Meet Miss Alice, and something about Mary...

Miss Alice....Oh she is just so lovely! This is the Fall dress I told you about, and the next pattern! The colors are so perfect for Fall! The orange fabric is an old thrifted pillowcase, it made for a really ugly pillowcase, but I think it made an awesome dress.

Miss Alice has a flat front, perfect for monogramming, embroidery, or appliques; and gathers under the arms for fullness. I love the way this turned out! Sometimes my designs just aren't near as cute as the sketch I start with, but this one turned out better than I expected. Below is the original sketch, I did draft the yoke a little wider and skip the buttons, but that's all that changed in the design process (which is sort of unheard of).

Madeline looks like a little school girl here! Doesn't she look like she should have a little stack of books in her hand?

I know some of you may be wondering "What in the world happened to Miss Mary?"....well, there is a very good, but long, explanation for that. The short version is this: I would have to raise the cost of the pattern, to cover the cost of printing, higher than I would feel comfortable with. I really like keeping my printed patterns in the $11- $12 range, anymore than that and I start to feel like it's getting too expensive. So until I can find a way to have pieces that large printed for a good price, Miss Mary will have to go in the back burner. I'm sorry. I feel really bad about it, but I would feel even worse having to charge you an arm and a leg for a pattern.

 I need some feedback! What do you think about the cost of patterns? Do you like Miss Alice? And are you ready for the huge surprise (sewing related) that I get to announce in the next week?! Oh, it's big! Huge in fact! I better go before I tell!

I am so ready for Fall!!

I know that it is Fall, but that doesn't mean anything in the South! We probably won't see Fall colors until November. We got up this morning and it was just a little cool in the house, oh it was so exciting! So to make it really feel like Fall we built a small fire and let it burn out quickly so that we could smell that smoky warm smell all day. Oh it's so heavenly! Fall is our most favorite season!

Can you believe these pictures of my babies? I posted these in November of 2007. Oh sweet Jesus, has it really been two years? Can we just slow things down a bit? Please?

It's funny, reading a post that old kinda gives me the feeling of hearing yourself talk on an answering machine. Do you ever get that feeling? I feel like I am so different now, but in ways still exactly the same. I feel so much older, not in a bad way, but just in the way that I know more about myself and my family. I'm not new at this anymore and it feels good to be out of that "war zone" that is the first few years of motherhood. I feel kinda like I have "payed my dues". LOL! Maybe that's why I have so much compassion for new mamas. HARDEST YEARS OF MY LIFE! I could sit up and worry ALL NIGHT LONG over a cough. LOL! Now if one of the kids cough they usually hear something like "Could you cover your mouth? and  stop coughing so loud you crazy kid!" LOL! Wasn't this post supposed to be about Fall......oh well...

Today we are going fabric shopping and I'm really looking forward to stocking up on some Fall colors. I've already made Maddie a Fall dress and it is so cute, but the pictures will have to wait until tomorrow.....Happy Fall! xoxo, Sam

Yesterday I met my new best friend!!

and I don't even remember her name! LOL! I was so excited that I couldn't remember after she walked off what she said her name was...I think it started with a M...BUT I DON'T KNOW!! I was sitting in my booth and a lady walked up and glanced at our little adoption flyer and said "Are you Samantha?" I don't even remember exactly what was said after that, but come to find out she and her husband are a step ahead of us in the adoption process, her husband and I grew up in the same place, and we HAVE THE SAME SOCIAL WORKER!!! In seconds we were pouring our hearts out (I was totally fighting tears the whole time). She took my card and said she would email me, but I can't wait! God is just so amazing. It's just unbelievable how he could connect two mamas, just when they are needing a friend in the same boat, and make it all work out so perfectly. Oh I almost forgot....they live just a few minutes away! I have to go now because the show starts soon, but I just had to let all of my friends know how God has blessed me! Love you all, Sam

This is so stinkin cool!

A few weeks ago I got word from my distributor that one of my patterns may be featured in an online magazine. Being the big ole nerd that I am, I went over to check immediately to see if it was really there...well it wasn't. Duh Samantha...she clearly said "upcoming issue". Well then, in all of the market and show madness, I forgot to check back again......until last night.

