My gift for Baby Torin

As I reminded you a couple days ago, mid-March my friends Jason and Anna enlisted my help to announce their big news. We used the Gaelic phrase "Ag teacht gan mhoill" which means "coming soon" (stitched with Embird alphabet #37) and a shamrock (from Stitchery Mall). I stitched this design on eight onesies that they shipped out to all their family reveal their secret.

As I was doing that project, I knew immediately one item I was going to make as a baby gift once their child was born. I asked our mutual friend Daryl to help me translate the phrase "I have arrived" into Gaelic/Irish. He pointed to me to a forum, http://www.irishgaelictranslator.com/. I got my translation within a matter of minutes, and then it was just a matter of waiting for the actual birthdate. Thankfully little Torin decided to arrive just in the nick of time, so that the onesie could still say October!


Not my typical onesie design, but certainly unique and meaningful to the parents.

The other part of their gift is a creation I'm quite proud of. Jason requested something comic book nerdy that wouldn't be found anywhere else. Avoiding the three big-named superheros, he suggested three other lesser-known characters (I threw in a fourth to complete my idea). I got to work creating my own designs.
For Christmas I got Studio, the digitizing portion of the Embird software program. I've used it some, but haven't spent a lot of time playing with it yet. Following a tutorial I figured out how to make applique designs, and created these four different blocks all by myself!!

The front is four applique blocks using flannel and satin, the back is white minkee. I used an assortment of satin and grosgrain ribbons around the edges.

And here are close-ups of the blocks.




This is another unique, one-of-a-kind gift! I love doing this stuff!