Back in the Saddle Again...

Hello, Friends!

It's been far too long since I've blogged and I have missed it. My life has been changing a lot...in good ways.

But I'm coming back to the blogging world, looking forward to catching up with you and all my other blog buddies. I am jumping in with both feet, not just selling fabric, but re-launching my vintage-inspired children's clothing line, "Sew Sweet."

I first started embroidering on children's clothes when my eldest daughter was a baby and she is already eight! I can't believe it's been that long! I had so much fun dressing her in beautiful boutique clothing, but my budget couldn't acomodate more than the occasional boutique purchase. So, as they say, necessity became the mother of invention and I began making my own little pieces for my daughter to wear.

After a number of people asking where I got whatever it was my daughter was wearing, therefore finding out it wasn't just me that thought the pieces I made were pretty :), I decided to go out on a limb and try selling some of what I was making. I started on eBay and then gradually moved to etsy. It was after I started selling on etsy that I found blogs and decided to try making one of my own. I was shocked when people started visiting me and leaving comments!

Over the last couple years, I have made and sold hundreds of items, but perhaps more importantly, I have many dear friends, some of which I know will be life-long friends. I have been going through a divorce, making a home for my children and I and pretty much SURVIVING.

But it's time to emerge from my "cave" and get connected again. I've missed it. I think I need it.

So I'm starting by writing this post and re-opening my Sew Sweet etsy shoppe in time for Spring shopping. The pictures below are of some of the clothes I'll be custom-creating for Spring. I'm still running my website, Confections Fabric, as well as my etsy shoppe by the same name. So if you see something you like, let me know! I'm excited to fire up my sewing machine and get out my needle and embroidery thread.

But most of all, I'm excited to get re-acquainted with YOU.

HUGS,
Cheryl

Myrtle and Girdle Valentine Dress

Sweet Tweet PINK...custom

Rose Garden

Funky Licious Orange Sherbert

Mabel and Abel

Amos and Aggie Layette Set

Gilbert and Grace Layette Set

Fun New Pattern!

This adorable new pattern by Jackie Clark is new to the shoppe. Find it HERE.

New Patterns in the Shoppe

Just got some beautiful new sewing patterns in. You can find them HERE!

Introducing, "Knowing Bliss"

I'm happy to introduce my new clothing line, "Knowing Bliss." It is near and dear to my heart and comes from a place deep inside me. It combines some of the things that makes my own heart beat faster: romantic clothing, vintage lace, comfortable wearability and simple beauty. I love pairing up unlikely elements: denim and lace, casual t-shirts and sumptous ruffles or utilitarian garments with exquisite antique details. It's that juxtaposition that makes my heart beat faster. There's a different sort of beauty about a garment that was dreamt to life, one-of-a-kind, uniquely beautiful in the way these pieces are. I rely heavily on vintage clothing but I also enjoy incorporating new pieces and making them into something that is anything but mass-produced.

My inside "knowing" has been leading me to this venture for years. I remember when I was about eight and I was given my first sewing machine, I used to lie in bed for hours imagining the clothes I would make for my doll. A child is a natural at "altered clothing" and "repurposed beauty." She thinks creatively and often quite naturally dreams up ways to use what's on hand in a new way. My own daughter took a stained canvas bag and "made it pretty" just last week by drawing all over the bag with markers so that the stain wasn't visible. She was delighted with the result...it was prettier than how it was before, she told me. And it was true!

This clothing line is something that in so many ways expresses who I am. It honors the past and respects the reality of today while it envisions ways to make something old, forgotten, unused, unappreciated or messy into something beautiful. For me, "following my bliss" is the same thing as listening to my own "knowing" and acting upon it. So for many reasons this new venture is "Knowing Bliss." If you would like to purchase pieces from the Summer/Fall collection, please visit here.