It was there! They featured both the Miss Madeline and the Miss Molly patterns! Whoot! Whoot!

You really should check out the Sew Wow magazine if you have a chance, you can see it all online (HERE). I was really impressed with the amount of inspiration they have packed in this issue! They have so many new cute ideas for old patterns and the fabrics are just beautiful! They sell all of the patterns and fabric featured in the magazine at Waechter's.

I think I'll go celebrate with some chocolate...and a Diet Sunkist!

some behind the scenes action at The Handmade Dress

Welcome to The Handmade Dress loft. The loft has been momentarily taken over by patterns, pattern packers, pattern folders, paper that will become patterns, and bags that will soon be stuffed with patterns. Come on in and I'll show you around, just don't sit on any patterns.

Our next show is Thursday so for the last several days since market (and that rookie mistake I told you about) we have been pattern packing maniacs! We made a few temporary changes to the loft for this big pattern packing effort...you know, I really should have a better name for it than that, "pattern packing effort"?? That just sounds dumb. How about "The Big Print of 09"? Maybe it doesn't need a name. I think I've just gone delirious from all the late nights.....Back to the loft, well, it is now a pattern factory.

Before it looked like this. Where my nest (sitting area) was, now there is a desk for Ben and shelves for printing supplies. My sewing machines are off of my sewing table and now that space is used as another table to pack patterns and store the finished product. Pretty cute employees, huh? This is David and Zachary, Ben's brothers.

So if you need me this is where I will be until Wednesday when we go to set up for the show, in the loft turned pattern factory packing away! I hope you enjoyed the behind the scenes tour! Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to show you the signs I'm working on today, that is, if the sun comes out. We shall see! Happy Monday friends! xoxo,Sam

New post on our adoption blog!

We have a new fundraiser! Go check it out! OOPS! I forgot to add the price! They are $10.

Little notes....everywhere, and I mean EVERYWHERE.

Molly is a little writer. She writes notes anytime she is feeling sad, mad, sorry, or sweet. The girl LOVES to write. Lately she has been pretty creative with where she writes too....

I was feeling a little yucky one day a while back so Ben let me take a nap while he took over for a while. When I woke up I found this sweet note by the bed....written on a "re purposed" toilet paper roll. Oh yes.  Re purposing at it's best. I think the phonetic-spelling-phase is one of my favorites. So the girl is creative....no big deal.

Until now. LOL! Yesterday after a talk with her brother about how he missed his missing kitty, "Soccer Ball Head Transformer Man", she wrote him a little sorry note. On his back. WITH A SHARPIE. She even messed up a little and just marked it out. Tim thought it was an awesome idea, Molly thought it was a cool new way to write a note, and we thought it was hilarious. The note says "Sory Tim abawt (that was a mess up she said) Tim A Bawt your citin. Love, Molly (with a little swirly heart at the end). Translation: Sorry Tim about your kitten. Love, Molly. This kid is awesome, just sayin. LOL! Oh and did you catch that rooster head? That's what we call Tim's morning bed hair. Yeah, you caught me, the kid slept with that note on his back last night; and chances are since it was a new sharpie, it will be there a few more days.

a-maze-ing!!!

Before I get into anything about market I have to first say that God has blessed us beyond measure in the last two weeks. He has opened door after door for us and we have only had to be brave enough to step through. He is blessing my little pattern business, my family, our adoption, and giving us a way to raise money to bring our children home from Bulgaria. I can hardly even type it without getting emotional! It would take me all day to tell you all the ways that he has overwhelmed us with blessings! Please know that if you have been one of the many that have prayed for my family, IT'S WORKING!!! He still answers prayer and still opens doors that we thought would never open!

