Four Years Ago Today

Four years ago today, Mr. Mike and I got married.  This anniversary reminds me of Laura Ingalls Wilder's The First Four Years, and while we have had our challenges, let us thank God that our own first four have not been quite as difficult as Laura and Almanzo's.  My dear and dearly-missed friend Jane, author of the blog Manorisms, wrote to me in a 2007 email, "[Bob's and my] life together has been a good one, but one of my bits of wedding advice is for a couple always to remember that some years are definitely better than others."  That continues to be one of the wisest and most helpful things I've heard regarding marriage.  It hasn't all been carefree sunny days and sweet strappy shoes and colorful sugar cookies, but the older I get, the more I appreciate all of life's carefree and sweet and colorful, so maybe it more than balances out. 

♥

Wing Chair in October

The wing chair project goes on and on.  The latest addition to it when I left off months ago was this section of leftover green floral trim from my wedding suit jacket.   ♥  (Yikes, my stitches look messy up-close.  We'll say that just adds to the chair's charm.  Goodness, though!  My mother would shake her head here and say, "Vally, really, it wouldn't take much to clean that up a bit. . . . "  It's FINE, Mom.  :)  )  The seamstress had extra trim after she'd finished alterations, so she gave that back to me with the suit.  I like how it looks on the chair, breaking up a couple of the straight lines of the patchwork squares. 

And now that I look at the picture below, I see that the patchwork could stand to be broken up by curves and frills a bit more, especially toward the bottom, so I will have to think about what other meaningful-to-me trims I've saved over the years.

 One step closer to a finished chair, though, and I'm still loving this project.  

 

 ♥

The Patchwork Wing Chair Tonight

It's been awhile since I wrote about the wing chair I'm redoing.  This week marks the first work I've done on it since late last summer.  I had ordered a piece of vintage green chenille on etsy in August to use as a seat cover, but the green was so pale it looked white, so that put the seat on-hold, and I've yet to find another fabric for it that really wows me.  Around the same time, I ordered a pink upholstery trim to use as faux piping along the chair's cushion and/or edges, but when it arrived, it was hot pink/fuschia (one of the few colors I don't like) instead of the pale pink I'd thought I'd bought, so the piping part of the project was put on-hold too.  One of the successful finds for the chair last summer was this vintage green Holly Hobbie fabric I'm using on the outside of the chair's wings. 

A real collector of this treasured character from my childhood would probably know the name of the fabric right away, if fabrics were even named in the 1970s and 1980s, but to me, it's just Holly-Hobbie-Preparing-for-a-Birthday-Party.  The print is so dear:  It depicts Holly Hobbie and friends/family baking a cake, making a list, looking at the cake, sitting beside each other with both a cat and a stack of wrapped presents at their feet, drinking cups of tea together, holding balloons, and washing dishes.  Ahhhhhhhhhh!  I love this material.  ♥ It would make the sweetest birthday party tablecloth.  Maybe someday I'll find more and have a go at that. (If any of you are as smitten as I am, a pillowcase made of the same material--but with a pink background--is currently listed on etsy as I write this, and unless someone uses the "Buy It Now" feature before you have a chance to, an eBay search for "Holly Hobbie birthday tea party fabric" tonight will lead you to the same fabric in a gorgeous blue.  I think the blue is the most striking, but the green matches my chair better.)  Like the character whose name I pronounced "Hobbly Hobbly" as a kid, this fabric has stolen my heart. 

I need to do a real patch-job at the top of the wing above since I cut the fabric a bit too short in one spot instead of following the wing's curve properly, but at least with this style, an extra patch will hardly stand out.  :)  The chair's main patchwork (the back-rest section) started to look too cutesy to me last August, and the Old English Sheepdog patch I'd made for it was the one that bothered me most.  Kent of the Spring Bulbs kindly gifted me with a yard or so of Sheepdog fabric last summer, and I've since used it to start both a new patch and the chair's skirt/dust ruffle. 

The new Sheepdog patch is so far a cotton batting-filled dog that I'll sew to another fabric square and then sew and hot-glue into place. 

The space between the chair's arm-rests and skirt/dust ruffle is the same pretty pink roses fabric I used on the mantel wall, "Barefoot Roses" by Tanya Whelan.  I see now that I should have ironed it before adding it to the chair, but I've done stranger things than iron the side of a chair, so I'll add that to today's to-do list.

