Tag Archives: smocking

little goat girl and grumpy little guy

Visions of  a “goat dress” had been dancing in my head for many years. In 1985, after purchasing Sarah Howard Stone’s first book, French Handsewing, I studied it with a passion. One page, in particular, spoke to me. It showed row after row of antique laces, including what I call goat lace. I had to have some of this.

antique “goat” lace

 At that time, I was in the middle of my Mother Earth phase. Perhaps some readers  recall  the  publication, The Mother Earth News, or Carla Emery’s Old Fashioned Cook Book. These were daily reading for me.

On our 3 acres stood a 50 year old, formerly upscale, two-room chicken house, where our cocky Rhode Island Red rooster and his girls bunked. The  adjoining room  housed a  gaggle of geese and a few white Peking ducks.   Next door to the water fowl was the pony.  Her stall looked out over our 60’ x 60’ vegetable garden and adjacent to that was the goat mansion, my favorite place in the world except for my sewing room.

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