WOW! I was so blown away by the madness that is market! LOL! Oh it was so wonderful! The people and other designers were so kind and welcoming. I was so impressed with the kindness of two designers in particular Ellen McCarn and Maja. They were so sweet to this "new kid on the block" and really encouraged me. God is just so good. I was so terrified of market and after only one panic attack (more about that in a minute) I settled in and things got easier, and I really do believe it was because everyone was just so overly nice. Thank You! Well, we got there and looked around for our booth but couldn't find it, so we headed back toward the door and saw the sign "The Handmade Dress" right next to the door!! We had the corner booth just inside the door!! My pictures aren't that great because there was no natural light at all, but I knew you wouldn't care!

I was so nervous at first that I was just shaking, even Ben said that he had never seen me like that before, it was bad. Ben and I looked around at the other vendors while we were looking for our booth and I noticed and commented "uhh...Ben, nobody else is bringing in furniture" LOL! For a second I let it scare me, but then I decided maybe different is good and I told him to unload the car and bring it all in! I really liked the way it turned out too!

This was my favorite part. Having hunny there. I COULD NOT HAVE survived without his take-charge, get-it-done personality! I would have been in big trouble, believe me. We sold out of patterns by lunch on the first day and just had to take orders after that, add that to the list of "Things To Do Different Next Time". Rookie mistake, won't happen again.

I took pictures for you! I tried to get all of the details because I know most of you are like me and love the little details the most. This was the pattern and sign in table. I scattered my little flower business cards and "Cindy Flowers" all over. The table cloth was an old soft thrifted bed sheet (You can take the girl out of the country but you can't take the country outta the girl!) and a beautiful yellow and white linen table topper that was also thrifted. In the vintage gravy boat was my other business cards, and in the creamer jug extra pens.

Here was my nest, or security blanket, whatever you want to call it. There was something about having pieces of home with me that  helped put me at ease. Add bring your own rug to that list too. I brought my button jars, lamp, pattern weights (which got a lot of attention! LOL!), and my loft quilt.

I sat and hand sewed when we weren't swamped and it helped calm me.

 Maddie (remember my Maddie?) wore a Miss Lily and a jean jacket. Everyone seemed to really like that combo and I did too! It changes the look of the dress a bit, makes it more contemporary or something.

My sweet friend Heather let me borrow her quilt rack and I used it as a clothing rack to display samples. The other samples (see above) hung on a little laundry line in front of my collection of vintage linens. I loved how that turned out!

I took pictures for you of the view from my nest (probably one of the most overwhelming sights I've seen in a while!). To the left is Martha Pullen Co. straight ahead is Westminster Fabrics, and to the right is Ellen McCarn.

Here is the Ellen McCarn booth and next to her Children's Corner.

That whole back wall there was Fabric Finders and too the right was The Button Company. Market, in the end, was not nearly as scary as I had thought it would be and I had such a good time. We got another chance (it was totally a God Thing) to be at another show next weekend and we took it! The Southern Women's Show in Birmingham will go Thursday through Sunday of next week. Almost 30,000 women will be there! and we have a booth on the third block from the door! there will be about 1200 booths at the show, so that is such a blessing. Ben and I are rushing to get things ready because set up is Tuesday morning and we just found out we were going to be there Monday, so I may only be able to pop in for the next few days. I'm sure I will have lots of good stories to tell when I come back though! Til then! xoxo, Sam

the mad dash

I have found myself, again, in that mad dash to get ready for market. I will be at the heirloom market in Birmingham Sunday and Monday. This is my first market to actually go in person and I am so nervous! For those of you who don't know I am VERY shy around people I don't know, like sweat buckets, face as red as my hair, shaky voice kinda shy. I'm excited about "knowing" new people, but terrified about "meeting" the new people. My Hunny is going with me so I won't be alone, but I'm still pretty nervous. I am so busy though I can't even think about it now.Today I have to make and print new fliers, print out order forms, finish decorating my booth (more about that in a moment), go get a decent outfit to wear (all of my britches are too big, yay!), pack the car, drop the kids off with Nana, cook dinner, and get a good nights sleep. This is gunna be such a long day...Oh the booth! Let me tell you about the booth! I am decorating it with things from my house! I wanted people to be able to "recognise" me or my patterns by the style of my booth, but I couldn't think of a theme, so I finally decided to take the house with me! That's as "me" as it gets. I'm going to set up a little sewing room and be sitting in my nest hand-sewing with dresses all around me. Oh that reminds me I have to iron all of those dresses too! add that to the list. Oh, I better go, I will be back Monday or Tuesday with pictures and tales from market!

