Praying for Oklahoma This Week

My heart is broken for the people of Moore, Oklahoma this week after the devastating tornado.

Please keep them in your prayers as the survivors try to get their lives back together, and pray especially for those who lost loved ones.

We are so blessed, and take life for granted.



With heartfelt sorrow, Doni

Pearls and Lace Thursday #136 "THAT KIND" of Lace with Pearls

There's just something that makes a thrill go through my heart when I see "THAT KIND" of lace.

And it's even more exciting when I get to be the new owner, like if it's for sale on Etsy!!

There's a lovely lady on Etsy who has the most wonderful laces.  Her name is Alison and you can find her Etsy shop here. 
I've bought from her numerous times over the years, and recently I found this lovely piece:

It has little bobbles on it that have oodles of texture and give it a pearl effect.  Next to the wedding cap with seed pearls, they look very similar!

Even after I took the photos of this sweet piece, I was amazed at the detail.  Each bobble is a bundle of thread rolled up perfectly to form the whole, and the organdy background is embroidered and laces are formed to make the petals and leaves.  Are you drooling yet??

The 4 appliques are still stitched to the original backing paper.  I am so blessed to be the new owner and caretaker of such a lovely piece of history! 

 Can you imagine those pieces being chosen by a future bride and her mother one day while shopping for the wedding dress materials...they finger the laces until the young bride says, "Mother.  This is it".  Gloved hands pick up the papered lace appliques and the mother's eyes look at the bobbles and embroidery, the stitches and the textures and she says, "Nadine, this is perfect.  Are you sure?".  Nadine smiles softly and says, "Yes mother dear.  This one is perfect.  I can see it already, these appliques along the skirt and bodice of the silk we picked out earlier".

So they purchase the whole roll, because they MUST have enough to finish that dress!

After many hours of painstakingly hand-stitching each piece lovingly along the lines of the dress, it's finished.  In between each applique there are seed pearls to mimic the bobbles in the lace and to match the wedding cap and veil, and the dress is ready for the wedding.  Nadine tries on the finished dress and her mother wipes furtive tears from her eyes.

"You are the most beautiful bride I've ever seen dear".

Nadine gazes at herself in the long mirror and then looks at her mother's face and says, "And YOU are the most wonderful mother in the world!"

Time goes by, the wedding takes place, everything is perfect.  The dress is worn, and each person attending the wedding gazes with admiration at the gorgeous bride and her beautiful dress  After the day is finished, loving hands carefully pack the dress and tenderly place each sleeve and each lacy ruffle in perfect place for safekeeping. 

The mother quietly goes about her days, thinking about her daughter now married, far away with her new husband.  Her hand reaches into her sewing cabinet and pulls out a small, carefully wrapped bundle of browning paper and opens it up.  She smiles as she carresses the beautiful appliques leftover from the making of the beautiful wedding dress for her darling daughter, remembering the words they spoke.  Happy tears flow down her weathered cheeks and she smiles.

Suddenly there is a knock at the door!!

"Mother!! It's me, Nadine!!  We've come HOME!!"

I hope you enjoyed seeing my newest lace.  I love to show it off!!!

Now it's time for YOU to show off what lovelies you have!

Please feel free to join the party by copying and pasting the url code from your blog post to the link below.

Last week I truly enjoyed visiting y'all and am so honored to have you come by to see my blog.

I'm also excited to have some new followers!  Welcome to you all, and I hope you each have a marvelous week.  Blessings,

Doni

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Pearls and Lace Thursday #135 Blue and White Trims and Laces

Do y'all have birds in your trees?  Do y'all have birds that sing all day?

Do y'all have a bird that sings all NIGHT????

We do.  It's a mockingbird.

And it's just after midnight, and it's SINGING!!

All night...every night.  But it sings different songs at night than it does during the day.

Do you have one?  Want mine???

OK...enough about that silly bird.

How about some blue today?  Mockingbirds are blueish, aren't they?

Oh drat. There I go again!!  And so does the bird!

OK...I'm trying to talk about lace and trim!!!

When I first started to get together the blues and creams for this post, I had in mind another collage that I want to make.  I have a dear dear friend (who made that fabulous heart cushion) that will be having a birthday later this year, but I want the collage to be ready in time.  SO, I pulled out all my fun blue stuff and started to take pictures.

I love the textures and the look of the trims, and the laces are just so pretty.  But the satin boxes are some of my very favorite things!  They are so easy to find, usually online, but sometimes at estate sales or yard sales.

These blues are so pretty!

I don't have a whole lot of vintage blue buttons that have shanks...those are my faves in my blue stash.  Others I have in my jar are newer, or plastic that I don't much like.  But, I'm always looking for more.

The ribbon I found online, and it's such a pretty color!  I found where I had placed it tucked under a stash of lace (ok...I know I have enough lace already, but who can resist??), and so it was hidden, but I found it now, and it's so pretty!  I hope I uncover some more goodies soon!

The music card in this last picture as well as the music cards in the other shots are a recent gift from a dear sweet French lady from Etsy!! I went to the mailbox yesterday and what was there?  A package from FRANCE!!!  Now I knew that I had not ordered or bought a thing from there (lately), so I was not sure what to expect.  If you'd like to have a peek at a beautiful Etsy shop with a sweet lady, please check it out HERE.

Thank you so much Sharyn!! You really did make my day!

