Baby gift for Wilder

I recently made this gift set for friends of ours that had a second little boy:

I made matching shirts for Wilder and his big brother using I2S Box Font, and added their names with Girls Have Secrets. You know what my secret is? This font is great for boys! Ha!

I couldn't decide if I should outline the letter in red and do name in blue, or vice versa. Decided to do one of each!

For the burp cloth I used this little monster design (from The Applique Club) and added his name with Behind These Hazel Eyes:

and the bib... well like Shepherd's bib when he was a baby, it is a bit of an inside joke from one dad to another. Both my husband and Wilder's dad enjoy James Bond movies (they record a podcast together in fact). This came up as a joke and had to be made into a reality.

This project was one where BX files saved the day! Can you imagine merging all this letter by letter, especially when you weren't sure what font to use in the first place?! I typed the phrase in Embrilliance, scrolled through several different fonts to decide which one I wanted to use (Covered by Your Grace), then once I picked it, I save the design as a PES file. Then I opened in Embird to get it sized exactly as I wanted (kept height the same but squashed the width to fit on the bib) and adjusted the pull compensation to thicken up the letters to stitch better on the terry bib. So fast and came out perfect!

You can see the little cutie wearing the bib on Tumblr

Baby Gifts

Here are a few baby gifts I haven't shared yet. First a set for baby Kylie:

 

Her grandma ordered this set requesting elephants and purple/aqua/gray color theme. Both elephants are from DBJJ's Roly Poly Elephant set.

For the hooded towel I used 8CP's Dancer to add her name. Her crib bedding has gray chevron so I was excited to find this ribbon!

and for the burp cloth I used EB's Chevron Circle Monogram, I thought it was a perfect pairing with the ribbon.

Here's burp cloth for Cruz:

I used I2S's Dino and Oscar font. I love this little wavy striped fabric :)

 And this burp cloth for Molly:

I used I2S's Jeremiah 29:11 add a name design, I added her name with Inspiration.

Not-so-recent Burp Cloths

I have been a busy girl in the embroidery world, but I'm having a hard time finding time for my blog!
I made these cute burp cloths a while back... I couldn't post pics immediately because they were gifts, and by the time it was safe, well... I just forgot! But I love each of them!
My favorite customer picks such cute designs for me to use on her orders :)
Joshua got Itch 2 Stitch's Sea Turtle Box, and I added his name with I2S's Jack and Jill.

Miller got Savvy Stitches Elephant holding balloon design, and I added the name with I2S's Razzle

and Asara got Embroidery Boutique's Tuscan alpha, and I added her name with 8CP's Southern Belle.

Sweet Monkey for Joshua

Here's a sweet little gift set I made for my friend who just had a baby boy:

The sweet monkey face design is one I got to test for my friend Amy who has just launched a new business! We've gotten to know each other through an applique group, and she also has been a tester for LP (which makes me confident she knows what makes a design excellent). But she graduated out of that to start digitizing herself! Both the 4x4 and 5x7 sizes of this face stitched beautifully. I expect great things from Amy in the future. For now you can find her on Etsy (her shop is Stitch Away Applique) an next week her site Stitch Away Applique should be active.
I added Joshua's name with I2S's Silly Monkey font.

For I know the plans I have for you

This is a 2-for-1 blog post! First the information about some special gifts:

A friend of mine recently had a baby. He is her fourth child and was a surprise :) I wanted to encourage my friend that even though little Luke wasn't planned by mom and dad, God certainly has plans for him! Isn't that great news we can rest in as parents?!

Another friend is expecting her third baby. They already have a boy and a girl, so they are keeping the gender of this one a surprise until delivery. But either way, they will name the baby Miller. Isn't that a neat concept?! So I made a similar set, using gender neutral colors.

Both sets use Itch 2 Stitch's Jeremiah 29:11 Add a Name design, and I added their names with I2S's Rockford.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now a little bit more behind the scenes story that might interest my embroidery friends.
We had an I2S customer struggling with her efforts to put this design on a burp cloth. Since at that moment I had not used the design yet, I decided to test it myself on a burp cloth. I'll be completely honest with you, when I opened the 4x4 design in my software I thought, hmmmm.... I would never choose to use this on a burp cloth. The text was simply too delicate for a thick item IMHO. But I did it anyway. I had no problems at all:

But when you compare the picture of the exact same design on a onesie, you can see what a difference there is between embroidering text on a thick burp cloth and knit onesie. I love the way this turned out with the blues and greens!

In relaying my thoughts to Cristy I told her this is a case where I as a customer would either opt to not use it on a burp cloth, or significantly fiddle with pull compensation in my software. Does that mean there is anything wrong with the original design? NO! I think sometimes we expect EVERY design to be perfect for EVERY situation. And that simply isn't always going to be the case. That's why I LOVE having software to manipulate designs to suit my particular situation.

