Thank goodness for Pearle Cotton!

Back home at last, after five weeks away, it is all starting to feel like a dream.

If any of you wondered where I was or why I was not responding, we were in Myrtle Beach for Feb 1 to Feb 29. We took an extra day traveling south to stop in Richmond, VA which I wrote about in the past post.

We had a wonderful side trip to Georgetown, SC one day with friends. The first shop we spotted on the main street was a little children's wear store whose windows were filled with traditional smocked garments for little girls and boys. The shop is Doodlebugs and the garments they show online do not do their stock justice! Well Sharon and I just had to go in and were still there when our husbands had finished exploring up and down the street.

They had all the traditional garments you never seen worn here in Canada and the sweetest little heirloom dresses trimmed with real French Val laces and darling embroidery. 

When we tore ourselves away, we walked along the waterfront boardwalk and saw a lot of very fine boats before stopping for the most delicious lunch at a place by the name of River Room Restaurant.

On the main street there is a Rice Museum. Yes, rice. At one point, just prior to the Civil War, the southern states exported more rice than any other country in the world. It seems indigo was another cash crop that flourished at the time as well. the Indigo plant was used to make blue dye.

From Georgetown we traveled a bit further down the highway to a State Park to visit a deconstructed rice plantation known as Hampton Plantation. This home was occupied up until recently and by deconstructed they meant that the house was not decorated or furnished to any period but rather the walls and floors had been laid open in places so you could see the structure of the building and how it was constructed. Even for me it was interesting to try and imagine living is such a home.

Now it is not in my nature to sit and leave my hands idle for long and so while we were away, I sat most evenings and smocked. Thank goodness for the Pearle cotton I purchased back in Richmond! The embroidery floss I had brought with me was the right colour but it just didn't do my fabric justice. This is for a sample of the pattern "Poppy", from 'A Garden of Smocking Designs', a little coat dress based on a square yoke design.

Here you see one side of the front skirt smocked in embroidery floss and the left side in the Pearle cotton. I am not sure if you can see the difference on the computer in the clarity of the stitching on this print. The floss tends to look a bit muddy while the Pearle cotton because of the rope-like twist catches the light better and seems to stand up to be seen. I am really looking forward to making time to get this little dress assembled and photographed for you.

I purchased the fabric, a quilting cotton, several years ago at a friend's shop and have held onto it not knowing just how to use it. (Have you ever done that before?) When Kathleen Copeland Nyberg asked me to take over her line of patterns, I knew at once I had a match for the pattern and fabric. You can see all the patterns remaining in Kathleen's line if you go to my web site as soon as we can get the new one posted!!

Well, that is all for today. Keep stitching.......