The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle by Jennifer Ryan

 

Excellent story about a group of friends, how they support and help each other by joining forces. Working together they can achieve great things. Focusing on one main family and the father and daughter from the Vicarage, it's the story of a small village and town where the people came together during the war. One woman comes back from London where she was a famous and successful fashion designer, lending her skills to the local sewing group. When the vicar's daughter is engaged to be married, she gets out her mother's wedding dress from the attic, bringing it to the group for intense mending, and learning more of its history as the story goes along. She then decides to lend it to anyone in the group to wear for their wedding and the idea expands from there until they have many donations of wedding dresses and brides waiting to borrow them. The lack of fabric makes it necessary to make clothes with less or mend and rework existing clothes. The English government had very strict guidelines for it.

My Grandmother was a master at reworking clothes. She worked at church rummage sales, bringing home clothes and remaking them into what she liked. She had a great eye for it and did beautiful work. I inherited many of her creative talents, but never remade clothes. I find it fascinating and am thinking about trying it out now that I'm retired and on a budget.

I really got lost in this and hated to see it end. Romance, warm hearts, misunderstandings and people reflecting on their lives and who they are as a person. Because of the war women stepped up to fill jobs that they never would have had otherwise. They learned new skills and excelled in ways that would not have been allowed before. Loved this story, it's beautifully told. 

I received this book free from the author, publisher and NetGalley book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

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Customising Clothes with Embroidery by Connie Mabbott

 

15 fun projects to inspire you to upcycle the clothes you already own.

This is an instructional book for machine embroidery. Good, detailed instructions and good photo illustration. Neat techniques and pattern ideas.

I received this book free from the publisher and NetGalley book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

#CustomisingClotheswithEmbroidery #NetGalley #BooksYouCanFeelGoodAbout #Craft

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A Tapestry of Light by Kimberly Duffy

 

"She knew every time she created something beautiful, she was declaring something of her own— independence, value, creativity"

1889 Calcutta, India. What an interesting story. Ottilie is a Indian-British young lady with a talent for beetle-wing embroidery, a skill handed down for generations.  She was not accepted by society, on either side of her heritage. "No matter how far she ran, she couldn’t escape the narrative God had been fashioning for her—a story of constant loss and never belonging." She had lost her father and two siblings to cholera, and then later her mother was killed, leaving Ottilie to care for her grandmother and young brother.  Her mother had supported them with sewing and embroidery and she tried to. Then their British relatives send a representative to take her little brother to England as he had become heir of the family estate. An estate their father had walked away from. You can feel Ottilie's fragility and her strength throughout, as well as her struggle with faith, since her grandmother had died too. But the safety of England from cholera made her accept their going there. Unfortunately society in general there did not accept her and even her relatives treated her terribly, and Everett the young man who had been sent to take them to England. They all struggle to coexist, and when her brother is sent away to school, she leaves the estate to be near him and takes a job in a dress design shop,. This is also a story of the poor conditions women worked in to produce high fashion for the elite. Excellent read! A lot to learn.

I received this book free from the publisher and NetGalley book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

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Thimbles and Threads

4 Love Stories Are Quilted into Broken Lives

by Mary Davis; Grace Hitchcock; Suzanne Norquist; Liz Tolsma

 “I don’t deserve forgiveness.” “None of us do. But the Lord freely gives His forgiveness to us.”

No surprise, there's an enchanting sewing and quilts theme throughout the book, Christian Historical Romance.  With these authors you can't go wrong. Lovely stories with depth of character and interesting variety. Texas 1884, Charleston, South Carolina Summer 1886, Rockledge, Colorado 1884,  Regent, Colorado 1885. Strong talented women, special men. Some broken lives ready for mending. Good read!

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher and NetGalley book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
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The Seamstress by Allison Pittman

Wow what a powerful story. A step into history. 

It's set in France 1788 just before, then during the French revolution. There is a place not far from where I live that was constructed with the hope that Marie Antoinette would find asylum there, but sadly she never made it. Going there, seeing how it was made ready for her, I wished I could have made or helped to make some of the things for her. In particular I remember a quilt made from velvet pieces with beautiful embroidery around each piece. My grandmother made one similar and the women in our family all stitched on it. It enhances my feeling about Marie, the war and a seamstress she might have had.

Renee is a poor girl taken in as an orphan with her cousin by a man, not that much older than them, who runs a farm that's been in his family for generations. They don't have much but she delights in small things and loves her new family, growing in a Christian way. They have a friend who believes in eliminating the royalty from France. Near their house a carriage overturns and Renee mends the gown of a woman who was within. The mending is quite clever and fashionable. The woman is close to the queen, and decides to take Renee with her.

Renee, though quite young, finds a new life at the palace, and her skills make her a favorite. I delight in reading about the fabrics and thread as the story describes how she uses them. And in the beauty of the palace. The author skillfully tells several sides of the struggle at this time and I found it very difficult to put down. It's hard not to feel strongly for the characters, and its not a very happy time overall for any of them. I like the depiction of Marie Antoinette as a good person who tried to help the poor. A get-lost-in-it book for me. Huge depths of emotion.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher and NetGalley book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
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Quotes from the book:
"The rain hits steadily, like whispers, and my ear strains to the occasional heavy droplet. To think, being in such a small space, every drop of it is splashing only inches above our heads."

"The people are their own god now. Their desires, law."

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