Proverbs 31:10-31

The Engagement Ring Giclee Print
Audubon, John...
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10 Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.

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11 The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.

The Honeymoon Breakfast, 1887 Giclee Print
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12 She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.

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13 She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.

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14 She is like the merchants' ships; she bringeth her food from afar.

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15 She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens.

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16 She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard.

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17 She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms.

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18 She perceiveth that her merchandise is good: her candle goeth not out by night.

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19 She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff.

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20 She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy.

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21 She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet.

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22 She maketh herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple.

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23 Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land.

The Material Market Giclee Print
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24 She maketh fine linen, and selleth it; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant.

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25 Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come.

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26 She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.

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27 She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.

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28 Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.

Evening Prayer Giclee Print
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29 Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.

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30 Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.

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31 Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.

State Mottoes

Lessons

Giclee Print

Allingham, Helen


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Today at school we did a little test on how well we know the 50 states. The hints were given in state flowers, state nicknames, and state mottoes. I found the mottoes especially interesting. So here is my little quiz for you: Can you match the 50 states with their mottoes?

He who transplants sustains

Nothing without Providence

Under God the people rule

In God We Trust

The life of the land is perpetuated by righteousness

God enriches

Let us be grateful to God

With God, all things are possible

Liberty and Independence

Justice for All

State sovereignty, national union

Wisdom, Justice, and Moderation

Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain

Union, justice, confidence

Live free or die

Virtue, liberty and independence

Freedom and Unity

Liberty and prosperity

Hope

Thus always to tyrants

While I breathe, I hope; Ready in soul and resource

She Flies With Her Own Wings

Let it be perpetual

Labor conquers all things

Industry

The people rule

By valor and arms

Let the welfare of the people be the supreme law

Equality before the law

Equal rights

Forward

Friendship

I lead

By the sword we seek peace, but peace only under liberty

Liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable

Excelsior (ever upward)

Eureka (I have found it)

Gold and Silver

Agriculture and commerce

The crossroads of America

We dare defend our rights

Mountaineers are always free

By and by

If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look around you

To be, rather than to seem

The star of the North

North to the future

To the stars through difficulties

Manly deeds, womanly words

It grows as it goes

(Here are the answers, if you want to know in a hurry!)

America

O beautiful, for spacious skies,

For amber waves of grain,

For purple mountain majesties

Above the fruited plain!

America! America! God shed His grace on thee,

And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea.

O beautiful, for pilgrim feet

Whose stern, impassioned stress

A thoroughfare for freedom beat

Across the wilderness!

America! America! God mend thine ev'ry flaw;

Confirm thy soul in self control, thy liberty in law!

O beautiful, for heroes proved

In liberating strife,

Who more than self their country loved

And mercy more than life!

America! America! May God thy gold refine,

Till all success be nobleness, and ev'ry gain divine!

O beautiful, for patriot dream

That sees beyond the years,

Thine alabaster cities gleam

Undimmed by human tears!

America! America! God shed His grace on thee,

And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea!

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We at The Pleasant Times try our utmost to provide you with beautiful artwork to illustrate our posts. We make sure that when you click the picture, it will go directly to the picture page on Allposters, sparing you the disgust of searching for it yourself among some rather awful paintings. If you are at all tempted to buy any of the artwork featured, you might be interested in a little button under the painting on the Allposters product page, that says "View in Room." This handy-dandy feature lets you see the artwork framed and on a wall in a variety of rooms. We enjoyed playing with it, and thought you might like to know about it.

Roses

Art Print

Furcy de Lavault,...


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Home-made... always better!

Finding a church

Sunday Morning in Sleepy Hollow Art Print
Brownscombe,...
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Many ladies that have decided to make their home their career, who are enjoying home- schooling, home-making, homesteading, etc., wish to find a place to worship where other women share these values. Many are sorely disappointed to find that at church, other women do not hold these ideals, do not understand them, or feel that they are not important. It can be quite a blow to find out that, after all the sacrifices you make to try to be a wife and mother to the glory of God, that you have no moral support in your church.

Thus, many ladies have wondered, where does my family find a church that embraces these values, where I can feel comfortable, accepted, and supported in what I do?

The Early Days of Timothy Giclee Print
Le Jeune, Henry
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Feminism has come into churches all around the world. You could go to all the churches in your area, and perhaps find one "Proverbs 31 Titus 2" woman in each congregation. You many not have a church in your area that is supportive of your home mission. You may find it difficult to uproot your family and move across states just to find a church like this.

The first priority in looking for a church is your soul. Find a church that is following the doctrines that the first century church followed. Read the book of Acts, the history book that records the beginning of the church, and the instructions God gave through the New Testament letters. Compare the churches to that. And then, if you find several in your area, it may be worth the drive to attend a church that is not only trying to follow the simple New Testament pattern, but that is more suitable for your family.

