Baby Boy (in March)

BAD GRANDMA!!!!!
I really wasn't writing a blog for the several months surrounding the birth of our latest grandchild, but there is really no good excuse for not posting at least a picture of this new beautiful child. Although now that I think about it, his own mother doesn't have him on her near debunked blog either.
(I posted a few pictures of him of Facebook; if that counts for something.)
Alas, here is FORD JAMES. Born March 13, 2013 (3-13-13 looks pretty memorable, right?)

His most distinguishing feature at his birth was his furrowed brow. The cute little newborn sorta, just kinda, looked like a cute little old man.

 Here's his mom and dad giving him his first bath. So gentle she is.

 But he is not feeling it.

20 seconds later he is comfy and cozy. Maybe he's asleep?

His big sisters are just loving him.

He will like this blanket that I made. Little activities all around it.

 GPa came for a visit too.

 Fast forward to the day after S/J wedding and he's all ready for a blessing at church. Almost 3 months old now.

 Reacting to a little hello with a rewarding smile.

 They gave him a name and a blessing in our Los Gatos Ward. My sisters son also had a new baby that was blessed that day. Their family had come for the wedding and since so much family was in town for that, they asked if they could do their blessing too. It was a perfect scenario.

 Kathryn with my parents. This is Sam/Joyce's 33rd great grandchild. They now have 36 and one on the way. Prolific family?

 4 Generations

My cousin and her daughter loving on Aunt Joyce.

 Congrats to my beautiful daughter....

and her adorable family of 5!

Mother-of-the-Bride Dress (Wedding Sewing v-4)

I couldn't find a grey dress, which we had decided on, that was the right length on me and that I liked much. I need one that is 40-41 inches long so it hits me just below the knee, because I am taller than most women.
So I found a glitzy fabric at my favorite local Fabrics R Us store in San Jose and went for it.

The fabric is beaded tulle with some stitching details creating floral bouquets and scallops on the edges. 

It had to be lined and we decided to line it with a light grey instead of dark grey. I then treated the two layers as if they were one. 

Here, I'm sending a picture to Steph to get her approval on a couple of details.

Here are the Bride and Groom with her original family. Not many pictures of me in my dress, so I had to pick random photos from the day. 

 Here I am greeting the reception crowd before dinner. Notice the beading around each seam line that I had to resew on by hand after the seam was in place. Needles won't go through glass beads without breaking so you have to do it by hand. I lost a lot of beads in the process because when the fabric is cut out, the threads holding on the beads and sequins on the fabric are severed. The flowerettes that the beading creates worked out well and looked similar to the existing ones on the pattern.

I'm pointing out to someone how my yard decor is getting blown to bits.

On a side note, I am acting a little like a high maintenance woman about this, so I'm a little embarrassed to bring it up. But, I felt a little bad that there weren't some better pictures of me from the wedding. It was The Hubbys' and my 34th anniversary and we don't have 1 picture of just the two of us.

This is the closest to a couple shot that we have from our anniversary/Steph's wedding day

A picture of the two of us sitting at dinner, or watching the ring ceremony, or anything would've been good. I would love to have had just one nice couple shot. We did hang out together that day, and I know I'm being a little bratty even to mention it, but heck I got all dressed up and everything.

Flower Girls Dresses

 These dresses, of course, were the easiest and least stressful of the sewing that I had to do for our recent wedding. I'm more familiar and comfortable making things for little girls than any other demographic.
So ... what should we make and out of what kind of fabric, and what color, and, and, and....???

We decided to basically use this Butterick pattern #5705, although Steph didn't want pleats, but rather just simple gathers at the waist. I modified the sleeves and made my own version of the slip underneath which was much better. I guess the pattern companies don't want to make things too complicated so they don't suggest fabrics like nylon chiffon that are not easy to find, but it makes a far superior full slip.

The bride and I decided on a classic silk taffeta. It was costly and I had to be careful not to water stain it as well as pierce it with pins, because those kinds of abuses to this fabric will show up forever. If you get it wet, you have to get it ALL wet, and if you pin it, you should try to do it where you won't see the marks such as on the inside of the seams.

With this in mind I embarked on this project.

 I took the cut out dresses with me to Kathryn's house so I could get going on these dresses while I was helping her and her family. She was on bedrest the last 6 weeks or so of her pregnancy. Due to have this baby in mid March, I went in February for a week to help them out, then I went back there when the little guy (Ford James) was a week old.

