The Wedding Gown

My friends, thank you for your patience while waiting for my post about the wedding gown. 
This project has been in the works since the week after the wedding and  I hope you find it worth the wait.
This slide show will take over twelve minutes, and you will want to have the audio turned on.
 

The Wedding Gown

by Sharon Castlebury

Why must you, Bride, put on this gown

On this, your wedding day?

Why go to all the effort, Dear,

And stitch our hearts away?

Although I'm sure you'd look quite smart

In some gown off the rack,

'Twould save us time and effort great

To choose that easy track.

I'll tell you Dear, this dress is more

Than just a wedding gown,

For in its folds a tale is told;

Your story in it is found.

The dress began when you were born,

For hopes and dreams inspired it.

Each pattern piece was alterred so

A robe of Heaven you'd fit.

The fabric was beyond compare-

Your heart was made clean and pure;

"Twas cut out very carefully;

God's trimming hand was sure.

The pieces we did pin and fit-

The pain you felt was real;

But as the stitches were put in

How humbly you did yield.

At time we made real mistakes

So we ripped out then re-sewed.

The new seam that we stitched back in

Was nobler far we know.

The lovely dress was almost done

Except for one more thing

To try it on . . . how does it fit?

Will it make His heart sing?

You tried it on, it fit you like

An angel had sewn for you!
It was a perfect picture frame

Of the woman God made-it's true!

As you wore it on your wedding day

It made me start to cry,

To know that every stitch we took

Was another step in your life.

So, Darling as we think upon 

the time that's traveled past,

The years we spent in joy and tears

Were fashioning you at last

To be the one to pass the torch
to daughters in your line.
My Dear, remember, construct her dress

With care as we did thine.

An Heirloom Baby Gown

 I have had the joy of  making baby day-gowns for several of  my babies. 
They attended their first church service in them, and several services (before growing out of them) thereafter.
It is my intention to make each of my children an heirloom day-gown for their children.
This spring/summer found me stitching away on one for Trevor and Thelma's babys.

 This was my first attempt at drawn thread work on anything so fine. 
The fabric is pima batiste.

 The gown was worked in a pattern of broderie anglaise, which  is synonymous with "eyelet". It is found in a leaflet by  "Belles and Beaus"

entitled "Primer Series Broderie Anglaise" 1985.

 The back is from the same leaflet.   I love working eyelet.  You don't have to count or do any thinking.

 The buttonholes are worked by hand.  Very enjoyable.

Little Isabella was the first to wear this gown.
She appeared at the wedding in it and looked so sweet and babyish. 
As the day wore on, her gown became wrinkled, but she wore them well.
She was as a long-ago babe in a vintage photograph

"We Make Every Thing At Least Once"

This afternoon, Ashley and I had the pleasure of meeting another of our neighbor ladies. She is the sister-in-law of our other neighbor who has the charming chickens. Mrs. Ashley whisked us down the road to meet Mrs. Ashley, and we had a wonderful time seeing the amazing quilt she made, as well as other of her handy work (and yard-sale finds!)

Betty gave me permission to share pictures with you that I think will inspire you, no matter how old or young you may be, to be the queen of the domain God has given you.

This is her beautiful quilt! "Cathedral Windows" is it's name and it is amazing! It is made unlike any quilt pattern I have ever seen, and Betty's is even more unusual because each of her little "windows" has a piece of batting sewn behind it, giving it a three dimensional effect.

You may click on the picture to see it enlarged.

She stitched it entirely by hand and I must say, her work is very lovely. Perfect. Would you believe this is her first and only quilt?

Here is a piece that has "chicken~scratching" embroidery. I think it charming!

More chicken~scratching in the "Red Room". The theme of the afternoon was this: we enjoy learning a new skill and then using it at least once! Not every one will be proficient or fast enoughto use a skill very often, but the idea is to always have minds and hearts that are eager to learn new things and put them to practical use.

This pillowcase was cross~stitched. Isn't it pretty?

She also had some lovely open drawn-work pieces which she learned from an elderly lady in Donald's some years back. Unfortunately my pictures didn't turn out. I'm so sorry you are not able to see them.

Outside the house, Betty's finger prints were every where. She leaves her creative touches all around the home she shares with her husband. I loved her cobalt "bottle~tree". Needless to say, I am now in search of Milk of Magnesia bottles!


This is just tooo cute! Don't you love the way the "hens" are growing out of the toes? My son, Tristan, was taken aback at dinner when the two lively females in the house simultaneously laid claim to his old work boots as soon as he wears them out! (the poor boy has long suffered our teasing about his stinky feet!)