Private Pew Giclee Print
Steer, Henry R.
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That does not mean that you will find one that supports the homemaker, or home-schoolers, or can encourage you and your husband in being a one-income family. But, keep in mind that the church is supposed to try to remain close to what God wanted it to be in the first place, and that if you can find a church that is striving to restore New Testament Christianity, in doctrine and living, that your presence, example, and teaching there may be what they need to help them restore the role of women as taught in the New Testament as well.

Jesus instructed, "Let your light shine," and that will be one of our missions as homemakers, to let our light shine and "brighten the corner" where we are. Be an example to others, be cheerful, be smiling, meet disapproval by "letting your gentleness be known to all men." It will cause people to stop and think. You may not realize that some people are actually on your side, they just don't know it yet!

Prayer Giclee Print
Le Jeune, Henry
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Re-designed Blouse

This blouse was given to me a year or so ago. It is a "Worthington" brand from Penney's. I never found the high neck comfortable, though, so never wore it.

With a snip-snip of the shears, and a hank of elastic, I was able to re-design the blouse to make it a peasant blouse:

The neckline had enough fullness in it because of the previous pleats, so the elastic worked just fine without altering the fit of the sleeves. What do you think, Rebecca?

Six Inches Deep in Mud

That is what happened to my favorite outfit. It is my fault entirely, for I should have changed before I went out into the garden. That evil hose enjoys whipping around an staining my clothing when I least expect it. One stain leads to another (and fortunately you cannot see them so well in photographs!), and with the discovery that the fabric is starting to wear out, too, I can no longer wear my favorite jumper anywhere but the garden. I mourn for that fact- since this is the softest garment I have and the perfect pink.

(the back)

I made this from the Sensibility Regency Gown pattern. I adjusted it quite a bit, and added an invisible zipper instead of buttons. It fit perfectly, and was oh so comfortable.

Jumpers get a bad rap. In my opinion, they are very comfortable and allow for freedom of movement. You can change your blouse to suit your mood (all the ways I am fond of wearing it are shown in these photos). The only reason a jumper would be "frumpy" looking is if it was one of those low-waisted affairs, or if the color was drab and the materials ugly.

With the demise of my favorite, some new dresses were in order. The summer is going by quickly so I needed a very fast dress design to use. I decided not to make another Regency jumper at this time, because I was afraid I would still be bogged down in trying to decipher my specialized adjustments by the time winter rolled around.

But I may regret that... here is the jumper with a blouse I found in a department store that just matched!

These peasant blouses were on clearance, and are perfect for wearing under a jumper. I got one in pink...

...white...

...and blue.

I hope you enjoy seeing all my sewing projects!

Cottage Dresses

That sounds so much nicer than "house dresses," don't you think?
(I have not seen any "Cottage Dresses" for sale around here for homemakers, so if you ever see that phrase written on a label, remember you saw it here first! )
What is a "Cottage Dress?" It is a very comfortable dress, allowing freedom of movement, with the ability to adjust it to be looser if needed. It is made of soft cottons that only get softer with use. It is a pretty, feminine dress, done in colors and prints that make you happy. It is a dress that looks good enough to wear to the post office, but isn't too fancy, so that when the baby spits up on you, the toddler smears jelly on you, the older child plops a mud pie in your lap, etc. that you would have ruined something expensive.

"Cottage Dresses"

I decided to use what was in my stash, and match up what I could to make a complete dress. I chose a pattern that pulled over the head, with no zippers or buttons to fool with, and no gathers. I cut 6 dresses from the same pattern, hoping that I could "assembly line" sew them to some degree, my goal being to be done in a week.

Well, of course it took three weeks longer than I had anticipated.

The patterns I chose were very easy, but the adjustments made to each dress and the details added took extra time. And life must go on whether I am sewing or not... laundry and dishes have to be done and sewing has to wait for spare time.

Professional seamstresses beware: the rest of these posts may curl your hair. I am all for shortcuts in sewing and am not very precise!

Note: I combined two patterns from Butterick, the top from this one and the skirt from another Butterick, that had box pleats instead of gathers to take up fulness in the skirt.

Planning Cards for Shopping

Trying to be as frugal as possible, I took the scraps of material that I had, and the smaller yardage, and measured out what I could get from them to make sleeves, or a bodice, or a border, etc. to make my dresses. Then I took a swatch from each of them, and the color blocks on the selvage edge, and pasted them on an index card. A note on each card told me how much I had, how much I would need, and some design options.



I need at least 3.5 yards for a dress, preferably more. If I could not find anything to coordinate with my scraps in my stash, I could take these little cards shopping with me to find just what I needed. And that is what I did in some cases: I was able to take this yardage (above), which was enough for a skirt and sleeves, and find some coordinating material on the bargain table at the store. All I needed was a yard to complete a dress.

I had a yard of this calico, and I found a perfect color match at the store, only needing 2 & 1/2 yards to complete a dress.

Blue Cottage Dress

The ties have decorative stitching to coordinate with the other trim.