BUT Cristy decided to go back and update this design, making the text bolder. :) So if you have previously purchased the Jeremiah 29:11 design, you can go back and download a new version! I tested it for her on Miller's set. This is the burp cloth:

and this is the onesie. Still a significant difference between the two items due to thickness, but maybe the design is a bit more versatile now.

Can I say how much I love this 2-for-1 deal?! I got to help trouble shoot with a customer getting her back on track for her own project, and I got to give a really special gift to two of my friends! Best of both worlds!! This huge baby boom going on in my world (FOURTEEN babies since March) has given me so many opportunities to play.

Why I love Embird, reason #919

I am not a digitizer. I've dabbled just enough to know I am going to leave that task in the hand of pros. So when a friend asks me to coordinate with a theme or fabric, I start hunting for good designs.
My friend initially asked what owl designs I had for a boy. I shared several of my favorite options. Then she showed me what fabric she was using. I knew I could piece together a really close match! What do you think?!

 I appliquéd the design on a large square of minky and shipped it off. My friend then pieced together the quilt top for her nephew:

The bulk of this design is from one owl, but I added wings from a second and feet from a third. I used so many Embird features... Splitting, rotating, removing stitches. I resized elements, adjusted pull compensation to make the width of all satin stitches the same. Then when I was done the whole thing was slightly too big. So, {gasp!} I did the unthinkable, I resized it all again! So pleased with how well Embird handled it, it turned out great.
(Also a quick shout out to technology. My friend is in Missouri. I was able to send screen shots of the embroidery design for approval, and then I snapped pics of different fabric combos messaging back and forth until we settled on a final decision. Sure, it would have been a bit easier in person, but technology makes it pretty easy to work together though separated by miles and miles!)

Then I worked through it all over again to create a smaller version for a burp cloth. Font is 8CP's Whoa Nelly.

I also put GG Designs' neck tie on a bib! Love this new chevron I bought at Appliqué Getaway!

Four-letter Monograms

When I found out my nephew was going to have two middle names I started playing with 4-letter monograms. I posted a preview of some ideas in an appliqué group, and received some additional suggestions, too. So I decided to try them all!

For simplicity I used the same font for all of these and picked 8CP's Riddles.  I was looking for a classic looking font for a boy, something more on the tall side, and satin in 1, 2, and 3".  This one fit the bill!
First just 4 initials in a row as they appear in his name

Then a stacked monogram, where the first three initials are about 1" tall and the last initial is 3" tall.

Someone suggested putting the three little initials inside the C. That wouldn't work with every monogram though :)

Another suggestion was put the three little initials horizontally across the larger last initial

I tried an extension of the traditional three letter monogram with first initial on left, the two middle initials on the right, and a larger last initial in the middle. This one simply has the middle initials stacked

And this has them kind of nestled together

It was fun to come up with these options and stitch out samples on functional burp cloths for my nephew. (These were colored cloth diapers I bought over four years ago when my son was an infant but I didn't use them all for him, and they have been sitting here waiting for this project since then.)
I still can't settle on a favorite, what do you think??
But here's the funny thing... They plan to call Ezekiel "Zeke" and there isn't a Z on these anywhere! Ha!

Recent Monogramming

We have had more than our fair share of stormy weather the last few weeks! I haven't accomplished much other than some straightforward monogramming. And I apologize in advance for the lackluster photos...

In general I really like the Natural Circle monogram, but the left D bugs me. I've used it before for Dashiell, but now that he is older he probably would not accept the backwards D. The O actually looks more like a D, so I cobbled together my own mockup of a modified D and asked Itch 2 Stitch if she could create an alternative. I love the results!!

Tracy bought this cute dress and asked me to monogram it. She picked 8CP's Tinker Toy. It looks super cute on her!

Stripes make me nervous, so to insure I didn't get it crooked I stitched a line on stabilizer, then attached the dress with spray adhesive and pins, lining up a stripe on the dress.

Worked as well as possible!

Katie made these adorable A-line dresses and asked me to monogram them.

On the blue striped seersucker I used 8CP's Monogram 3

And on the gray dot I used Katelyn's Kreative Stitches' Elegant Monogram

When Brooks was a baby his grandmother asked me to monogram a blanket purchased at the hospital, and now that little Caden is here I have monogrammed his, too, using 8CP's Jane Doe

At Caden's baby shower, one of the hostess's mom had monogrammed several little items for a bunting on the mantle, such a cute decoration! His grandma bought 2 matching polos for big brother Brooks and asked me to monogram them to match. I used Jolson's Hobo Mini font.

And finally a burp cloth using Appliqué Momma's Sports Patch Design and 8CP's College Block Small. Had to get a touch of applique in this post! :)