Hope you were able to great in the new year with a welcomed cheer! I enjoyed the holidays with my daughter and son-in-law in St. Augustine, Florida. Love the area where they are and it's always a fun visit! If you ever need a great place in Florida to visit, away from all the hipe of Disney or commericalizm of Destin or Miami, St. Augustine is a wonder place. Great historical town, oldest in the nation. Has fun shopping of all kinds, neat galleries, museums, just a lot to offer for all ages.

 Lots of new things have come to the website since I attended the Creative Needlework market in Birmingham, AL the beginning of the month. New fabrics, new patterns, new buttons, just to name a few. I am sending out newsletters with the new items pictured and specials, so be sure to be on my Mailing List.

Easter is just around the corner. Always a fun time to sew. I remember the late nights finishing up dresses for my two girls or a short all for my son. Loved to do some of the heirloom sewing for the girls when they got out of some of the smocking stage. We usually have some colorful flowers or trees at Easter, here in Oklahoma, so it made for some lovely pictures on Easter morning.

I've had some problems with the comment feature of the Blog, so if you have a question or comment, please just email me at sylvia@delicatestitches.com and I will respond to your question or comment in my next Blog entry. Sorry for the inconvenience, but hope to get it resovled in the future.

Happy Stitching, Sylvia

Greetings! Working on getting back into the swing of things since my older daughter's wedding earlier this month. Everything went great and of course she was a lovely bride! Had a gorgeous dress made with Spanish lace and very unique design. (I'm just glad I wasn't the one stitching or altering it!) It was a beautiful candlelight or ivory color and just a lovely combination of soft tulle and lace appliques.

What was fun to stitch was the Flower girl dresses. As I said in an earlier entry, they were stitched out of silk dupioni, ecru or champagne in color. Smocked in silk floss with tiny ivory colored seed beads. I've enclosed the "older sister's" dress in this entry. I used the pattern Larkin by Maja's Heirlooms. It is a great dress for an older girl, my recipient was about 7 years. The back is smooth with back vertical darts and it buttons all the way down. I used 4-holed Mother of Pearl buttons and put a rosebud with lazy daisy leaves to attach each button. Very nice, suprize for the back of the dress. I used the Madeira silk floss for the smocking, using 2 strands.

I've broken my promise of trying to "blog" every Monday. But I'll start again!  The wedding sewing is still going on, but coming to a close. I am seeing the end of the tunnel! I have to say that the little "Flower Girl" dresses are just precious!!  Ecru silk dupioni with ecru silk floss for the smocking with a ecru glass bead at the top and bottom of each diamond. Little bittersweet bullionroses along the bottom. I'll be taking some pictures and put them on the blog and the website real soon.

Starting to get some new Fall patterns in and will work at getting those on the blog and website, too.

Have been having computer poblems, but all should be resolved before week's end!!

Let me know about your sewing. We need to all stay inspired.

Sylvia

Well, working dilegantly on all the wedding attire and accessories for my oldest daughter's wedding the first of October. I finished the shoulder to waist smocking on the youngest flower girl's dress just an hour ago! Will begin the major construction tomorrow. I have all but one of the bridesmaid dresses ready for a final fitting. I was a little disappointed to hear that my sister-in-law felt my niece's bodice was too "puffy", I believe she called it. It does have a rather blousey look to it and may be a more "older" design for her. She is, after all, the youngest of the bridesmaid. I will get some imput from some sewing friends of mine tomorrow. Hopefully I won't have to remake the bodice!! Ugh!

Well, it's week 2 of the Delicate Stitches by Sylvia Blog and I promised to jot a note each Monday. Hope it's been a great week for you!

I've been up to my eyeballs in wedding attaire for my oldest daughter's Fall wedding. Make 5 bridesmaid dresses and 2 flower girl dresses. Then I know I need to work a bridal garter in there and also the bride's veil. (Luckily she wants something VERY simple) The bridesmaid dresses is a simple pattern except for the invisible side zipper. Ugh! But I'll muddle through.

I am smocking the flower girl dresses. They are being constructed out of ecru silk dupioni. I am using ecru Madiera silk floss for the smocking, 2 strands and a small bead at the top & bottom of the diamond shapes of the smocking design. The flower girls are sisters, about 2 years apart. The younger is going to have a basic yoke style dress with a full smocked bodice. For the older sister I am using "Larkin" by Maja's Heirlooms. I mentioned it last week as an alternative pattern for an older girl that you would still like to smock for. This little girl is not a "girly" girl and so we didn't want to overwhelm her with poof and lace! I think we are going to sash each of the dresses with a Fall color that my daughter is using in the bridesmaids' bouquets.

Since I am smocking on silk, I would mention a pleating technique that I learned that really makes the dupioni pleat up nicely. Dupioni can be very ugly if just run through the pleater without using this technique during the pleating process. As you turn the pleats on the pleater, fill up the needles full of pleats. Have a STEAM iron ready to blast the pleats with shots of steam until you see that they are "slightly damp" with the steam. Then have a blow dryer that you immediately set the pleats that have been hit with the shot of steam. When you feel they are dry, gently slide the pleats off the needles. Load up another couple of turns of pleats onto the needles and repeat the process across the piece of fabric you are needing pleated. Really, really does work nicely, gives great definition to the pleated silk and makes it very easy to block and smock.

Another tip: since silk is very dulling on your needles, take a piece of wax paper and run it through your pleater to remove any residue that occurs from pleating the silk. This is not a bad idea to do periodically for your pleater, even if you are not doing a lot of pleating of silk.

Hello fellow stitchers! Welcome to the Delicate Stitches by Sylvia Blog. I hope you will be patient with me and this process. I am still learning the "administration" of my format. But I am a fairly quick learner, so I hopefully will be sailing with this shortly. My plan is to start having an entry every Monday and we will see how things go from there.

Summer is winding down and so sewing for Back to School is hopefully starting to take shape in your mind. I always loved making a "First Day of School" outfit for my kids. The girls were much more interested in that they little brother! Even though we concentrated on "apples", plaids, teacher things, we still kept the clothes cool and comfortable because we have warm weather until mid October, here in Oklahoma.

One of my favorite smocking designs are the ones with the little "Scottie" dogs. Ellen McCarn's plate "Wee Ladies" is so precious and would make up a darling smocked dress for the start of school. Of course one thinks of black, white and red, but there are other options. The Pima checks are always a great standby and launder and wear so well!!

I also love a couple of patterns by Maja's Heirlooms. She had fun, out of the ordinary smocking ideas. Her pattern "Larkin" was shown in an older Sew Beautiful magazine to shorten it and have it as a top. How cute would this look paired with one of the "Sassy Skirts" by Children's Corner Patterns. Larkin uses an adjusted bishop style smocking, but works well for an older girl who thinks she's grown out of the basic yoke dress or an inset smocked garment. Larkin's smocking would be cute in Julia Golson's "Lighthearted"  in white lawn and add Fabric Finders Floral print #15 for the skirt.

Hope that is a little mid summer inspiration for you to get going toward back to school sewing. Please feel free to respond with suggestions, comments on things you have stitches or products you would like to see added to the website.

Happy stitchin', Sylvia