After having my daughter I fell in love with custom made clothes for little girls. When I started to write a blog post about that I kept coming back to my mom and her love of sewing and fabric. I called my dad and asked him to go through his pictures and scan some in for me. It took him a week, but it was well worth it. 
Armed with a 'white' sewing machine she got from her mother, she made a lot of my clothes growing up. When we moved into our first house. My mom finally got a sewing room....she loved being able to leave her machine & ironing board up all the time. 
Every year at Christmas she would make my sister and I nightgowns and Christmas dresses. She would lay out our nightgowns Christmas eve on our beds and our dresses would be hanging on our portraits in the living room the next morning.
Armed with a 'white' sewing machine she got from her mother, she made a lot of my clothes growing up. When we moved into our first house. My mom finally got a sewing room....she loved being able to leave her machine & ironing board up all the time. Every year at Christmas she would make my sister and I nightgowns and Christmas dresses. She would lay out our nightgowns Christmas eve on our beds and our dresses would be hanging on our portraits in the living room the next morning.
My mother would also make us Easter dresses.
One year she decided to make us smocked Easter Dresses. They turned out beautiful and I can't wait to put my daughter in my dress.
I love the curly hair. We slept in curlers....
In about 1984, my mom made us these dresses with the bonnets. I still remember wearing this with my clogs to school. Yes, I looked like Laura Ingles. That was one of my favorite shows as a kid and my hair was in 2 tight braids until I was 12 when I decided to chop it all off.
Over time my mom stopped making us clothes, but we always seem to bring her our mending. She has sewn lots of curtains for me over the years, made me a yoyo jacket and my families Christmas stockings. She still has and uses the same old sewing machine. She also does lots of other crafty things and LOVES to crochet. Now that I have a daughter I have asked my mom to make Lily clothes, blankets and crochet her beautiful sweaters. Yep, I went nuts at the fabric/yarn store. That's a story for another day.
17 Sweet Comments:
Lovely. What beautiful memories and traditions. Just sweet. Thanks for sharing.
Oh, so wonderful to read. I love the nostalgia you were able to capture in posting your mom's creation and pictures.
So cute - I just love those dresses!
Hi!!!
Very nice with a lot of nostalgic memories.
It is a very interesting blog.
Very cute!!!
A greeting from Argentina
LOVE the LAura Ingel look!!!!
Oh how wonderful! Great traditions and wonderful work from your mom. I love the Laura look and the work on the smocked dresses is incredible
Oh, man! I wanna be yer mom!!!! LOVE THIS tradition!
Oh how adorable to be so matchy matchy!
My grandmother made me dresses. I wore big puffy dresses until I was 13! Wait I still wear them! And I still wear bows in my hair... I guess not much has changed for me. Except that I can't seem to talk my grandmother in to sewing anything for me!!! I have a few dresses at the cleaners right now. Things I found for bargains but just didn't fit right- I am sooo scared to pick them up! I could owe my life savings to them! Eeek...
Sorry didn't mean to get so off track!
HAve a lovely evening!
Chelsea Ann
They are so cute, I adore the little yellow dresses. My mum used to make a lot of our clothes, it is such a pity she doesn't any more.
Thankyou for sharing your memories :)
What a wonderful tribute to your mother, Mel! I truly enjoyed reading your post - such great memories for your family. And wondereful that your mom can create for your duaghter now too. :), allie
Wonderful story and pictures!
My sisters and I have pictures that could nearly be the same pictures that you posted of us in homemade dresses. I so, so, so wish that I hadn't been such a punk in my younger days and never let my Mom teach me how to sew. {sigh}
so sweet, what a great post! i was introduced to the handmade clothing world after i had my daughter as well!!
Thanks for sharing!! I also had a sister close in age and we slept in curlers too!! I had forgotten that!
What beautiful pictures!! I love the matching dresses and it reminded me of when I slept with curlers in my hair too. What a delightful post!
Wonderful post. Thank you for sharing your family and childhood memories.
Amy
http://newenglandquilter.blogspot.com/
These photos and this story was so sweet.
Post a Comment