The skirt/dust ruffle is going to be made of the Sheepdog fabric and sections of an old green check Daffodil tablecloth I found on eBay years ago and have never used.  It's too small and not the right shape for my table, but it was too sweet to pass up--it screamed "Val" with its green gingham and giant appliquéd Daffodils in each of its four corners--and I knew I'd eventually find a project for it.  In 2011, it was the backdrop for the photo I used for Mike's and my wedding announcement photo-card, with our first "married" picture and my bridal bouquet on top. 

This week, it's permanently taken its place along the bottom of this most beloved chair in our home.  ♥

The cut-out flowers along the chair's side and skirt were a late-breaking idea the other night.  I only recently discovered designer Vicky Trainor's lovely blog, "The Linen Garden," and as soon as I saw her projects adorned with floral fabric cuttings, I wanted to cover everything I owned with flowers (even moreso than usual).  This post of hers was the one that wooed me into adding these fabric cut-outs to the chair.  How darling!  Following her beautiful example, I blissfully snipped flowers while watching Marie Antoinette (also gorgeous, probably the prettiest movie I've ever seen) Monday night and have been arranging and rearranging flowers against the chair ever since. 

Almost all the flowers between the Sheepdog panel and green check panel below are only there temporarily as I want to be happy with how they're arranged before I hot-glue them into place.  I'm planning to attach trails of the fabric flowers along all four sides of the chair, and the very first photo at the top of this post shows what the chair actually looks like right now, so I do have quite a bit of work ahead of me here.  It is such happy work, though, and it's been the perfect project to delve back into in this dreary below-zero-temperature January. 

♥

We've Been Painted :)

Since Mike and I skipped all the hoopla of a wedding to marry more simply--a ceremony at the courthouse in the town where we had met in the 1990s, a decision to save money now and vacation later, a dress that was actually a vintage nightgown and vintage jacket combo, a storebought cake for us and homemade cookies to share with the courthouse and hotel staff, a handmade bouquet--this painting is my one wedding-related splurge, and I finally treated myself to it this fall.  In August, I contacted folk artist Heather Sleightholm to ask if she had the time to complete a wedding portrait for me and Mike.  I love Heather's work, and as soon as I discovered her, I knew I wanted her to capture our simple wedding day for us.  We emailed back and forth in August and September to ensure she had enough photos and details to go by--the spring green outfit, my braided hair, our simple silver wedding bands, the wintry rainy April 2011 weather that had broken into sun just for our day and then turned into cold rain again that night, the trees that were still bare-branched, Mike's tie that matched my outfit, our courthouse in the background somewhere, and "Heather, would it be possible to add Stuffed to our painting?  :)  Maybe at our feet or in a tree, but just somewhere?"  Our portrait arrived on Halloween, and as you can see, Heather captured it all perfectly.  This is one of my if-the-apartment-were-on-fire-and-I-had-time-to-save-a-few-material-posessions items.  I love it. 

I had made my bridal bouquet of Daffodils, Pussy Willows, and Cattails.  Heather incorporated them not only into my bouquet, but also into masses of blooms on the ground around us, along with patches of half-melted snow. 

My sweet Mike, or "my big bearded friend," as I call him, with our courthouse behind him.  The courthouse is the most beautiful building in our former college town.  I used to live a block behind it when I went to school there. 

My bouquet and my beloved cream tights and T-strap shoes.  Heather even included the embroidered details on my jacket's collar. 

Mike's ring in the painting is even the simple silver band it is in real life.  Heather's attention to detail and the care she took with this just make my heart happy.  And below is our Stuffed watching over us from a tree-top.  Dear face. 

We are now blessed enough to have both the wedding pictures we had taken (with the cameras on our phones and on a disposeable camera I'd bought at Target the day before [blissfully simple, as I'd said!]) and this lovely painting too.  And where else to display it but on the mantel Dad made for our first anniversary.  It is a treasure.  ♥

♥  "An April Wedding" by Heather Sleightholm  ♥

Two Years

Mike took this photo of us in our hotel room on our wedding day two years ago.  It's one of my favorites from that whole day.  Our smiles!  We had just finished calling our parents to tell them the news, and the blushing giddiness we felt after those laughter-filled conversations is still on our faces in the picture.  "Oh, I figured you were up to something!" Mike's mom responded to his announcement.  "You never call in the middle of the day on a Friday like this!"  My own mom tried to speak normally but kept giggling and barely managed to call out to my dad in the background, "GENE!  Val's MARRIED!"  When she put my dad on, we caught up, and then he mentioned, in his usual Dad's Daily Diary-fashion, some dish he had recently cooked for his and Mom's supper that had bacon in it, and when I replied that it sounded like something Mike would love, Dad chortled, "That's right!  Mike!  I'll have to make it next time you're both here!  For my son-in-law!"  I love remembering these moments, all of us simultaneously shy and stunned-a-bit-stupid and and laughing during every pause in our conversations.

