How I refreshed our christening gown
After Christmas I had a talk with Rosie’s mother-in-law, my dear friend Ann, about our respective christening gowns and their need for rehabilitation. (At that point we were both expecting a new grandchild; mine has arrived, hers is still in the oven!)
You can see the gowns in this post if you are interested.
They are remarkably similar! And each of us felt that the gown belonging to us needed an overhaul. Ann’s has so many little tears that she thinks she has to have it replicated. Mine (which comes from my husband’s family — I was baptized as an adult!) is getting thin but otherwise in remarkably good shape.
But I always have thought it’s not quite long enough. Somehow it gets bunched up during the baptism and the full effect of a nice long gown doesn’t come through in photos or even in real life, where you feel you are constantly not succeeding in pulling it down!
Of course, the baby is the star and that covers a multitude of dressmaking concerns! Here is little Nora about six years ago:
I thought and thought of what to do. I fell asleep thinking about it! The way the gown is made doesn’t leave much room for maneuvering.
{Commence interminably long discussion of the process, feel free to skip down to this week’s links!}
Finally I decided that the original slip needed to be made into an additional ruffle on the gown, giving it more length, and a new slip needed to be made that is even longer still. This strategy, I hope, gives an abundance to the entire ensemble. It may not be a royal christening gown, but it is ours, we love it, and now it’s got more flounce!
I ordered a length of cotton lawn and one of baptiste (appropriately named!) as well as some lace from Farmhouse Fabrics (I have no affiliation with them, just letting you know that they have a lot of classic fabrics and trims). The two fabrics are nearly identical with each other and a bit stiffer than the original of the gown — and that difference may be due to years of wear and washing, or just that there is a difference. I am not even sure which one of the two I ordered I ended up using!
The lace I chose has little crosses on it. They do carry something remarkably similar to what is on the gown, but I liked the idea of the crosses!
You can see that I cut the slip down and added it just below that first row of inserted lace on the gown. Yes, it was a hard decision and even harder to cut into that slip. But I think it was for the best.
I never liked the way the old slip buttoned at both shoulders. It’s hard to get on and have stay on with a wriggly little baby, and if it comes apart while the gown is over it, it’s hard to rectify.
But I also was not looking forward to making even one little buttonhole on the new slip, in the back, so I used one of the old ones: work avoidance for the win!
Getting back to the new flounce at the bottom of the gown using the slip: the slip is not as wide as the gown, so it doesn’t go quite around. But we have decided that it’s fine because a) the infant will not be walking anywhere, displaying this side and b) it looks vaguely like a vestment…
It’s hard to take a picture of a white garment but I seem to specialize in it, with my quaint little vintage phone:
This is the sweet cap:
And that is it! A nice “waiting for baby” project and one that I hope offers some new life to this family gown!
And a darling Symphorosa Marie to wear it for her baptism!
{bits & pieces}Peter Kwasniewski on Pius XI’s teaching on Christian education. A while ago I put this encyclical on our St. Gregory Pocket reading list. It’s especially important for those seeking to establish a Christian school, as I know so many of you are. The goals and pitfalls have already been thought out for you!Efficiency is the Enemy. While I am a big advocate of doing your work efficiently, and a lot of this blog is devoted to helping you do that, I wholeheartedly agree with the author of this post that it’s a serious mistake to schedule every minute of your day, on the mistaken assumption that efficiency means maximum use of time. Particularly, women need to understand that we require a lot of unschedule time, precisely so that we can meet the unpredictability of life with children serenely and effectively. Even more, it’s good to see that a family functions better when the mother is not scheduled more than she has to be, precisely because the father can’t abandon his commitments to the outside world very easily. That means a lot of her day might look rather leisurely, but that is a very good thing. This reminds me to remind you to read God’s Hotel (affiliate link), which is about how our modern medical care differs from the medieval model (and not always in a good way). Much of what the author, a doctor and medical historian, observes is the importance of not prioritizing efficiency in hospitals.Do you know the story of Sybil Luddington, 16-year-old Patriot, who rode through the night to warn of the British attack on Danbury? A good one to tell the children!Instead Of Canceling ‘Snow White,’ Learn To Read Fairy Tales: “In Disney’s ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ the prince does have permission to kiss Snow White. He just doesn’t get it in writing and signed in triplicate.”“… Dostoevsky had been the first to describe, with astonishing accuracy, what we have come to call totalitarianism.” With
The Brothers Karamazov
“he undertook to vindicate its Christian alternative.”from the archivesOnce you organize a closet that the children have access to, how do you keep it tidy?The importance of the imaginative life — and fairy tales.liturgical livingSt. Isadore — and the last week of Easter; time to prepare for Pentecost!
Good to remember that May is the month of Our Lady (helpful when the children are heart-breakingly plucking the first, long-for blooms from the garden; we can lovingly place them at her feet!).
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