And if you made it this far, yes, the bird is still tweeting his little heart out.  I try to imagine I'm sleeping in my garden, enjoying the sun, and it's just the most natural thing in the world to have a bird singing all night long.  Hasn't worked yet, but I'm gonna give it another chance tonight!

His name now...BIG MOUTH!!!

Monday afternoon I stepped outside because Big Mouth was hollering his loudest, and I found him. 

He was trying to get away from me, but I started whistling and tweeting myself.  He couldn't stand it and got closer and closer to see what OTHER bird was in his territory.  I got a few shots of him (with the camera...).

Looks like he likes to sit here a lot

I was totally overwhelmed with the large number of you who joined my party last week!!  It took me almost the rest of the weekend to get to every one of your posts!!  Y'all did a lovely job and I'm so excited that you shared so many wonderful projects and ideas and lovelies!

And to all of you who are my newest followers I'd like to say welcome!!

Your comments had me smiling too all week.  I think I have the best friends of anyone in blogland!!

My month of May calendar is so filled up all of a sudden that I told my husband I was overwhelmed.  I don't know how many days are left free!!  But of the ones left, don't be too surprised if I have to skip a week hosting this party.  We'll see how it goes.  I might surprise myself and be able to keep up!

So, with all that said, let's start the party!

Just copy and paste the url code from your post and link it to the linky below.

Hope you each have a lovely week!

Blessings to you!

Doni



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Pearls and Lace Thursday #134 Pink and Yellow Rose Inspiration

A few years ago my husband brought me a dozen roses....

IN POTS!!

A Rose bush in each pot!

SO...I have a dozen roses in my garden!!

The first bush to bloom this spring is this lovely pink and yellow variety (and no...I don't know the name).

And that's where inspiration hit.  I had an old sewing box that had those colors, some trims, some other things, and this is what I came up with.

I shared last week my thread and lace cards and promised to show you my violin shaped ones this week.  They ARE violin shaped, but I'm not thrilled with the way they turned out....maybe they should be larger...

The yellowed pearls seem to blend nicely with the other shades of yellows...

Below is one of two lace medallions I recently purchased.  I think it's incredible!

These deep red roses are called Sooner roses and their fragrance is so big and intoxicating...wherever we are in the garden, we can usually catch a whif of this lovely.

Do you have roses in your garden?  The freshness of a rose seems to take me to a place where old meets new...where nostalgia and present day come together.  The rose was a huge part of our ancestry and women (and men) all love roses and have taken them across the world.  Our own country was populated with rose cuttings lovingly and carefully kept during the expansions that covered wagons carried over the hills and plains.  I can only imagine how carefully they were maintained and how many women smiled when first buds appeared after a treacherous journey to a new and unbroken land was finished.

Whenever you see a wild rose growing along a highway or country road, smile and enjoy.  Perhaps it was planted by one of our ancestors journeying to a new home and hope.

It's time for Pearls and Lace Thursday!!

And I'd love to welcome each of my newest followers!  It's always so fun to make new friends!

Thanks too to you lovely ladies who joined last week's party, and for your beautiful and sweet comments!

To join the party just add the url code from your post to the link below.

Blessings to you!

Doni

Pearls and Lace Thursday #133 Thread and Lace Bobbin Cards

Hello to you all!!  I certainly hope you are all experiencing nicer weather where you are!

We have finally sprung into spring (although another day of cold is expected), but the flowers don't care.  They have started blooming!!

I have been busy printing off sheets of cardstock with 9 images on each page.  Why?

Well, I'm making bobbin cards to wrap my smaller amounts of lace trims and some older embroidery threads.  I decided that I liked the look of the vintage and antique thread cards, so I went to my computer and started printing things I thought would work nicely.

Images that were used are from blogs like The Feathered Nest where Dawn such amazing lovely work and generously shares her wealth of beauty and materials with us.  Others are from The Graphics Fairy, and Pinterest.  Because I don't ever sell anything (I'm a bona fide hoarder!!),  keeping up with the donator of the free graphics has been difficult.  Please forgive me if I have used something that you shared and not given you credit.  If you will let me know, I will add your information to this post!

My past trys at making these had made me think about how I could make them a bit prettier, and perhaps a bit more feminine.  The blocky shapes did not excite me as much as the ones that were smaller, but I wanted to make some of the bobbins that had the trifold or quartet folded styles. 

A bit of looking around and I found a shape that would work.  Taking my pencil, I traced the outline from a Spellbinders template, and then I played with it.  Making the top half a bit smaller than the lower half seemed to give it the form I wanted.  By the way....I thought about my violin and how I could take the shape of my violin curves and make some violin shaped bobbins!  I will give that a try next week!!

OK.  What did I do?

After printing out the page of images (9 per page seemed the right size), I traced and cut three forms from my self-made template.

Fold each one in half lengthwise with the printed side in.

Place adhesive on the same side of each back (I used the top side of each of the pieces shown above).

Carefully match up two of the cut pieces so that they line up and stick together.  Add the third piece and adhere them together.

The final sides to stick together are the first and last, and when stuck together the three cards will now make one trifold card bobbin.

If you just wanted to make a single card, I suggest making the top piece out of cardstock, and reinforcing it with a piece of file folder (cheap!!) cut exactly to fit.  Adhere them together, decorate, and it's done!

If you make some of these let us know!  I'd love to see how they turned out!

It's time for Pearls and Lace Thursday!

The link is below, and I am excited to see what you have to share this week!!

Thank you to all of you who have left such sweet comments and who have joined my party.  You truly make my week delightful!

Blessings,

Doni

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