Tittering to each other and repeatedly rubbing our thumbs against the backs of our plain silver bands, Mike and I took one more picture and talked about where to go for supper.  We decided on a restaurant.  We commented that it would be Our First Meal as a Married Couple.  We laughed some more.  And hand in hand, we set off.  

Anniversary Love from Aunt Laurie

Mike and I stopped at my parents' house on Sunday the 15th for what we thought was going to be a simple one-year wedding anniversary dinner with my family, but my mom and my visiting-for-the-weekend aunt Laurie had been working like elves since Friday evening transforming my parents' kitchen and dining room into a Daffodil-Filled Pink Party Central in our honor. :) While I wait to collect everyone's photos from the day, I can show you two of the gifts Aunt Laurie made for us, a beautifully matted and framed photo of me from my wedding day and a scrapbook marking our first married year.

Aunt Laurie said this was her favorite of all our wedding photos, and she trimmed it in a pretty spring green that matched my wedding outfit. :) Since my bridal bouquet was mostly yellow Daffodils, she pressed some silk ones under the glass too. What a treasure she and her gift are. 

And tucked into a gift basket Sunday was a 40-page scrapbook she had made filled with images depicting our wedding, our life together, and our pink first anniversary party. There is even a page in it with a magazine clipping of a black and white cat who looks like Stuffed. :) She and I and my mom have been creating these little books for each other for years, but this one is one of my all-time favorite gifts, period. She outdid herself.

The pages above are my two favorites. She even created those paper doll-type cut-outs to look like my wedding dress and jacket and Mike's tie. :) And my Daffodil bouquet! Love, love, love.  She managed to find pictures of not only my bouquet's Daffodils but also its Cattails and Pussy Willows. "My" Daffodils are on almost every page. :)

For traditional first anniversary gifts of paper, her book and matted photo take the prize. They are just the dearest, as is she. ♥

Wedding Cake, Cookies, & Flowers :)

After we went out to supper last Friday night, we stopped at a Wal-Mart near our hotel to pick up cake and ice cream. Since we'll be having some kind of celebration with our families sometime in the future, this cake was just was for us, and while I wasn't picky about it, I still hoped to run into the store and find something special, and as with the rest of our wedding weekend, our luck held: The store had a simple white square cake with a spring green border that exactly matched the green of my dress. :) The cake originally had hot pink and purple flowers iced onto the corners, but I knew I could fix it up easily enough, so into my basket it went. As I paid for the cake and ice cream, the cashier commented on my hair--it was still in its braid--and the cake, and I had to explain that I'd gotten married that day and would be using this as my wedding cake. She congratulated me and laughed--"Wal-Mart is the LAST place I'd be on MY wedding day!"--and then looked puzzled when she rang up the colored pencils, silk Daffodil bunch, and small black picture frame. I let her wonder about those items, and while waiting for Mike, an elderly man spotted me standing there with my cake and kindly said, "Someone having a birthday?" I explained that it was actually for a wedding, and he nodded and said, "Ahh! Those are good too!" Mike and I thought that was one of the more memorable comments from Friday, and it was just a sweet moment. 

It was exactly the cake I'd wanted. I used to be really into cake decorating, but even had I spent a lot of time and effort on our wedding cake, I wouldn't have done it any other way. Like the rest of the weekend, it was simple and and sweet and lovely and just "us." And the little framed drawing is now up on a shelf here in our apartment, and I'm sure we'll use it on all our anniversary cakes too.

The day before the wedding, I spent some timing sewing my pocket of pictures of loved ones into my dress and attaching Sommer's ring and something else in honor of someone else to the jacket, and when those projects were done, I began baking and decorating heart-shaped cookies to share with the court house staff and hotel staff. And I saved a few for me and Mike, of course.  :)

I made the bouquet of silk flowers so I could keep it. It is all-yellow Daffodils (my favorite flower), Pussy Willows, and a few Cattails, with the handle/holder wrapped in green gingham ribbon. 

