Applique Name Shirts

Ok, I've been doing machine embroidery for nearly four years, and this is the first time I have made applique name shirts. I'm always intrigued by them, but since my kids are named Annaliese and Dashiell (9 and 8 letters!!) I haven't tackled them yet. :) And having no samples posted on my blog means nobody has asked me to make one... until now! Carla asked me to make applique name shirts for her kids, Ella and Grant. What perfect names to start with, only 4 and 5 letters!
Now, even though I own a TON of applique fonts, I wanted something with a zig zag finish and would have the right proportions to fit across a youth shirt. Not finding anything *quite* right in my stash, I used this as an excuse to buy a new font. (Well, fonts; more on that in a moment.) I debated for a couple days and eventually chose the Cade Applique Alphabet from Embroidery Boutique. It came highly recommended for projects like this and I have never been disappointed with a single thing from EB. I'm so pleased with my choice -- here they are!

Ella's name is PERFECT for this project -- short AND has two lowercase L's!! I used the 4" letters as is.

This is a picture of the floral fabric Carla send for me to use:

 When I laid it across my computer screen to see what parts of the fabric would show up in the letters, there was a lot of white space. So instead of just laying down one big chunk of fabric, I "fussy cut" areas with flowers clustered together and used those for each individual letter. It took more time, but I really like the bright, vibrant results!

Grant's name is longer (extra letter, and wider letters at that) so I used the 3" letters, and still had to resize it to get it to fit in my hoop. I was very pleased with how well it stitched!

 The overall scattered baseball motif worked well as is, so I tacked down all the letters at the same time. Stitching time on this was super fast, it's trimming all those letters... :) That's another reason I like this Cade Alphabet -- it's a sans serif font, so no extra little parts to trim around.

I LOVE how these turned out. Now I'm anxious to make some for my kids. Before Christmas Lynnie Pinnie released an adorable Mini Applique Alphabet. I have this font and "Annaliese" fits in my hoop without resizing, I've just lacked the motivation to do it, until now! I just need to find a good set of applique fabrics to use and I am going to get it done. If you don't hear from me regarding this issue in a month, get on me about it. :)

PS -- After I made my decision and bought the Cade alphabet, two of the other fonts that were highly recommended for this kind of project were on sale 60% off for 12 hours, how could I pass them up?? So I've also added Applique Momma's Anna Kate and Emily fonts to my collection. :)