Victoria's and Robin's Fourth-of-July Dresses

Here are the girls at our annual church picnic today:

Robin and Victoria

They even had matching flowers for their hair.

Victoria's Turquoise Fourth-of-July Dress

Yesterday I finished Victoria's friend Robin's dress; tonight I finished Victoria's.  The dresses are identical.  I hope to get pictures of the girls together at our church picnic.  Here's Victoria's dress (it looks better on the girl than on the hanger; but the girl is already in bed!):

Joanna's Easter Dress

I just finished sewing Joanna's Easter dress, just in time to give it to her after church tonight.

Here’s something I discovered about this taffeta:  because it has a heat-sensitive metallic thread running through it, ironing it with too hot an iron or using steam shrinks the metallic thread and makes the stuff look like seersucker.  (I tried it on a little corner of the leftover pieces.)  I had my iron turned way down to the wool setting – it’s a steam pressure iron with a separate reservoir – and I didn’t steam the taffeta.  The nice thing about this iron is that you can adjust the temperature of the water in the reservoir separately from the temperature of the iron, so no matter how cool the iron is, you can still steam.  This way, I didn’t have to switch temperatures back and forth to iron first taffeta, then steam cotton lining.  Even with very low heat, the metallic thread drew up a bit. 

“Can we all just pretend that it came that way,” I asked Hannah, “and we like it, and it’s better than ever, and everything’s hunky dory?”

She thought we could.

Hannah has a couple of re-embroidered and sequined pink appliqués to put on the front of the dress.

Clothes from the Archives

Victoria's Easter dress

Easter dress bodice

Victoria's Valentine's Day dress

Victoria's Valentine's Day dress

Joanna's Christmas dress -- raw silk.  A large re-embroidered appliqué was added to the bodice.

Back of Joanna's Christmas dress

Pajamas for Emma

Flannel nightgown

Flannel nightgowns

Closeup of nightgown fabric

Victoria (right) was a candlelighter in Hester's wedding.

Victoria's outfit for Pioneer Day at school

Suit for Lydia, made of leftover fabric from Hester's wedding

Victoria's Fourth-of-July dress

This dress was one of the girls' Fourth-of-July dresses

Sarah Lynn holding baby Lydia, six days old, on the Fourth of July.  Lydia was born June 28, 1991. 

Hannah matches me.

Lydia's Christmas dress.  She was 4 1/2, and was in the Christmas program for the first time.

Dress is taffeta, with a velvet bodice and re-embroidered appliqué.  Venice lace on ruffles.

Red poplin coat with navy velvet trim.  Photo taken with my first webcam, which was a novelty, if nothing else.

Fleece hat with navy velvet bow.