Smocking – Thimbleanna

Spring Projects

9 Comments / June 2, 2022 June 2, 2022 / Holidays, Knitting, Smocking

Well, that was a longer than normal break! It’s been a pretty busy spring full of fun activities with the grandbabies plus the usual spring chores around the house, etc. It all seems like a big blur now that I look back on it — it’s true what they say — Time Flies when you’re having fun. Or, it just flies when you’re old LOL.

A lot of my time was spent getting ready for a trip to Scotland, which happened a few weeks ago. Half of the trip involved a hundred mile walk, so, in February I started walking 5 miles a day to build up my hiking stamina. All that walking takes a lot of time and I probably should have trained harder, but more on that later! When I wasn’t walking, I spent a fair amount of time making fun things for the girls and preparing our annual little Easter party for them. Just like last year, we decorated cupcakes, made Easter bonnets,

and had a fun scavenger hunt to find prizes. Prizes included the annual Easter Grammy Surprise Box

and some little knitted kitties in their denim dungarees.

As always, the pattern is by Little Cotton Rabbits. Her fun little animals are so cute — I’m pretty sure I love them more than the girls do!

Judging by the mess at the end of the party, it was a big success. The girls are at such a great age now — they love all the fun activities — especially the suspense of the scavenger hunt.

In addition to the Easter Party goodies, I made some smocked Easter dresses for them. We love to read the Peter Rabbit stories together and have Peter Rabbit tea parties, so I decided to put little bunnies on their dresses.

The pattern is Lee from The Children’s Corner Store and the fabric is a Liberty print called Camille — one of my favorites. SweetiePie sent me a cute picture of the three girls in their dresses, but I can’t seem to find it now, so a picture of three little sleeves will have to do ;-D

I also made matching hairbows for each of the girls. I ordered Peter Rabbit scrabble tiles from Designs by Chastity on Etsy. She did a nice job on the tiles and it worked great just to hot glue the tiles to the Liberty fabric.

So, that about sums up spring in ThimbleannaLand. Oh! I also made a wedding quilt which will make an appearance this weekend — CuteNiece2 is to be married on Sunday. More on that later too. Have a great weekend!

XOXO,
Anna

Smocked Dresses

15 Comments / May 30, 2019 May 30, 2019 / Sewing, Smocking

Well, here we are at the end of May, and I’ve finally finished a little project I was hoping to have finished by the middle of April. Completing projects that have handwork is easy enough, but I really struggle to get time on my sewing machine. Now that MeMum lives with us, she wants me to be with her all the time, and my sewing machine is in the basement and she is upstairs in the living room. I need two of me. Anyway, I made little smocked dresses for our little cherubs. (Please note my fancy new clothes hanger — it’s a trampoline for 2-yr olds LOL.)

I used the Lee pattern again — I seem to always go back to it, because, why mess with a good thing. The pattern only has a traditional Peter Pan collar, so I altered it a little and added the little ruffles around the necks.

For fabric, I used the Danjo Libery Tana Lawn print in pink . It’s a classic print and I love it. I also used the Spechler Vogel little pink check that I have in my etsy shop for a few of the contrasting pieces. I struggled with what to do for the smocking and had pretty much decided to just make something up, but the day before I started smocking, the summer 2019 issue of Classic Sewing (featuring a dress with this smocking pattern) arrived on my doorstep. Perfect timing!

The smocking is pretty subtle and that’s the way I wanted it. The star of this show is the beautiful Liberty fabric! Little details are also fun — I haven’t used a hook and eye in a long time.

Grammy lucked out this time and those little dresses both fit. Here are our little dolls in their new dresses. It’s really hard to get a picture of two little girls both smiling and looking at the camera. Maybe next time LOL.

Have a great week — unbelievably, summer is upon us!
XOXO,
Anna

Three Things

31 Comments / May 3, 2017 May 3, 2017 / Baby Oh Baby, Sewing, Smocking

1. Yipee! We have a finish over here! FinallyAGirl’s little spring bunny dress is all smocked and done. It would have been nice to have finished it by Easter, but we had a little unplanned hospital time with TheManoftheHouse, so there were other priorities. It’s all good though — little bunnies are just as happy in the spring and summer as they are at Easter!

I purchased my patterns online at The Children’s Corner Store. The dress pattern is Lee and the pattern for the smocking is Baby Bunnies. There are kits available, but I had my own fabric — the pink 1/64″ pima cotton microcheck that is available in my little etsy shop. I love this teeny little check — it’s so sweet and it was a dream to smock.

I put my favorite little flower buttons on the back and added white piping where I could. I really wanted to add piping on the sleeve cuffs, but I wasn’t sure those little bias strips of fabric would be very happy with a straight-cut piping putting a crimp on their stretchy style. There’s a deep hem in this dress — maybe with any luck, FinallyAGirl will be able to wear it next Easter. Or, maybe, with even better luck, she’ll wear it out this summer and I can make another dress! ;-D

2. I updated my blog header. Yipee Again!!!

3. I was surfing around Ted Talks the other day and ran across this interesting talk by the author of “Still Alice”. “What You Can Do To Prevent Alzheimer’s”. My first reaction was to go learn how to knit. But I already know how to do that, so, I need to find some new skills to learn. Every. Day.

Here’s to smooth sailing into the weekend!
XOXO,
Anna