I would like to thank Betty for opening her home to us. We had a wonderful visit with her. I hope to be as good a neighbor as these ladies have been to us. May the Lord bless your weekend!

A Little Bit of This, and A Little Bit of That

There is so much to catch you up on. The house at Bull Run has just sprung up out of the ground, and it is exciting to see our son preparing his home.

For those of you who are not reading Ashley's blog, I will be glad to show you a few pictures I took. Here are Ashley, Trevor, and Sweet Pea.



He has the cleanest, neatest, most spacious crawl-space in the southeast!



It's not everyday a guy has the opportunity to help his brother build his house. I'm sure Sayre will have some good memories of time spent with Trevor.



Sawyer loves being over at Bull Run with Trevor.



The first wall goes up. How exciting!



Our lovely Thelma.



A woman's touch is just what this home needs!




Here's the best looking man on the job site, and he's ALL MINE !



Fearless.



Up goes the roof.



Notice the clear, clear blue sky.



He's done this a few times!





We believe these to be graves.



The home at the end of the road.

I'm so thankful that I've been able to catch up on many of the projects around my home this summer. I'm hoping to show you some of the fruits of those labors. It is so wonderful to be able to find great contentment and joy in these domestic projects!



A friend of mine is getting married for the first time at the age of 40+! So the ladies in her church are making her a friendship quilt. This is my quilt square for her which I hand embroidered



I've also been recovering lampshades. I don't know if I'm doing it right, but I'm doing it!



I've had lot's of help!



Canning season was a time of learning for me. My mother canned up until a couple of years before her passing away, and I was able to help her some. But there's nothing like doing it yourself. I'm thankful for Marmee who answered a lot of random questions!
Here you see me squishing all the blackberries I have been freezing the passed couple of years in addition to a bunch I brought back from Michigan.



The bounty of the summer. Tomatoes, peach , blackberry, and strawberry jam.


Now that the weather has turned a bit cool, the flowers are going crazy!



This rose was given to me by the dear Mother of my Sister-in-law, Mrs. Doney, when my Dad passed away. It is called Perfume Perfection~a JacksonPerkins rose. It is heavenly to sniff.



I'm normally not a fan of calla lilies, but the price was right the day Ashley and I visited the Jackson Perkins outlet in Greenwood, SC. I had no idea they would be so pretty!. They are only about 15" high, and they keep producing these lovely flowers that last~litterally~ for weeks in a vase! The more you cut, the more they produce! These are called Captain Romance.



I can not remember if I had a name for these. They are left over from the Wilson's garden when they lived here. Very pretty.



The "MONSTER COSMOS" (my name for them) finally bloomed and boy are they striking!




Thank you Lord, for your great goodness to me.

Sewing Hutch Tour

It is so nice of you to return to my sewing room to explore the contents of "The Little Sewing Hutch". I've been collection sewing items from "the old days"for quite a few years now. I just cringe at the idea of people trashing these items just because they have out-lived their use.




There are several "collections" within this collection.


Here are some of the items "Bea" left in our other house. There are old well-worn pearl buttons in the square candy tin. The red oriental tin contains other interesting buttons that appear to have come off old garments.
In front is a number of plastic thimbles with the names of local political candidates from Greenville's past.



This shelf contains old notions, pressing cloth, tracing paper, etc. in addition to a basket full of old threads and carded buttons.



I purchased this box of "Lily boil-proof thread" from a yard sale of an elderly lady in our neighborhood. They are in their original box and were manufactured in Shelby, NC.
The boxes of embroidery floss are a recent find during a recent antiquing adventure!

This shelf contains the contents of a package I received in 2005 from a dear lady I have known most all my life. She now resides in the Upper Peninsula, but she has delighted in sending me "goodies" over the years.
She found an old basket laying in someones pile of trash and happened to pick it up. She sent me part of the contents of that basket. I hope to share more of this with you some day.

These are some odds and ends. In the glass container hiding behind the beautifully wrought lavender sachet made by my dear friend, Paula, is a cotton boll. 26 years ago, my dear husband and I were traveling down a highway here in the area we now live, and he stopped the car on the edge of the road next to a field of cotton. He got out and plucked this one for me. At that time, there were still cotton fields here and there in this area. During Bea's days, cotton was king~it was grown all over the country side. Now, you will rarely find such a thing.

Do you ever try to imagine the way people lived "back then"? I'm sure it was much simpler. There were fewer choices. There was a lot less to distract a homemaker.
In our ultra-modern world, we as homemakers must continually keep focused on our purpose. To love our husbands and children. To keep our homes.