Hearts Full of Joy

Bah! Humbug!

i finished lexi's dress (which was her handmade christmas present) just

in time for the high school's production of Bah! Humbug!

i love the cartridge pleated skirts from this era! I have always idealized civil war era dresses as the epitome of beauty, but the more i study 1800s dressmaking, the more i realize that the 1840s (Dickens, Nauvoo) was really the loveliest. civil war era was extreme fashion. 1840s was feminine and flattering.

i learned a lot making from making this dress (sleeves need to be tighter, etc, and i would love to make another.

lex ready to go on-stage:

 

she sang a beautiful solo as scrooge's dying sister - her best performance ever.

tashi was wonderful too. they each had multiple roles - a necessity in our little school. this performance was a fund-raiser for the spring musical - thoroughly modern millie!

 

(lex and tash in center)

i helped with hair and enjoyed being backstage before the performance.

 

hand made christmas

we had a twice blessed christmas, first by traveling to utah to share christmas with extended family, and then coming home and having our own little handmade/second hand christmas, and we loved it.

 

i made the flannel jammies/night gown using a vintage pattern from etsy and then made matching one s for their dolls with another vintage pattern from etsy published in 1972, when i was younger than grace.

 

in retrospect, i should have switched the colors for the girls, because gracie and her nighty are the same color!

mia made this cape for noah (with some help from me):

 

he loves it and so do i!

 

noah made gracie the cutest coloring book ever. brock made me shelves for our closet, and a bookshelf for noah. i made pajama pants for noah and brock and a baby doll carrier for grace, and matching aprons for mia and grace.

i had some concerns about certain children being disappointed by our christmas exchange rules, but even the teenagers agreed that it was probably our best ever. it helped that we found some fun second hand games, dvd's, puzzles, legos, books, and a few other treats. we found that we put much more thought and care into every gift we gave, and more time and effort than money, whether it was hand made or second hand. and it felt more to us like christmas should.

ode to an autumn day

a sunny autumn day brings healing to my soul.

~these 2 photos by tashi~

 

this was the view from my living room window yesterday. perhaps it is because i was born in october, but my heart and soul come alive in autumn in a way that doesn't happen any other time of year. i feel the warmth of god's love in the golden autumn glow, and i am filled with wonder and awe at the beauty of his creations.

we have had precious few sunny days this fall, and today is rainy again. but the sunny days that have come have been perfectly spectacular. the mississippi has been a deep clear blue, and so have the skies. everytime i look out a window, i see leaves swirling by. 

my budding photographer tashi has been taking spectacular photos of the autumn scenery. this is a still life she set up for a digital photography assignment:

 

on a lower note, i have finally sifted through all of our recovered photos and discovered that although we recovered almost as many photos as we lost (over 14,000), they were mostly corrupted copies of just a few photos. and strangely, we recovered the photos from every friends' blog post that we have ever looked at. interesting to see how a computer's memory works. i am saddened to have lost so many. but many are backed up. and it was very interesting to take an abbreviated trip through the last 5 years. it caused me to think about my priorities: what i save and don't save, what i take photos of and what i don't, and most importantly, what i WANT to save and photograph and what i don't from here on out. mostly i am grateful that every experience in life presents me with learning opportunities.

lost and found

i haven't posted for the longest time, and the reason is this: shortly after my last post, a computer glitch caused the loss of ALL the photos on our computer. over 14,000 of them. over 5 years worth of photos. yes, some are backed up in random places, but not all of them, as they should have been.

after time spent on the phone with apple, we opted to order the data rescue software, which did work, and most of them have been recovered, but now they are randomly stacked into files selected by the computer or the software, where a photo from last month is next to a photo from 5 years ago, which is next to a photo from last christmas. i am sorting through them, and have hopes of a semblance of total recovery. but there were so many photos i wanted to blog about that have not been located and stored in a proper, locatable file. and so i haven't posted. and there is so much to post about.

tashi is taking a digital photography class in high school and loving it. these photos that she took today in our backyard greeted me as i got on the computer, and i was impressed.

so here is the big leap of posting photos again.

 

 

 

1830s/40s gown

armed with much inspiration and courage from my friend mary (one of several dear mary friends) and her 1840s sewing expertise, i have completed my first really big 1840s sewing endeavor: a gown for tashi. i cut it out and started on it in may or june, but set it aside as the summer became busier. and i questioned my fabric choice that i had originally belabored - although i loved it, it didn't really seem to match tashi and here serene personality. then a few weeks ago our artist friend michael bedard asked tashi to pose as sarah granger kimball for a painting, or series of paintings he is planning based on the beginnings of the relief society in nauvoo. sarah was well educated and cultured and married one of the wealthiest men in nauvoo - and i had the inspiration for finishing the gown that fit her (sarah's) personality. it's as authentic as i could make it without time to sew entirely by hand. it came together smoothly and was a joy to work on. serpentine stripes were the height of fashion in the 1840s. the fabrics were sophisticated and colorful, and intricately detailed then, not plain and drab as we are prone to imagine.

this was my first experience with cartridge pleating a skirt and stitching each little pleat to the waistband, stiffened with horsehair braid, by hand. the bodice is fully lined and full of boning.

these photos were taken during the practice photo shoot, there have been two more since. her ringlets weren't holding (we were copying the hairstyle from a portrait of sarah granger kimball.) we got better at managing the ringlets in subsequent shoots.

