{"id":37130,"date":"2017-08-04T02:03:30","date_gmt":"2017-08-04T06:03:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/?p=37130"},"modified":"2018-01-17T01:33:27","modified_gmt":"2018-01-17T06:33:27","slug":"too-big-too-precious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/2017\/08\/04\/too-big-too-precious\/","title":{"rendered":"Too Big, Too Precious"},"content":{"rendered":"
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8 yo loving her too large, unhemmed smocked dress<\/p><\/div>\n

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This dress and this little girl make my heart sing.\u00c2\u00a0 Our summer has been so full,\u00c2\u00a0 so busy, and absolutely fabulous, but this dress is one of the highlights for me.\u00c2\u00a0 All this busy-ness is why\u00c2\u00a0 it’s been so long since I have posted.<\/p>\n

Our pilot son flew the family down from their new home in New Jersey.\u00c2\u00a0 11 yo Robert and 13 yo Laurel spent the week visiting with old friends and spending time with their cousin Vivi.\u00c2\u00a0 What a wonderful family time that was!\u00c2\u00a0 Cousins, pool, golf cart rides, puppies to play with–it was plenty to make them happy.<\/p>\n

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Robert and Vivian Rose<\/p><\/div>\n

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Robert stayed with us when the rest of the family went home.\u00c2\u00a0 The next day we drove to the North Carolina mountains where we stayed at a fabulous cabin.<\/p>\n

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Now this is a great place to enjoy smocking!<\/p><\/div>\n

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At wonderful Bear Ridge Cabin in Brevard, our daughter Rebecca and Vivian Rose joined us while 8 yo Alastair was spending his last week at Camp Watitoh <\/a>in Massachussets. \u00c2\u00a0 Our mutual friend Zahra and her two children also joined us while the daddies stayed at home working.<\/p>\n

The children were just delightful, a special treat for this Nana and Granddad.<\/p>\n

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After s’mores, the children were all jammied up and ready for bed.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Robert spent most of that week at Camp Ridge Haven<\/a> and had a wonderful 1st time sleepaway camp experience.<\/p>\n

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Camp Ridge Haven<\/p><\/div>\n

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And at last, that brings me to the dress at the top of this post.<\/p>\n

Zahra is a new and very enthusiastic machine embroiderer but was interested in learning about sewing as well.\u00c2\u00a0 She brought along her workhorse Brother ULT 2003D and was ready to try the sewing side of the machine.<\/p>\n

I had brought along several “kits” of potential projects and both Zahra and her daughter Aliya chose this pattern.<\/p>\n

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This is a great pattern!\u00c2\u00a0 The shoulder ties and pockets are adorable and have great appeal for a child.<\/p><\/div>\n

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With lime green pique for the dress, orange gingham for the lining, orange whipstitch piping, and a pre-smocked insert, we were ready to sew.<\/p>\n

Aliya is an average sized 8 yo but her mother thought making a size 10 would be a safer bet.\u00c2\u00a0 She surely didn’t want her first sewing project to be too small.\u00c2\u00a0 Zahra did a great job, but as it turned out, the dress was way too large for Aliya.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, she loved it!\u00c2\u00a0 I mean she reeeeeally loved it!<\/p>\n

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It is apparent that the dress is too big for this little girl.<\/p><\/div>\n

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The dress literally swallowed up\u00c2\u00a0 this darling girl.\u00c2\u00a0 Unwilling to wait until she grew into it, she deserved alterations.\u00c2\u00a0 Such drastic changes were beyond her mother’s new sewing skills so I did my best to make it fit.<\/p>\n

Taking 1\/2″ seams along each bodice side seam was a start, but was not enough.\u00c2\u00a0 So ties were added and attached at the altered side seams.<\/p>\n

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No one could ever say this was a well-fittied dress.\u00c2\u00a0 But it surely is a well-loved dress!<\/p><\/div>\n

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With the daily activities through the week–tubing, Sliding Rock, the Asheville Zoo, and gem mining–we only sewed at night, after dinner.<\/p>\n

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6 yo Kaden and 4 yo Vivi with their “gems.” Vivi is wearing her firefly outfit<\/a> from two summers ago. I love the CC Jane<\/em> pattern!<\/p><\/div>\n

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Time ran out before we got to the hem.<\/p>\n

Our last day at the cabin we visited another summer camp.\u00c2\u00a0 For this outing, Aliya begged to wear her new dress, even unhemmed.\u00c2\u00a0 It was impossible for her mother to deny the child the joy she felt wearing her first mama-made dress.<\/p>\n

Now Zahra wonders if the dress might be worn out before Aliya grows into it!\u00c2\u00a0 Can you think of many things sweeter than an 8 yo loving her first smocked dress this much?<\/p>\n

Almost as sweet as Aliya’s delight is the fact that every single element of this dress was purchased at an absolutely wonderful facebook group, Smocking Destash.\u00c2\u00a0 This is like an on-line yard sale with only sewing items.\u00c2\u00a0 Many are used, some are new, some are long since out of print.\u00c2\u00a0 But all are at very low prices.\u00c2\u00a0 of course, it is a great place to clear your shelves of unused, outgrown patterns and fabric you just never got around to using.<\/p>\n

It is a “secret” group, which means you have to be added by an existing member.\u00c2\u00a0 That keeps it very safe and there are, to my knowledge, no bad transactions.\u00c2\u00a0 If you have any interest in joining, drop me a note as a comment below this post or at NCcabin@aol.com.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile,\u00c2\u00a0 life is good\u00c2\u00a0 for the Fergusons and the summer has been great. My dear husband had knee replacement surgery 2 days after we returned from NC.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather than go to rehab he opted to come home.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s been a pleasure and a privilege to care for him, though his recovery is so remarkable that he requires not nearly as much care as I expected.<\/p>\n

As I said, life is good.\u00c2\u00a0 I hope your summer is going well and you are getting more sewing done than I am!<\/p>\n

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  This dress and this little girl make my heart sing.\u00c2\u00a0 Our summer has been so full,\u00c2\u00a0 so busy, and absolutely fabulous, but this dress is one of the highlights for me.\u00c2\u00a0 All this busy-ness is why\u00c2\u00a0 it’s been so … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1214,8,32],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37130"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37130"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37203,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37130\/revisions\/37203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}