Authentique Stitches Mother’s Day Sewing Card Folio: Memories of Mom

Hello, Friends!  Today I have an Authentique Stitches Mother’s Day Sewing Card Folio to share with you as part of the Authentique Design Team Group Post.  You can hop on over to the Authentique Blog to see more Mother’s Day inspiration from the team.

While my mom is no longer living on this earth, she lives forever in my heart.  She was my mentor, my companion, my guardian, my nurse, my teacher and my best friend for 50 years of my life.  I count myself as a most blessed woman for having had such an amazing mom.  To honor her, I thought I’d share some stories and memories that inspired this card.  This is more of a memorial post, as opposed to my normal tutorial, but I will still share some tips and tricks along with memories of mom.

Authentique Stitches Mother’s Day Sewing Card Folio: The Inspiration

My mom was a skilled seamstress, so the Stitches collection has a very special place in my heart.  This 3″ x 4″ image could have been lifted directly from my childhood.  I can’t even count the number of hours I spent by Mom’s side as she worked away at her White sewing machine.  She always sat up straight, just like the gal in this photo, but unlike the gal in the photo, she usually had a mouth full of straight pins.  About the only time I ever saw my mother sitting down was when she was at her typewriter or sewing machine.  She did not believe in being idle.

I loved the soft scent of Tide laundry detergent combined with the liquid starch she used on all her house dresses.  I would sit as close to her as humanly possible without interfering (too much) with the task at hand.  Everything Mom did was fast: she typed so fast you couldn’t see her fingers flying over the manual keyboard.  Mom never walked up stairs; she ran.  Her mop slid   over the linoleum floor of our kitchen as though she was in a race.  And it was pedal to the metal when it came to sewing.  That needle flew in and out of the fabric at dizzying speed.  Yet her seams were always perfectly straight and true.  I guess when you are raising a family of five kids, you learn how to do everything quickly.

Authentique Stitches Mother’s Day Sewing Card Folio: Pretty in Pink

Pink was Mom’s favorite color.  She even had pink tennis shoes one year, and wore them until they had holes in them.  There was a pink, A-line, pin-striped house dress that she wore all the time.  Partly because she loved pink so much; partly because she didn’t have a closet full of beautiful dresses to choose from.  Raising 5 kids also means that there’s not a lot of money for fancy clothes.  But mom loved to LOOK at fancy clothing.

Like lots of households of that era, we waited with great anticipation for the Semi-Annual release of the Montgomery Ward catalog.  It was an enormous, full color catalog filled with everything from garden tools to evening gowns.  As busy as Mom was, she always found time to drool over that virtual emporium.  With ink pen in hand, she would star the items of clothing she thought were particularly beautiful.  If she really liked something, she would fold the corner of the page over to mark its place in that massive tome.  And if she fell head over heels in love with a dress, it would find a place of honor, taped to the refrigerator door.  That page would be marked with a huge star, and emblazoned with Mom’s handwritten note, “I love this!”

The Most Beautiful Dress in the World

One year, Mom found the most beautiful party dress…and yes, it was pink with a floral print.  She starred it,  wrote “I Love this!” , tore it out of the catalog and taped it to the fridge.  “Kathy Jean, ” she proclaimed, “I am going to save up and buy that dress.  It’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”

Week by week, mom put money in an envelope, saving for that dress.  She took in ironing from the neighbors, fried dozens of doughnuts (36 dozen to be exact) each Saturday morning, then sent us out to deliver them to the neighbors who happily paid 50 cents for a dozen.  Little by little, the envelope grew fat, and it looked like the pink dress was going to become a reality.

Then, disaster struck.  I came down with pneumonia, and the bills for the doctor visits and prescriptions drained that envelope dry.  One sad day, as I was recovering on the couch that Mom kept in our spacious country kitchen, I watched as she removed “the dress” from its place of honor on the fridge.  I was a little girl, but I was still able to understand why that dress was NOT going to happen.  And I began to cry, “But Mommy, you loved that dress.”

Without skipping a beat, Mom came over to the couch, put her arms around me and hugged me tight.  “Now Kathy Jean, don’t you know…I was tired of wearing that old thing.”  And we both burst into laughter.  What a Mom!

Authentique Stitches Mother’s Day Sewing Card Folio: The Envelope

This story was playing through my mind while creating this card.  So I created a special “Pink Dress” envelope to tuck onto the front of this card. Here’s how it came together:

• First, cut along the right hand side of the dress mannequin image with a craft knife.
• Next, create an envelope for a 3″ x 4″ card following the instructions on a W r Memory Keepers Envelope Punch Board.
• Open the envelope flat, and stitch the image to the front .
• Leave the flaps unattached.
• Next, cover the stitching on the inside with a 3″ x 4″ panel of designer paper.

Tuck a vintage sewing kit and some vintage buttons on a vintage button card inside the envelope.  Fold the envelope shut, slide it into the slot you created with your craft knife, and attach it to the card front with a pink bulldog clip.

Authentique Stitches Mother’s Day Sewing Card Folio: A Peek Inside

Inside this card, I tucked in lots of little items that made me think of Mom.

This little side flap pocket holds a vintage sewing card wrapped with vintage crochet lace trim and secured with a stick pin.  I also created a little 3″ x 4″ note card to tuck into the pocket.

Mom loved to read, so I attached this very pink velvet bookmark with a mini belly band. She also had a thing for butterflies.

The little flap page turns over to reveal a wee pocket, sized perfectly for a pretty tea bag, vintage demitasse spoon and honey stick. And oh, Mom would have loved that pink sewing machine!

This vintage silver and gold plated spoon is imported from Italy. Mom would have loved it.

Mom loved pink so much, that once she painted her entire bedroom pink.  Ceiling, trim and all.  So I tried to include lots of pink in this card.

For more projects made with the Authentique Stitches Collection, click HERE.

I hope you don’t mind that I shared these stories about my wonderful Mom with you today.  Wherever you are, I wish you a Happy Mother’s Day.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cheerio,

kathy