A beautiful spring day, sunny, cool, and breezy. Pascal, (my bedlington terrier) and I, met our friend Penny for a walk along the canal. While I was busy looking for the ducks who swim in the canal, Pascal was looking to have a good bark at a pair of squirrels […]

October and November are beautiful months in Northern California. In many areas we have a “New England”-type fall, with leaves colored bright-red, yellow and orange. Temperatures aren’t as cold as they are in New England, but they are definitely cool and crisp, with deep-blue skies and little rain, making it […]

Last post, I wanted to talk about why I started making dresses, so in this one I thought I’d describe the process a little.
One dress takes a week to complete, of which five days are spent doing hand work; embroidery and smocking. Working exclusively for so many days, I develop a close relationship with the […]

This is the first part of two posts explaining some of the background on how I started making dresses for little girls.
I began making smocked dresses thirty years ago when my daughter was born, teaching myself from a pattern that had six rows of simple smocking. When she could no longer wear the dresses I […]