HI everyone…
I’ll let you keep guessing about my title and show you something HUGE first. Day before yesterday my hubby went to his garden to pick the cucumbers and LOOK WHAT HE BROUGHT BACK! It is the biggest cuke I’ve ever seen…
It’s a Japanese cucumber and he likes them because the seeds inside are small and they tend to not be bitter! We haven’t sliced it yet but probably will tomorrow. It could make a whole meal for a family because it weighs a whopping 2.7 pounds! :o)
I had to do a little bit of creative photography!
Well, as much as I’d like to tell you the red leather shoes are finished… they aren’t. They are in the works, but not done enough to show. Maybe tomorrow… maybe not.
I got a call today from a friend asking if I might consider something… (I knew what that meant… alterations!) Yep, it was.
One of the young girls from Colombia, South America, who was a student at the University here in town, is getting married and wanted our pastor to marry them. I’m not exactly sure when this happened, but her mother corresponded with Barbara and got all the necessary measurements and made Barbara a beautiful wedding dress. She mailed it here, (I think) so she’d have it for the wedding, which is Saturday! When Barbara tried it on today, it needed some altering.
We stopped by the dorm where she and her sister are staying to see what needed to be done. The hem was too long, and the bust was slightly too large, and she wanted the lace sleeves tighter to her arms. I studied it, but didn’t have any pins with me so it was pretty much a guessing game on how much to take it in. The hem needed to be turned up one hems width and stitched. That’s the way her mom had made it.
She just took the word of the friend who called me and willingly gave her dress to me to bring home and try to fix it as soon as possible.
So when I got home, I decided it was SO full there was no way I could sew on it in my sewing room. I had to find someplace that would allow me to spread it out and stay put while I worked on it. I decided to put a card table at the end of my bed, moved one of my sewing machines in there and set up shop!
I decided to knock out the hem first… Easy Peasy… right? /wrong! This might be hard to explain or understand, but when you have a long skirt with a train… it’s not hemmed straight across. There are rounded curved pieces at the bottom and in some parts it is straight across. Barbara’s mom had just turned under about 1/8″ and then turned that up in about a 2″ hem, then stitched it around the bottom. This skirt was TWELVE YARDS around! Did I say TWELVE??? Some of the areas were like this… perfectly straight and stitched nicely…
Other parts of the hem were twisted and curled and didn’t want to cup under and lay flat… like this…
Since Barbara wanted me to turn it up one hems width… about 2″, I had lots of puckering to deal with. I thought maybe if I just held it taut as I stitched the hem in place, it might lay flat when I was done. Silly me… no such thing happened. I ended up picking that whole hem out with a seam ripper… VERY CAREFULLY!
The second go around, I decided it would take some time, but hand basting the hem with about 1/2″ long stiches might hold the hem where it needed to be… so round and round and round we went… and in the really hard to control places, some of my stitches looked more like stabilizing stitches like I used in Tailoring…
After it was all basted in place…
…I carefully stitched the hem in place from the top side of the dress. It seemed to be more forgiving and less puckering. Here is what it looked like…
It’s a very pretty dress… here are a few shots of it laying on my bed…
I steamed the hem and was pretty pleased with how it finally looked. I had my doubts that first time around!
I took it off my bed and put it in the guest room and laid it out for a few more pictures.
I know what I’m going to be doing tomorrow! I do see some little red shoes in my future… maybe if things progress faster than the hem did, you might see them too!
I’ll have to figure out about the hat band later.. no time for that today…
See you tomorrow,
Blessings, Jeanne
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cucumber of any kind that was that big!! Yes, you could feed a lot of people with it!
So it’s Jeanne to the rescue again, huh? You did a great job on the hem of that beautiful gown. Yes, there are times when we simply must do the hand basting, and take extra steps in order to get a professional look to the alterations. Good job, Jeanne.
I have all my pictures loaded into the computer now–it took me quite a while this evening, earlier. Hopeful in the next day or two I can get a few sent to Jeanne to use in the blog when needed.
Wow, that cucumber should win first prize at the state fair! I guess it really liked all the rain we have been getting! Just what are your plans for it?
What a beautiful dress, Jeanne! They came to the best to fix it, for sure! Nobody else could be trusted to do alternations like that and do it as well as you! That is a beautiful dress, so elegant and modest, compared to some I see now. You did a beautiful job!
So nice to hear from Anne, and I am looking forward to Charlotte’s pictures soon!
Well, we were gone all day yesterday, until time to cook when we got home. After I talked to the pain doc he checked my MRI and realized I have a pinched nerve, when means a different back shot soon.
I read the yesterday’s blog last night and so glad to read Anne’s notes. So nice for Barbara and Rosemary to have time with family. Peyton and I just came home from church and cooked a steak dinner because we had saved it from the old freezer and didn’t want to throw it out. We will go out to eat for his Father’s Day later. He heard from his kids and my sons too.
Jeanne, I love the tiny dress and hat. That red trim is great on the dress.
You are so kind to take on that wedding dress! The young lady went to the right person to fix it just right.
We are off to water aerobics in a few, so Y’all have a good day!