The Hiding Places

Doesn't every kid need a good hiding spot?

A spot that's just theirs and nobody else's....

A place of their own, where nobody else is allowed..

We think so too!

A few weeks ago Tim discovered that the trim would flip down on either side of the fireplace, because we never screwed it back on after the fireplace redo last year. How is it that the little stuff just goes undone until you just forget about it? He was so excited about his new secret discovery that Ben decided to take it one step further and cut a hole there so he could hide things in the wall.

Guess you already know how that played out! LOL! The girls needed a hiding place too. He needed just the right spot to hide his marble egg (that was a crazy yard sale find that he just "had" to have).

Of course there had to be a few rules too....you know to prevent any fist fights that may happen otherwise.

Hiding Place Rules:

1. Never, under any circumstances, are you to touch OR look in any one's hiding place but yours. The punishment for this crime is death. LOL!

2. No food in the walls. Under no circumstances are you to hide snacks in your hiding spot, EVEN IF your brother or sister has already found your other M&D (mom and dad) approved hiding place. We don't want any critters in the walls. The punishment for this crime is....well, you may end up with critters in your walls.

The winners have been announced!

Just check the original post below!

Today

I wrote this post one year ago today. I didn't expect it to hurt this bad still. I've done well most of the day but I lost it this evening. It's such a deep ache....The last couple of months have been made easier by the hope brought through our adoption...but just like the Bible story, I miss the lost lambs..... one can't replace another, every little lamb is special. I will leave the giveaway open until tomorrow, I need some rest tonight. Thanks for "listening" friends... xoxox, Sam

300th post giveaway!

****And the winners are........Pomona, Ruth, and Brenda!! Gals, just email me at mamacaffee@hotmail.com and I will send you your choice of a PDF or printed version of the pattern you wanted. Thank you everyone for participating in this post! I had such a good time reading all of your lovely comments and looking at your blogs! xoxo, Samantha**** Or 300 and something post giveaway! LOL! I kinda missed the 300th post a few back, but that's OK. I had no idea when I started this blog that it would end up being such a big part of my life. I have met so many dear friends through this space. You all have helped me through one of the hardest times of my life. We've laughed, we've cried, and we have rejoiced together....there is such a sense of community here in blog land and you have made me feel welcome! I so wish we could all sit together here at my house, drink coffee, and let the kids play in the yard together....Wouldn't it be nice if we could all be neighbors?

To thank you for being such loyal friends and 'neighbors' I'm going to do a giveaway. Leave a comment telling me a little about yourself or even your favorite post, tell me what pattern you would like to win, and remember to leave me your email address and name. I will pick 1 winner for every 20 comments on Sunday evening.

Thank you all, really, I appreciate you all so much. Love, Samantha

a big FAT secret

Yep, for almost a month now I have been sitting on a big ole secret, but not anymore! I started P90X almost four weeks ago and I feel great! Ben and I are doing the workouts together 6 days a week and they are each almost one hour. Yeah, I know that's a long time, but it works. When I started I couldn't do ANY real push ups. At all. I had to do the cheater girly ones where you have your knees on the floor and push up from there, but now I can do 20 military style push ups and not even feel like dying! LOL! I am starting to see a difference in my clothes too and a few people have even commented on the difference that they can see. YAY! It feels really good. I started working out regularly back in November but I never really pushed myself to the point of getting stronger, I was more focused on just getting in 30 minutes of cardio a day. This is totally different, now I am pushing myself to do things I have NEVER been able to do...and I can actually do it! I decided back in November that I couldn't complain about my body not working properly if I wasn't feeding it and exercising like I should, so made the choice to take care of what God gave me! Y'all, I feel like a new person. I have so much more energy. **Warning** I am about to try to motivate you to do the same if you aren't already....If you have been putting off getting in shape (like I did for a while) get off your bum and start! You won't feel ANY better until you work a little! We need to be good stewards of what God gave us! Complaining about it isn't gunna help (believe me I tried that for a month and I just felt worse) you have to commit to getting off your rear six days a week for at least a month. If you don't feel better after a month of good workouts you can quit and go back to the complaining. LOL! Who's with me??

