Smocking

I have a lot of solutions for sewing. But, there is one beautiful stitch that I would love to learn and that is smocking. What has happened to that art of sewing? So far, I have not come across anybody or any pattern to teach a novice.

When I was young and up until I was nine years old, my Mother made all of my dresses for school, etc. Then I lost her, but I still have a school picture where she had done a lot of smocking. I remember this one little dress she made for me. It had smocking across the shoulders in the front and across the yoke in the back. Then on the long sleeves, she smocked and finished off with rick-rack.

I would put on my beautiful little dress and go out on the sidewalk and twirl around and around and my pretty little dress just floated. It was something special and so was my wonderful Mother.

MaMa June

Dorothy June Lieske Helton

The anecdotes/stories that will be posted were written by my Mother, Dorothy June Lieske Helton. If Mother was still living, our family would have been celebrating her 80th birthday today. Mother known to many around our community as June or MaMa June was an unforgettable woman. I miss her every single day since her death on April 20, 2004. Her death left a huge hole in my heart which is still mending day by day. Every day I wish I could hear the telephone ring with Mother's beautiful voice on the other end telling me about her day, what she had to eat and checking on her chicks if the weather was bad. My brothers and I were truly blessed to have such wonderful loving parents. Our Dad worked hard to provide for us and Mother gave us unconditional love. It is through both of them that my brothers and I have been able to reach the top of our professional fields and have strength of character and love for others. Both of my parents had a hard childhood in that Dad's mother died when he was five and my grandfather did not feel that he could raise Dad and his sister so he asked his brother and his wife to raise them with their six children. Mother's mother died when she was nine years old, in fact she and her siblings found her dead at the bottom of the porch steps when they returned from school. My grandfather was loving and did the best he could with eight children and gave my Mother such strength and love but she still missed her Mother's love. How lucky I have been to experience such unconditional love from my Mother in that "I could do no wrong in my Mother's eyes and heart." Ma Ma June's loving daughter, Diana