~The farmer's daughter walk with a grace the French coquette can no attempt.~

~Imagination is stifled by a pair of ill-fitting pants.~

~"I think I dreamed you into life..."~

~Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson~

~A beautiful garment is only as beautiful as the woman who wears it.~

~"We grow great by dreams." -Woodrow T. Wilson~

~"Love is a canvas pattern furnished by Nature, and embroidered by imagination."~

~A little garden in which to walk, and immensity in which to dream.~

~The seamstress' needle rose and fell

for days and nights and nights and days

and what she made was the stuff of dreams.~




~No longer shall I paint interiors with men reading and women knitting.
I will paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love." -Edvard Munch~

~Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,
But by the moments that take our breath away.~

A New Fabric Heirloom Book!

Hello, Friends!

I am so excited to show you my latest custom fabric book, made for the very sweet Catherine Scalise of Treasured Heirlooms and Elegance and Whimsy. You can find her blog here.

Cathy was opening up her Marie-Antoinette-themed website, so when we brainstormed together about the theme of her book, we came up with a few ideas: Marie Antoinette, decadent sweets and special memories.

This book was both challenging and enjoyable for me. I have never done anything quite like this one, but, similar to the other custom books I've made for customers, the book sort of created itself under my hands. Things I didn't plan in the beginning and were added sort of spontaneously became my favorite elements in the book.

So without further ado, here's a million gazillion trillion photos of the book!
Fabric "cake" made of ivory lace, vintage tatted lace and dozens of tiny vintage millinery flowers...
Sitting on top is a miniature vintage figurine reminiscent of Marie Antoinette...






Vintage miniature dresden lace figurine that looks like Marie in all of her finery...


Cathy's Little Pink House, as featured in Romantic Homes...
I hand-embroidered this Southern Belle from a vintage embroidery pattern and added a tiny pink house in the background...
Hand-glittered crown from Sugar Sugar...

Pink gown with a paper "bustle" that buttons up into the dress. It can be written on, photos fixed to it or any number of other possibilities. Vintage lace trims the bustle and peeks out from under the dress.
A new technique for me...stamping on muslin.The beautiful Cathy and her husband on their wedding day...


I hand-embroidered this vintage motif on old ivory linen. The pattern was of a "Gibson Girl" but she looks like Marie in her corset and fancy up-do!
Another lovely gown. I added some "grubby" vintage lace to the top, which made the entire dress look old.
One of my favorite pages, this next one is a "corset" made of vintage blue satin fabric and vintage lace. It laces up like a real corset! If you unlace the corset, a paper portion is revealed inside on which to write or fix a photo....





Yummy little velvet bloom from Sugar Sugar...
The many faces of Marie, printed on fabric, become tiny little pockets for keeping sweet treasures...
Another of my favorite pages, this page has a pocket trimmed in the grubbiest and most delightful heavy lace trim. I sewed an image of Marie to the pocket and then used vintage millinery flowers and grubby blue seam binding (ruched by hand) from Memrie Mare on etsy, to frame it.
Piece of lovely vintage wallpaper...

Another hand-glittered crown by Sugar Sugar, layered on top of vintage wallpaper and new scrapbook paper. Gruny tags by Memrie Mare.


One of my favorite paper spreads...French sheet music, lovely images from a Paper Bella collage sheet and yummy blue velvet bow...
Delicate vintage lace....
One of the paper pages I enjoyed making most...torn pink book pages (Memrie Mare), vintage sheet music, new vintage-inspired scrapbook pages and more. Just layered them on! So easy and a beautiful effect.
Another vintage embroider pattern was the starting point for this page. Originally a 1920's lingerie girl, complete with bullet bra, I turned this beauty into Marie by adding long curls and plates full of sweets on the floor beside her....
This next page was fashioned from a vintage Southern Belle pillowcase...a really special one. It was already "shaded" so I simply embroidered outline stitches all over and then made French knot flowers. I cut her out of the pillowcase and then hand-embroidered her to the white lace pocket.
Hope you've enjoyed peeking into this book! If you are interested in ordering a custom-created book for yourself or someone close to you, please contact me at roseyposeyclothes@yahoo.com and we can discuss it. I am about to start on a book for someone's baby but I can put you on the waiting list after her if you would like! :)