The Handmade Dress

My Great Uncle Sterling, pastor of our church, and a wonderful man of God entered those Pearly Gates dancing last night! Although I am beyond happy for him, because I know he was ready, I can't help but cry for us. There is a Sterling sized hole in all of our hearts this morning. Sunday morning during Sunday school while my Dad was teaching he fainted on the first row. They came to get Ben (from our boys Sunday school class) to check him out, when we got there he was fine. He said that he didn't remember it, but he felt fine, he promised us that he would see a doctor this week AND HE GOT UP AND PREACHED! That's the kind of man he was! When he hugged me after service he said "Boy that was a good hug! I love you, and you are the best Great niece! You notice I said GREAT niece!" I love that those were his last words to me....He went fast, he didn't suffer, he wasn't sick, and he lived a wonderful eighty something years fifty of those were spent leading peop...

Ben has been wanting me to wear a dress for a while now....You see, when I had Molly I started wearing skirts and shirts, because it was so much easier to nurse babies, and I haven't had a dress since. But since Ben asked for a dress I decided to give it a go. I have had the " Built By Wendy Dresses " book for a couple of months now but I'm ashamed to say that I hadn't really got past the muslin stage until last week. Last week when I got to feeling better I started out on a mission! My mission was to use the Built By Wendy bodice as a starting point to make the perfect fitting dress/ top go-to pattern for myself. Once I have that pattern just how I like it I can whip up a new top or dress anytime I want! Add that to the go-to skirt pattern that I already have, and hunny I'm all set! The dress above was my first try, it's OK, but it's a little big under the arms, I would like it to be a little longer, and it needs a little room taken out of the wais...

Like I said in the last post, I'm just going to let the pictures do the talking....The first place you will see is the public beach in Gulf Shores, the second place that looks cleaner is the bay, the third place is Fort Morgan, and the fourth and worst place is residential Fort Morgan where we usually stay in a beach house.

We are well! By Thursday we were all feeling much better and on Friday morning I left on that quick beach trip I told you about. We decided to stay over one night so that we could go see all of our favorite beaches and see how they all looked. I just got home at 2:00 this morning! It ended up being my mama, mama-in-law, and Mrs. Donna (one of the cutest little ladies that has ever lived!) who went to see the beach. Right now I'm working on weeding through almost a thousand pictures of the beach (oil spill) to make a slide show on flickr. We had a lot of fun hanging out together, but the beach was worse. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves, I'm trying not to get depressed about it again. I'll have them up sometime tomorrow. This week is going to be fun around here! Last week I got in a ton of new fabric to play with! Wednesday when I was feeling a bit better I sewed up a dress for me, that I happened to LOVE. Since then I have made another dress and a shirt for ...

I'm relieved that Molly had something common and treatable. Only problem with that is.....now the bug has got me. Maddie is still running fever on and off but feels fine, Molly feels great, and I feel like poo. Ben has done a wonderful job of being Mr. Mom. He took the kids to the doctor today while I stayed home next to the potty, and he even picked up an antibiotic and nausea medicine for me while he was there. Good man. The nausea medicine is working but I feel super groggy and loopy, but that's cool, better than hanging out with the potty. I'll be back soon. Thanks for the mama meeting guys, y'all rock!

Why can't I just post that and have you all show up for coffee? I have been so stressed out for the last few days!! Besides fighting a bit of lingering depression from the beach trip, I have had one sick little girl on my hands. We rushed Molly to the ER on Friday afternoon, she was hurting in her upper abdomen and she was having trouble taking deep breaths because of the pain (she had been hurting off and on- mostly off- for three days but nothing serious, until Friday!). Scary- even for a paramedic daddy and a pediatric nurse mommy. They couldn't find anything wrong at the ER and then that night she started running a temp of 102! Molly has been in remission for 5 years now, and I was all comfy thinking that she was just a normal kid with no special issues, when this completely knocked me off my feet. Even more scary. My family doctor called in some medicines Saturday morning when she was still holding steady at 101 and now she is feeling much better, but now my baby has a h...

