Sewing with my granddaughters

Aislyn and Alyse wanted to learn how to sew on the sewing machine. They are 9 and 10 years old so it seems the perfect time.  One evening during a sleep over, they sewed sleeping bags and matching pillows for their American Girl dolls.  (Of course the dolls had come along for the sleep over.)  I forgot to take pictures, darn it, but the girls sewed beautifully!  They learned straight seams, clipping corners, turning, stuffing, and hand sewing the pillow opening shut.  They also learned to sew buttons on the corners of their pillows. Quite a bit for their first lesson!

The second sewing lesson came during another sleep over.  This time they wanted to sew clothes for their American Girl dolls.  We started with a trip to the fabric store to pick out fabric for a simple gathered skirt and matching headband.  They learned how to do narrow hems and casings, how to insert elastic, and how to turn a tube inside out.

My new sewing machine helped them this time since it's so much easier to control the speed.  Here Alyse concentrates on the seam for her headband.

Aislyn working at the ironing board pressing the seams.

And ta-da!  The finished skirts and headbands.

But why are there 3 dolls, you may ask?  Aislyn's doll is on the right, Alyse's on the left, and mine is in the middle.  YES!  I have an American Girl doll!  I figured I needed a model for sewing doll clothes, so I found this one on ebay for a great price.  She was a bit dirty and her hair was pretty tangled, but she cleaned up just fine.

Does a girl ever get too old to play with dolls?

Happy stitching!

Leo's Sampler Framed

I had Leo's Sampler framed at the Stitch Niche and they did a wonderful job, as always.  I love the frame!

Leo's Sampler is Finished!

I just finished Leo's sampler yesterday and will get it to the framer soon. I want to have it ready when we go visit at Thanksgiving.  Leo will be 18 months then.  The pattern is "Dawson's Sampler" from Cherished Stitches.

4 Generations of Grandmothers

Several years ago, I took a class at a TNNA market on making a multi-media memory book.  The class was by The Thread Gatherer and they gave us the most beautiful packets of cardstock, fabric, hand-dyed ribbons, overdyed floss, etc. and chart packs on how to make fabric books and memory books.  Now, I'm not a big scrapbooker, but I like to learn scrapping techniques; so since I had all these wonderful supplies, I decided to make a memory book.  Here's the cover:

 

I used one of my favorite old photos as the inspiration.  Here I am as a baby being held by my great-grandmother with my mother and grandmother looking on.  We always called it the "4 generations" picture. Now that I have grandchildren, I decided to use being a Grandmother as a theme.

I made a page for each person in the photo, gave each page a quote about Grandmothers, and tied them together by using a matching button on each page.

The first page highlights my great-grandmother "Grandma Daisy".  I am fortunate to have memories of her.  She died when I was small, but I can remember visiting her at her big house in the country.  She did a lot of redwork, so I added a small redwork butterfly salvaged from a pillowcase she made.  Here the button is the center of a flower I embellishe with silk ribbon.

Page 2 is for my Grandmother Richardson.  She was a school teacher and liked to read to us.  I love this picture of her reading to me when I was little.  I added a photo of her when she was young and used the button to hold the tag with the quote.  The little doily is one she crocheted as a Christmas ornament.

My mother's page is a little different.  She was never into needlework but appliques these amazing flags, paints birdhouses, and grows flowers.  She takes pride in her restored 19th century house and makes it a welcoming and comfortable home for her grandchildren (and children) to visit.  Her page has a bird house that uses the button as the hole.  I had some bird and cat buttons tucked away just waiting for the right project.  This was it!

And of course, the last page is for me.  I have pictures of me with my granddaughters.  In one of them, Aislyn looks on while I show off the Lizzie Kate stocking I made for her.  I added a little cross stitch piece I did years ago and put the button in a row with other buttons for embellishment.

I really enjoyed sewing, stitching, glueing, and planning my book.  I'm not sure if I'll do another one, but I'm glad to have this one completed  Started in 2009 and finished in 2012!

Happy New Year to all my readers!
Sherri

P.S.  Since I started this book we have a third grandchild and my brother and sister are both grandparents now!

New Grandson and Another Finish

We had a new grandson while I was taking my break from the computer. I just realized I haven't posted any pictures of him yet. He was born in May.  TaDa . . . Leo

 

Note that in the 2nd picture he's wearing some of the baby legwarmers I knitted. His Mom made a special request for leg warmers and once I got started, I didn't want to stop. I took a sock class to learn knitting in the round and discovered that leg warmers are like socks with no feet!

Here are some of the most recent pictures we have:

You can't really tell, but he's wearing some of my leg warmers in these pictures, too.  Leo lives in Michigan so we've only seen him twice.  He'll be coming to visit for Christmas - I can't wait!

For my stitching friends, here is a recent finish.  It's a "Secret Needle Night" piece from The Silver Needle and Magic by Mona put together a finishing kit.  The finishing kit was fabulous which was good since I've never done a wedge before.

Happy stitching everyone!
Sherri

Marbles and the LaLa box

When I was a kid I loved marbles!!  I don't remember where I got them, but I do remember the cool orange marble bag my mother made.  We'd play marbles at school and in the neighborhood.  My marble collection grew when I started winning other kids marbles.

The orange bag of marbles is still in the game cabinet at my mother's house where my nieces and nephews played with them.  I imagine their kids will play with my marbles as well some day.