The sleeves have a strip of the calico, plus some decorative stitching.

When I was finished with the dress, I found the bodice was too plain, so with a contrasting thread, I used some of the decorative stitches on my machine to make a design.

A zig-zag scallop, a thick straight stitch, and some little cross-stitches were used.

Decorative stitching sews up the hem.

Here is how the bodice decoration was done:

First, I used a teacup to trace around for some gentle curves.

Then I laid tracing paper over the teacup curves, traced the design, cut around the tracing, and....

...flipped the tracing paper over and traced around the edge to get the lines on the other side. From there I just stitched along the lines, then the next decorative stitch or thread color was a presser-foot edge away from the last line, etc.

Cream & Calico Cottage Dress

For this Cottage Dress, I decided to do something different than adding ties, and did tabs and buttons instead.

Close up of the bodice above. I did no research on vintage styles, but the tabs strike me as a sort of 1920-ish detail.Close up of decorative stitches above and below

The dress at work.

Purple Jumper

This has turned out to be one of my favorite Cottage Dresses.

I used up some metallic thread I had left over from a project to stitch around the neckline.

Here is the jumper with the peasant blouse. Looks like something out of The Sound of Music, doesn't it?

The ties can just be done in a knot in the back....

...as the bow is not really "in style" anymore. But I like the bow anyway:)

Here is how I made the tie: if you sew, you will recognize this piece. It is a scrap left over from cutting the skirt. I did not have much fabric left after cutting out the jumper, so I just hemmed up this piece, gathered the wide end, and sewed it to the front of the bodice, over the box pleats.

All of the dress bodices are fully lined, but this one needed a facing. It is too confusing for me to turn a pull-over-the-head dress into a jumper and figure out how to turn the lining out (if you have ever made a lined vest, you'll know what I mean), so I just traced the armhole to make the facing. Facings are not my favorite thing to sew. That is why I line my bodices. Later on I will show you how I got out of more facings:)

Down on the Farm

I enjoyed experimenting with a twin needle on my machine. This fabric was very light weight and lent itself nicely to pin-tucks. As this dress started to go together, I thought it looked so plain! The sleeves made it look even duller. Somebody may not have a problem with it, but I decided it needed a burst of color. I also decided to turn it into a jumper. Here you see this dress in the designing stage. It looks rather awful now, but you have to use your imagination. I decided the material could not support the weight of a pocket, so that element was out. But the border and the trim could stay.

Here is the result! The bodice was lined (as I was going to add sleeves) and so to turn it into a jumper and add trim at the same time, I made my own bias tape and sewed it around the raw edges of the sleeve, and the finished edge of the neckline. No facings this time.

To add the border on the skirt, I cut a section out the skirt bottom, used that section as a pattern to cut the print border, and sewed the border to the skirt and the bottom of the skirt back on.

Here is the jumper with the peasant blouse.

A close-up of the bias edging.

A close-up of the border.

Fit to be Tied

Well, I wasn't that badly disappointed when I finished this dress! My sewing is not without troubles. I really made some problems for myself while sewing this one. I had made some adjustments to this dress that messed up the sleeves so badly, I had to cut them off. I was really looking forward to this light blue dress with sleeves, using this fabric that I found in my mother's stash (I traded her some pink). Replacing boring ties, I did laced-up ribbon on the back.

I put two tucks in the front of the bodice, with some decorative stitching.

The vine stitch is repeated on edges of the dress. The way I turned this one into a jumper at the last minute (when I was too tired to make bias tape) was to serge and turn under the armhole edges 1/4 inch. The decorative stitching keeps it all nice and flat.

A tuck in the skirt echos the bodice. The vine stitch I used to hem up the bottom edge. Though I have been known to hand-hem a dress (great to do when company comes and you cannot run your sewing machine) I am all for getting this last bit done quickly.

Here is how I added the lace-up ribbon. Usually these little tabs go in a seam. If I had planned this a little more carefully, I would have made a false seam in the back to secure these. As it is, they are tacked on by hand.

I placed the loops above the pleats in the back. The ribbon will have to be taken out when the dress is washed, so it does not get all tangled up.

Pink Check Cottage Dress

This dress is made from a heavier-weight woven cotton from my mother's stash. The collar is bleached muslin, added from another pattern.

Despite adjustments, the collar did not meet in the back. So I added a box pleat at center back, which worked great, but required the sleeves to be re-drafted. The sleeves could have had matching cuffs, until I discovered that the scrap of muslin I was using for the collar did not match the one on the sleeves! I had two different muslins in my sewing basket. The "tint" difference was quite noticeable in daylight, so off went the cuffs.

The collar is trimmed in a simple pink zig-zag.

Stitching

A friend of mine was wondering what would happen if we threaded two different colored threads in one needle on the sewing machine. My guess was that there would be a big, tangled mess. However, I tried it and was really pleased with the results.