finest quality baby gifts and accessories.