 

the photos were taken at the sarah granger kimball home. this first painting is planned to be sarah enjoying the flowers in her beautiful gardens.

on track

running track has been a huge time commitment for tashi this year, but she stuck with it, even though she very badly wanted to quit. because the school is 30 minutes away, and another school joins them for sports, she doesn't get home until almost 7:00 in evening (after starting the day with early morning seminary). and on meet days she is frequently out until 11:00 or 12:00 pm - yikes!  she runs the 400, commonly believed to be the hardest of all running events: the longest sprint. at the meet on tuesday, the coach made everyone run their events, plus the event that is double their event. to prepare for sectionals (region) on friday. so tashi ran the 800, and a few minutes later turned around and ran the 400. we were worried about her for quite a while afterwards, it was too much. she was awesome in the 800 though! look at her stride as she prepares to pass a teammate! her coach is excited about her possiblities next year, but tashi isn't so sure there is going to be a next year....
 

lovely

i caught tashi swinging in serenity, caught up in her own thoughts, somewhere between all the busy-ness on saturday.

prom

lexi asked me to be the photographer for her prom group, and in spite of being miserably sick with some yucky virus (swine flu!?!?! jk) i completely enjoyed it. such beautiful kids, modestly dressed! as we were driving to the second spot that we took photos i saw a prom couple heading towards a restaurant, and i felt so sorry for them...the girl was revealing far too much from a very tacky, ill-fitting, horribly immodest dress, and they both looked so awkward, uncomfortable, and unhappy. so blessed and so grateful that my kids have great friends with good values to make memories with.

before leaving for promenade

lexi, amber, & bryce, the "getting ready party"

after promenade:

ande & ryan

chris & amber
 
elissa & rick

lexi (drama queen) & quentin

gloria & i found lexi's jewelry at our favorite antique shop, for almost nothing.

 

the official prom group

 

 

leaving for dinner.

vintage goodness, the joys of sewing, modest dresses, and beautiful girls

friday was "mormon prom". youth from three stakes of our church descended on columbia, missouri for an evening of fun, modest, and appropriate dancing and partying. the week before, i stumbled across an ebay auction for a vintage 1950s dress, and since tashi didn't have a dress for the event, and was planning on borrowing, i snagged it for her, hoping it would fit.
 
it did! a puffy concotion of pink flocked chiffon, "home made"  (as most dresses were then, a sadly lost art). it had the sheer wrap, but we decided it needed more. the "cumberbund" sash had incredibly long ties, enabling us to cut off the ends and cover her shoulders. add a fluffy crinoline, also from ebay, and we were done. she loved it. so much funner than buying a new dress for 5x the amount we spent on this. lexi wore the dress we got her for her junior prom, coming up in a few weeks.
nauvoo 1st & 3rd ward laurels in columbia

lexi missed the memo...only pink or black dresses lex!

ande (far left) made her beautiful dress. and sarah (pink dress in center) & her aunt made her jacket) we got lexi's for steal, on sale at kathleen's bridal.

our friend brady was at mormon prom too. when he posted photos on facebook a girl asked, "why do all the dresses have sleeves?" i can't imagine allowing a daughter to dance all night with a teenage boy in a strapless gown. what are most parents thinking?

a big shout-out to amazing young women's leaders who sacrificed so much time in driving the girls to the prom (three hours each way) and staying overnight with them!

high school musical

bye-bye birdie, our high school musical, opened last night. mia & i went to the dress rehearsal on monday night to take photos. lexi plays kim macaphee (a role she didn't want to audition for, read more about that here), the 15 year old fan club president that is chosen to be kissed goodbye by conrad birdie before he goes into the military. after hearing lots of "drama" (no pun intended) about the musical and it's rehearsals, and goings-on, i was pleasantly surprised with the outcome, especially for such a small school (less than 300 hundred students, 9th through 12th grades).

in her bedroom ready to sing "how lovely to be a woman".
i love all of the fun real vintage clothing she gets to wear, so does she.

meeting conrad birdie when he comes to sweet apple, ohio.

conrad sings "you've got to be sincere"

singing the "ed sullivan" song

waiting for conrad's "one last kiss" on the ed sullivan show.