I was in an antique store in Grand Rapids one time and saw a HUGE tub of vintage glass marbles!  I couldn't resist plunging my hand in to feel them.  The sign said "all the marbles you can fit in a baggie $2.00".  The baggies were pretty small, but I crammed in all I could and felt like I got a deal.  The most fun was picking out the different colors.  Now these marbles reside in the LaLa box for my grandaughters to play with.

What's the LaLa box you ask?   Shhhhhhh, it's for girls only.

The LaLa box is a box under the bed in my room that contains, well, stuff!  All the fun little things that the adult in me wonders what to do with and the little girl in me won't part with.  Let's see, there's some of my grandmother's costume jewelry, old keys, sparkly coin purses, a tiny doll made out of a sock, pens that write glitter, and notebooks with kittens on them.  Miniature office supplies, small toys out of Christmas Crackers, plastic butterflies, small jewelry boxes, and the foam tiara I wore when I got up at 3:00 in the morning to watch the royal wedding with some stitching friends.  That's not a complete list, but you get the picture. 

When my grandaughters come to visit, they ask to see the LaLa box.  We go in my bedroom and shut the door, pull the box out from under the bed and sit on the floor to just look at everything.  At first they wanted to keep this a secret thing between us, but later decided that any girls would be allowed (like aunts and mommies).

Now the LaLa box has marbles.  I guess I'll have to teach them how to play :)

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I'm doing a bit of framing lately.  Here's the Fall Mystery Stitch-Along from the By the Bay Needleart blog.  It was a really fun stitch and I found the coolest frame at Hobby Lobby.  What do you think?

 

 

Happy stitching!

Sherri

Learning to Stitch!

My granddaughters were wanting to learn to cross stitch, so one day I gathered up some scraps of needlepoint canvas, perle cottons, big needles, threaders and blunt scissors.  (They are 6 and 7.)  We made some personalized scissors fobs with alphabet beads, which they loved.  My daughter in law stitches, so between the two of us, we showed them how to thread the needle, gave them a few tips and set them loose to play!

They both had a great time and pretty soon were using nice little straight stitches to stitch hearts, flowers, grass, and even their names!  They would want to get out their stitching whenever I came to visit.  One day I got an email from my son saying they asked to get out their stitching on their own one Saturday morning.  He sent this picture.

Aislyn and Alyse stitching. 

Aislyn, who will be 8 in October, started learning to make x's so we moved her up a step using a small pattern I used to use for kids in the shop.  Her Mom marked the pattern on 6 ct AIDA and yesterday, I got her started cross stitching for real!

Such concentration!

She's very proud of her progress, as she should be.  And notice how she learned to park her needle on the magnet?  Maybe she'll be ready for counting soon!

Aislyn's first real cross stitch.

When she finishes the piece, we're going to make it into a book mark.  Both girls love to read so I guess I'll always be able to spoil them with stitching projects and new books!

A Halloween Birthday Party

My DIL Jamie loves Halloween and loves throwing parties for Aislyn and Alyse.  What a great idea to have a costume party for their combined birthday party.  I think all kids like to have excuses to wear their costumes more than once.

I'm sure there were some great pictures taken that day (not necessarily by me) but I got a few decent ones to share.  What self-respecting grandma attends a birthday party without a camera?  And this party was special in that it's the first of their parties that I was actually able to attend!

The festivities started with ghost cookies, jack-o-lantern rice krispy treats, and other assorted goodies.

 Jamie had to miss the part of the party where the Mom's visited around the table.  But they seemed to have a nice time.

The birthday girls (aka Bat Girl and Spider Girl) got to open lots of presents.

Mom and Dad finally had to cut open the pinata!

My costume for the day was a Biker Babe.  I even got an airbrushed tattoo for the occasion.

And a good time was had by all . . .

Looks like Bella was more pooped than anybody else!

Play-Doh

One of my favorite things to do when visiting Aislyn and Alyse is to make things with Play-Doh. They are so creative. We got started one day making birds with nests and eggs, then after they saw my zebra finches, they started making play-doh zebra finches. Now Daddy sends me pictures of things they make.

Alyse has graduated from zebra finches to ducks!

October is the perfect month for pumpkins so Aislyn is showing off her jack-o-lanterns.

Wedding Photos

Elizabeth has posted some fabulous wedding photos and I just couldn't resist sharing a few of my favorites here. This first picture is here so you can see the straight hairdo that started all the hulla-ba-loo, but I also think it's a good picture of the three of us.


I wouldn't be a good Grandma if I didn't share this picture of Alyse and Aislyn. They were such beautiful flower girls and, as you can see, were taking their job very seriously.


I left my camera at the table during the tree planting, so I'm glad I can finally share this part with you. Since Liz and Jeff were married on the property they plan to live on, they planted this willow tree as part of the celebration.


This next one has to be my very favorite. As soon as I saw it the theme song from "Green Acres" started running through my head!

Liz, I hope you're not bothered by the Green Acres reference. This is such a beautiful photo and so symbolic of the start of your lives together. Just the two of you standing where someday a home and family will be living and growing together. And that's what this day was all about!

Future Flower Girls

Another wedding is coming up in the family in August. Aislyn and Alyse will be flower girls for their Aunt Liz in Grand Rapids. Here they are trying on their dresses. They are so beautiful I couldn't resist being a shameless grandma and bragging.

We are so looking forward to living in Texas again so we can watch these girls grow up!