I really do sew.

I know that I profess to sew and then very rarely produce evidence to support that claim. So here are a few recent projects.


This is a quilt that I cut out last night. It'll be small and very simple, and it'll probably end up in Elise's room, given the girly floweriness of the fabrics.


This is my scary project box. When Andy and I rearranged the basement, I threw all abandoned postponed projects into this bin. It contains chair cushions to be repaired, clothing to be repaired, pillowcases to be turned into these bags, cross stitch projects, a tablerunner to be embroidered, and two unfinished quilts.


This is my first attempt at sewing clothes. (Except for once when I was twelve and my mom tried to teach me to sew a dress for myself. I picked out a pattern and fabric, and I think I may have put on a few buttons. Mom ended up doing the rest. It turned out well!) This is a dress for Elise, although it's a little too big around the middle, so I guess I should add a sash. I caught too much fabric when sewing the bodice to the skirt, so I'll need to redo that. I'm really diggin' the 5/8" seam allowance...much more forgiving than the strict 1/4" used in quilting.

And here are some pretty things that have found their way into our home recently:

This sweet little embroidery is on a pillowcase that I picked up for $.50 at a thrift store. It's not vintage, but I thought it was really sweet. I'm so glad I have a little girl and thus can bring home pink pillowcases with embroidered kittens on them, without getting funny looks from my husband. Okay, so I still get funny looks, but at least now I can say, "It's for Elise!" - unlike when we were just married and I bought a Strawberry Shortcake twin sheet at an antique store (really, should things from the 80s be in antique stores already?). I might be a tad nostalgic.


I also brought home another $.50 pillowcase, this one truly vintage. The fabric is so soft, the way good linens get after years and years of use. It, too, is embroidered, with pink dogwood flowers. I love dogwoods. I was thrilled to find that our neighbor has a big dogwood tree that hangs over our fenceline. (I wasn't quite as thrilled when the blooms fell and I had to rake up all the dead pits.) When I was growing up, we had two dogwood trees (plus a few saplings here and there, but two that left an impression). They were both wild. One grew at the edge of the shaded lane that wrapped around one side of our property, and it looked so pretty with its white flowers against the backdrop of big oak and maple and hickory trees. The other was magnificent. It was hidden in our woods, in the "second clearing". Our woods were pretty thick, but my dad and brother cut a path through them. I didn't think much of it at the time, but looking back I realize that that must have been a huge job! My brother and his friend even built log bridges over the little streams so we could ride our bikes through the woods. Ah, memories. Anyway, so you'd walk through the woods until you hit the first clearing, which was just a small meadow in the middle of the woods. Then you'd walk some more, go over the little stream, and then hit the second clearing...another small meadow. This one was beautiful. It had a giant cedar tree on one side, and a huge, amazing wild dogwood tree on the other. We didn't go back there very often, as it was pretty deep into the woods (deep for a child), but I remember whenever we first saw the dogwood in bloom each spring, we'd run back to the house to tell everyone else about it. It was a beautiful tree. I liked that it was hidden. I liked that we had to go through the woods to see it. It was like our own little secret garden. I still like "hidden" beauty, details in my home that only my family and I would ever see. I should cultivate those details more.


Some friends of ours recently gave us a big box of assorted Franciscan dishes. They are moving and are cleaning out their attic and garage, and decided not to take these with them. I've always liked this set. I like that they are simple and pretty and practical. They also go very well with the dogwood pillowcase, don't you think? Unfortunately, there is not much call for matching one's bed linens with one's dishes.