New Acquisitions and...An Etsy Re-opening Giveaway!

For those of you who have checked out the shop, thanks!  I only have 21 patterns up so far, mainly because this weekend has turned out to be a bit on the busy side.  Alas!  However I am in the process of listing a LOT more.  A little each day. :)

I recently acquired a nice load of old sewing patterns from the 40's to the 70's, most of which will be going up in the shop soon!  Here is a little sample...

Woo-hoo!

SO!  To celebrate the re-opening of Cozy Green House Artworks on Etsy, I am going to do a vintage pattern giveaway here on my blog.  There will be three different prizes you can win...

Prize no. 1: Simplicity 1668

This pattern dates back to 1946. The scalloped edges in view 1 are absolutely to die for!  The pattern is complete, excepting the waistline stay piece, which can be easily replicated.  Size 18/B36.

Prize no. 2: McCall 7221

This lovely day dress pattern dates back to 1948.  Size 12/B30

Prize no.3: McCall's 7573

Ok, I'm pretty sure most of you will not be into the strange jumpsuit/overalls on the left.  The play suit on the right, however...pretty darn cute!  This pattern is from the early 90's, I believe. 

RULES: You don't have to do anything fancy to enter--you simply must be a follower of this blog, and leave a comment on this post noting which pattern you would like to win and why!  I will pick a winner at random for each prize on Saturday, June 4th.  Be sure to tune in on the day of the drawing--I will have instructions on how to claim your prize if you won!

Have a fantastic week! Revel in the springtime!

~Bessie

Etsy: Status Update!

With the wedding and the moving and etc., my poor Etsy shop was forced to temporarily close down over the past several months.  However...

We are open again!

With hundreds of new patterns in the stock house, I might add.  I am going to be adding new listings weekly, so check in often.  Also, I will be staring a special Summer Skirt promotion starting in early June that I am very excited about!  I'll keep you updated...

Have a fantastic day!

~Bessie

p.s.  We are having some technical difficulties with the logo on Etsy.  Bear with us!  It looks really dumb right now, but it will look pretty snazzy once it is finished. :)

Really bad day = New Percolator

So a couple weeks ago I had a really bad day.  It was comprised of several elements of frustration:

a) Goat escaped from pen

b) Can't catch goat

c) Chase goat for 1.5 hours with no success

d) Let other goat out in hopes that goat A would follow goat B (who is more obedient) back into pen.  

e) Both goats out.  Refuse food bribes into pen.

f) Husband out of town

g) Finally get goat A back in pen, dog escapes

h) Chase dog for close to three miles.  Give up when dog jumps into a deep creek and swims into the cow farm close by (yes, he swam away)

i) Give up, go home, cry, pull myself together, do some dishes

j) While doing dishes, accidentally break my beloved coffee percolator from the 1960's

k) Lay on sofa and sob

Thankfully, my dear husband arrived home about 20 minutes after I broke my percolator.  He hugged me and let me cry a little longer, then we both hopped in the car and went after the dog.  Eventually we found him, and brought him back home.  Thank goodness.

But alas!  My percolator was completely out of commission.  I had bumped it with the scrub brush and made a huge crack in the side/bottom.  Sigh.  So I pulled up Etsy and found myself a new one...

This has to be about the coolest percolator ever.  I love it.  Loooovvveee it.  

So something good did come out of it all.  A nice to percolator...and a nice big serving of humble pie. ;)

Have a great day!

Bessie

Weddings and Wool

My dear sister is now a Mrs!  What an exciting day we had on Saturday.  The wedding was beautiful, and the bride and groom were absolutely glowing.  Now they are off on their honeymoon, having a marvelous time, and those of us back home are slowly getting things back to normal.  Or the new normal, anyway.  :)

Aside from the paper flowers, I was assigned two projects for the wedding: the ring bearer pillow, and Sarah's honeymoon dress.  Both turned out pretty cute, if I do say so myself!

For the ring bearer pillow I used a simple quilt square pattern.  The button in the middle is a vintage one from my huge jar o' buttons.  It's difficult to see in this photo, but the button has a little floral design in the center.  Cute!