Dazzle Me

So I have been told by a very faithful blog reader that my blog has been boring lately. Don't worry, I don't have my feelings hurt, much, (LOL!) because this certain someone is my biggest fan and he really just wants to read more about the people he loves while he is at work. This morning he asked me "Why haven't you been blogging much?" Hmmm...so I answered "I've just been busy this Summer" Ben: "You need to blog more... it's been boring." So there you have it. I'm Sorry I've been so boring!!! I really do mean to blog more than I do but with so much going on I just don't have much computer time lately! I will try to do better, I really don't want to disappoint! I kind of felt the boringness taking over but I just couldn't find a way out of my boring rut. I mean to do better and I'm going to try my hardest to be a little more interesting. I have so many fun things that I could blog about but I've just been lazy... so there is no excuse for my behavior, I have been given plenty of good material but I have just failed to use it. If you have fallen victim to my boring blog I apologize! Please forgive me!!! Because Ben was the one needing another post I decided to blog about what happened before that this morning. At breakfast Maddie sighed and said "I've been dreaming about pants with hearts on them." -I kid you not she said those very words, remember this is the three year old who cut herself shaving a couple of weeks ago, Lord help us!- The ever willing hero AKA Daddy looked at me and said "Do we still have that Bedazzler?" -LOL! Yes people! A manly firefighter who is willing to bedazzle to stay at the top of Maddie's list!- When he started pulling all the pieces out of the box, after going and finding it with NO HELP,(now you know as well as I do that when a man finds something in a 7yr old girls closet without help, he is on a serious mission!) I said "You really will do anything to be the hero won't you?" He looked at me unashamed and said "Yep." And you know what? He didn't do too bad either! I was really proud of my crafty man. In fact it was kind of hot! LOL! A man, manly enough to bedazzle...unashamed! Stand back ladies, he's mine! LOL! Here is the finished product, as you can see he went beyond the heart and did a flower too, and then some on the back pockets. Show off! Can I just let him win the #1 spot like this? Maybe I should make a twirly skirt today...nah, I'll let him have it, he deserves it! Anyone hear anything about the 80's coming back? Yeah, let's hope so.

Crafting

Today we went to the nursing home to visit my great grandmother (Granny Dear) and another special friend (Miss Godwin). We try to never go empty handed knowing that the tiniest gift can really cheer them up, so today we decided to take flowers. Granny Dear loves flowers but has a major thing against anyone spending money on flowers for her, sooo Molly made her some fabric flowers using my sweet friend Cindy's tutorial.

First I painted a few Shish Kabob sticks green to use for the stems. I just stabbed them into a cardboard box so that I could paint them all at once and they could dry standing up. Then I cut out the little fabric squares and Molly did the sewing while Maddie and I picked out buttons. We needed little pots that weren't breakable so I used styrofoam coffee cups, glued a styrofoam ball (like these) into the bottom, and glued ribbon and rickrack all the way around (Tim helped with that part). As Molly finished each flower Maddie and I would hot glue a button in the center and glue a stick to the back, I used little fabric scraps to patch over the back of the stick for more stability. Then we just stabbed the flowers into the styrofoam ball, added some rocks from outside (to add weight) and DONE! Quick, easy, cheap, not breakable, and cute as pie craft project!

Granny Dear and Miss Godwin both LOVED their bouquet! They were just tickled that Molly made the flowers herself and so happy that they wouldn't die in a few days. They were so cute deciding where they would display their flowers in their room, it was so sweet. Later on today the crafter in me was thinking about how cute this little project could be for small gifts, parties, kids rooms, cakes....Oh I can get so carried away by a good project!

PS. I should add that we only used four petals, not the five suggested in the tutorial because we were a little pressed for time. The flowers do look better with five petals ;)