Hey friends. We got back late Wednesday night from the beach. We had a good time with the people we were with, but the beach part was pretty depressing. I wanted too keep you up to date on Facebook because I knew everyone was wondering what it was like down there, but I just couldn't post depressing news the whole time.   When we first got there the beach "looked" fine. The sand was beautiful and clean, and the water looked like it usually does, but when Ben and Tim got in we noticed that there were tiny reddish brown spots in the water and sticking to them. It was sad, but I thought, "Well, I can handle this." Later, we went for a walk down the beach and we quickly noticed that tar was building up on the bottoms of our feet. It was kind of like stepping on several hot sticky pieces of gum on a parking lot. They have "Tar Wash" stations set up at every hose with a brush inside so that you can scrub down. I heard that the ...

Wow I didn't mean to stay gone so long! My computer is finally up and running again (which is good) but I have to admit....I sort of liked my computer vacation. I think a little laptop vacation is good for a body every now and then. We had a great week on my little vacation and now I'm back to tell you all about it! Our week started out with these two little munchkins! My nieces Lily and Iris got to spend the night and that meant that I ("Aunt Panta") got to get as many kisses as I wanted for two days! And I got to be a part of those sweet just-woke-up moments that aunts don't get a lot of...it was so heavenly! I woke up super early and went back to sleep on the couch so that I would be the first to hear them get up. When I heard Iris stirring I ran in to find this....How stinkin cute is that? They woke up excited about feeding the animals! The first thing they did was look out the window to see them all lined up at the gate waiting for bre...

My laptop went bonkers last week! I do have a desktop, but I usually do most of my work on my laptop so that I can be wherever the kids are.....so I've been super slow about answering email. I'm sorry! My whole routine is off, we have been gone for like five days straight swimming and soaking in the summer. Also my mother-in-law hasn't been able to get email from me, and that makes me wonder how many other people haven't got email from me.  I sat on the phone with her one day and sent one email after another to her correct email address and she just never got them. So....what I'm trying to say is I promise to get caught up on email today, but if you need a response from me and don't get it today please email me back or give me a call tomorrow at (205) 433-9040 (that way I know that everyone gets taken care of). On another note, Lily and Iris are coming to spend the night tonight!!!! I plan on having my camera ready in the morning so that I can get some sleepy ...

The "Summer of Embroidery" is off to a good start! One of my summer projects is hand embroidered alphabet designs booklet. There are four different sets of designs using three different types of embroidery. I can't tell you how relaxing this project has been so far. It has forced me to slow down, sit, listen, cuddle, drink way too much coffee, and stitch...all very good things. All of the embroidery samples are done now so it won't be long before this project is in the shop for all of you to enjoy too. This set is shadow work embroidery with lazy daises. This is one of my favorites! It's all bullion stitched stems, roses, and buds. I have done similar initials on baby gowns for years, but I normally just freehand the design. The only trouble with that is that after I give it away I can never use the same design again. Now that all of the work is done I can just trace these off and whip up a baby dress in no time! In this set the letters an...

For a while now I've been trying to come up with a way to display and enjoy all of the things that we collect on our adventures. My window sills are full, the china cabinet and book shelf have been over-run, and we have baskets everywhere, but none of it really works. I knew that I didn't want to throw it away, but I also knew that I couldn't keep it all laying around or stuffed in baskets because you can't really enjoy it that way either. Finally, the other night, I had this idea! I didn't really know what to call it but I pictured a gypsy wind chime crossed with a hanging nature collection that could hang over the kitchen sink. I told the kids to round up some beads, twine, and fishing wire, while I gathered some of our favorite pieces. I knew that we had an awesome twisted branch in the attic that we carried back from a trip to the beaver dam months ago. We knew when we saw that pretty branch that we would one day have the perfect project for it...

Marissa! Congratulations Marissa! And thank you all for your sweet comments, y'all are the best!