 Kathryn borrowed a sewing machine from a kind neighbor, and so I could get some sewing done while I was visiting. It was extremely helpful to get a jump on these dresses, cause I was a little bit freaking out about the amount of sewing I needed to accomplish before June. My goal was actually to get it all finished by May because I knew that other things with the wedding were going to creep in and steal away my time.

 We decided to put white iridescent sashes and inner sleeves on the dresses and make a full attached pettie-slip in white to go underneath the dresses. This really dressed them up along with the fabric choice.

I made a size 7, 2- size 4's and a smallish size 3.

 Fronts and backs of the dresses all finished.

I also made 2 little bow ties for the little nephews to wear. Did I mention that the 4 little girls are the brides nieces?  (All my cute grandchildren.) 

Giving a nice kiss.

 Our sons' beautiful family.

" Is this what you want me to do?"

 Showing off her "petti" while waiting for the Bride to come out of the temple.

 With Grandma Joycie.

 Big boy being as patient as he can.

 For the ring ceremony at our home later and before the reception, the kids walked out of the house before the bride and groom. They were adorable if I may say so.

 They sat very well on the side of the steps leading up to the lawn, and listened to the 12 minute program.

Seriously?

 Here's a good look at the back of the dresses. Those covered buttons took me a bit of time. But they look great.

Love this!

"Dancin' the Night Away."

There are so many other photos of these cute little people. Thanks for indulging me and looking at 25 pictures of ONE dress.

THE END

You can go back to what you were doing.

Flower, Flowers Everywhere

We seriously had the most beautiful wedding flowers ever. Crystal and her team did such a fabulous job and there was only two issues that arose out of the day. One was the blasting wind storm, and I don't believe that she could have done anything about that, and the other was - oh, ... the wind.  Both of our problems were definitely wind related. 

One of the beautiful silver candlesticks holding a beautiful cut crystal vase on its top that was full of flowers was blown over in the wind, breaking the irreplaceable vase. My friend who had lent it to us for the big day was actually the one out of 188 people in attendance who found it broken and kicked into the bushes. Terrible. 

If anyone can find another cut crystal 4 inch wide vase that slips into a taper candle holder????

 This is the talented daughter of our florist and she was a great asset to the team. Stephanie and I, Crystal and her daughter all started the week by going up to the flower market and handpicking all the flowers that were to be used. We had a really fun morning with them, and it got us excited for all the work they were going to do.

 I had about 40 items of silver from various friends stashes and I had the florist fill tiny creamers and such with very small arrangements to place around the tall 30 inch rented silver vases that would go on the tables. Half of the tables would have this type of arrangement and the other half would be lower arrangements done up in larger borrowed silver bowls and serving vessels.

 We used silver teapots and vases for accents in the bathrooms, on display tables, etc. I think they ended up being my favorites.

 The morning of the wedding before everything was set up

Arrangements finished and placed ALL OVER the family room and kitchen of the house. This would keep them cool until they could be placed out on the tables in the heat of an 85 degree day.

The tall vases took me several hours to clean and shine which was just many of the things I had to do the last week of the wedding as they were rented so I couldn't do it ahead of time.

 We used our outdoor lanterns for cool arrangements too.

 Peony's and scabiosa pods.

 Tiny crystal ornaments to go on the tall arrangements.

 Some of the small arrangements to surround the tall vases.

 The swimmer setting things up in the pool. She thought this job was AOK.

 The side of the house was the entry point for our guests, and they made little tiny tussie mussie's to go in my silver cones that I use for ornaments at Christmas time.

 The wind came up, as the flowers were going out, and we had to quickly change the plan.  The tall vases would blow over, so we downsized the arrangements and placed the huge ones directly onto the tables. It definitely made things too crowded as we were serving the food family style and so we had to have room for serving dishes.

The main table was done up in crystal, sterling silver and old fashioned china.

 All the other tables were white china, rented stainless flatware and simple stemmed glasses.

 Corsages were beautiful as well.

 And the brides bouquet was fabulous, with just a bit of bling.

 hanging down were dendrobium orchids. Aren't they wonderful!

Flower girls had these little balls that were just adorable. (oops I forgot another issue. They forgot to carry these sweet flowers out with them when they marched out with signs that said Here Comes The Bride (and groom.) So Kara ran the flowers out after the little girls were seated on the stairs below the couple as they watched a short ring exchanging ceremony.

All in all the flowers were just beautiful and we were very happy with how they made the whole place look.