Ring bearer Pillow

Sarah's dress turned out exactly as planned, and looked darling on her!  She wore it with a brown leather belt, which I thought looked very cute.  The fit was perfect.  Doesn't she look adorable?

That's all the wedding info for now.  On to the wool!

My Nigora goat, Dean, is moulting his wool right now.  That's one thing I really like about Nigoras--you do not have to shear them.  During moulting season (late spring), you can easily pull the wool right off of the goat, with no pain on their part.  So the other day, I distracted Dean with some food and was able to get about half of his wool before he noticed that what I was doing and started playing hard-to-get.  

Dean's Wool

Dean looked pretty humorous with half of his wool pulled out...

This is the first time I have been able to harvest wool from Dean, as last year he was just a baby and didn't produce much.  I did my research and washed the wool the other day.  It was an interesting process that took a few hours, but the wool came out shiny and clean and smelling pretty!

The one thing I did wrong was I forgot to skirt the wool before I washed it.  Skirting is when you pick out all of the large, noticeable pieces of dirt and debris from the wool.  So I still need to do that, and I might have made it harder on myself by washing it first.  Ah well--live and learn!  I just can't wait to see how this fiber spins up!

Well, off to start the day!  

~Bessie

Paper Flowers

Oh. My. Gosh.

Sarah is getting married this weekend, and we have been working on completing all the decorations and such.  True to Sarah form, she decided to go a bit untraditional in the flower arrangements...and make them entirely out of crepe paper.  I stopped by the house today to help with wedding prep and saw the completed flowers/bouquets today for the first time.  I was absolutely floored.  They are GORGEOUS!

I believe Sarah derived her inspiration from Martha Steward Weddings, which has some great ideas and templates for making your own crepe paper flowers.  Good old Martha Stewart. :)

Here are some pictures of the flowers she has made thus far (she crafted her own wedding bouquet and all of the buttoniers), plus some pics of my own attempts (I was assigned the peonies that will go at the end of each row of chairs).  Enjoy!

Buttoniers :

Sarah's Bouquet (AH!):

Extras for decorating tables:

Flowers in progress:

Roses and Tulips

Peonies

My finished peonies:

Mom's finished rose:

The crepe paper is so fun to work with.  It reminds me a bit of fabric--pliable and mold-able.  In order to make the flowers look more realistic, you actually stretch and shape the petals.  Isn't that cool?

This picture has nothing to do with flowers, but I think it is pretty great.  Thanks Fifi!

Have a fantastic day!

~Bessie

Sarah's Dress

I found it!  I finally found my camera!  And just in the nick of time, too--Sarah's dress is on its way to being finished and delivered to the bride-to-be.

Sarah and I went through hundreds of patterns to get an idea of what she wanted.  We came up with a sketch for a sun dress with a sweetheart neckline, a bit of a scoop neck in the back, and a simple A-line skirt.  During the fitting process, we decided to tweak our design a little bit by adding a midriff section (with some piping for definition) and putting some fine gathers underneath the bust instead if darts.

I used the bodice from this pattern as the foundation for my design:

Sarah selected a beautiful Michael Miller cotton print for her dress called Meadowstreet Poppy Parade.  So pretty!  There is some left over, which I am planning to make a skirt out of for myself! :D

Here is a picture with bad lighting but a good idea of how the dress will look on (skirt has not yet been attached here):

And here is a picture with good lighting, but the dress on a hanger (much truer to the colors of the fabric):

I am currently working on the lining.  After that, I'll install the zipper, hem the dress, and all shall be finished!

Btw, check out what Davis and I found a thrift store the other day...

What do you think of THAT?

~Bessie

Oh no!

I have so many things I want to post about...

~Bought a few hundred vintage patterns the other day from a lady on a farm in south Georgia
~Making a honeymoon dress for my sister -- very cute!
~Our two new dogs, Desmond and Rousseau (yes, we love Lost!)
~My temporary sewing room
~Growing herbs

...and much more.  Unfortunately, I have lost my camera.  AH!

Sigh.  Alas.  Certainly I will find it soon...

~Bessie