Just looking at it makes me happy. I finished making it in late March but didn't want Mike to see it until the wedding--not that he himself would have remotely cared :)--so although I wanted to keep it out where I could see it every day, I didn't have the chance until after the wedding. And today I have been married a week already and the leftover cake, the tiny framed drawing, and the bouquet will soon be on our Easter dinner table.  ♥

A Girly Wedding Hair, Shoes, and Outfit Write-Up :)

Friday--Wedding Day!--morning, Mike walked down to pick up the rental car for our trip while I stayed here to get ready and dressed. Hair and makeup were easy--my hair's naturally curly, so I just pulled it up and added the braid so it would look more special than usual (and because my mom used to do my hair like this with the big braid on top, when I was a little kid, so this was a small way of sharing the moment with her ♥), and I always keep my makeup simple enough--but I just prayed I wouldn't get a run in my tights while pulling them on. I only had one pair of the cream tights, so I was hoping that I wouldn't tear them while buckling my shoes and that Stuffed wouldn't pull out his claws around me. The contingency plan in the event of a run was just to stop by the drugstore and pick up a pair of regular pantyhose, but I'd have been telling the cashier my sob story if I'd had to do that, silly though that is. No getting-ready mishaps, though. Cream tights (that look white in all the photos) and black T-strap shoes, it was, just as I'd wanted. :)

Stuffed even let me scoop him up for a picture after I'd finished getting dressed, and no tights or skin were scratched in the process. :)

And the hour I spent getting ready, maintenance workers were outside our apartment mowing the lawn for the first time this season, so the scent of freshly-mowed grass will likely always remind me of the morning of my wedding day now. :)

My green wedding dress was actually a vintage "baby doll" nighty, but I knew when I saw it that it would work as a dress, since it seemed to match my jacket's color exactly and had the lace down the front, as well, making it look a bit fancier than your average nightgown. I had found the vintage green jacket on etsy in January and had to have a local seamstress make alterations--it was too small in the arms and shoulders--but when she finished it and it finally fit perfectly, I emailed my friend Marylou right away to tell her and added, "The wedding feels real now that I have something to wear!" :) I had fallen in love with this funky old jacket with its adorable huge embroidered collar as soon as I saw it, so to see myself in it finally and to see that it did, indeed, match the nighty-dress was a sweet moment.

As I told Marylou the week before the wedding, I never went to Prom or any school dances, so I never did the "dress-up thing," so piecing together this crazy green "everything-I'm-wearing-is-vintage-except-my-underthings" outfit was just great fun. I'd written in 2008 about my "dream" wedding gown and swore I'd never wear anything else when I married, and that wedding gown is actually in my parents' house right now--I found it after almost 20 years of searching for it, on eBay in 2009--but somehow, this green outfit was more "me," and now I can't imagine having gotten married wearing anything else. And I knew even before I finished getting ready and dressed Friday that I'd never felt as beautiful as I did that day. :)

Mike had left around 9:30 a.m. to pick up the car and returned an hour later to find me finishing the packing and dolled-up in my wedding outfit. When he saw me--smiling giddily, as I couldn't stop--in my wedding outfit for the first time, he laughed and called me "[his] little green gum ball of joy." :)

People have always told me that I wear my heart on my sleeve, but Friday, I felt like my heart really was just glowing around me for everyone to see--I just felt beautiful and happy and full of love and good thoughts. I spent the day alternately praying for people I love and thanking God and giggling and hugging Mike and then, later on, spreading the good news of our surprise-wedding, and truly, I just felt like I was glowing from it all. Hair, shoes, and makeup only go so far: I was just happy and thankful and full of love Friday. There was a quote in Country Living magazine recently from memoir writer Frances Mayes: "Happiness? The color of it must be spring green." When I read that, I clipped it out and added it to one of my scrapbooks, and it will soon reappear in our wedding album--right beside Mike's memorable "green gum ball" compliment, of course. :)

I spent some of last Thursday pinning something inside the front of the dress to honor one of my loved ones, sewing a ring that had belonged to my best friend, Sommer, into the front of my jacket, and creating a jacket pocket that I filled with photos of other loved ones I wanted to honor similarly and who had somehow inspired me and/or helped me reach my wedding day. i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart). . . .And that was my wedding outfit, shoes, and braided-like-Mom-used-to-do-it hair: Love and prayers and gratitude. Hope for new beginnings. And green gum balls of joy.  

♥