Fall, er... wait, make that a Spring Dress!

Who says brown can't be a spring color?!

I bought this dress for Annaliese back in SEPTEMBER with every intention of making a lovely fall dress for her. Pumpkins, acorns, leaves, I don't know, but something with lots of yellows and oranges. But we had such a hot fall here in FL that it didn't get really get cool enough for long sleeves until a week before Thanksgiving, and by that time I was not going to invest my time in a fall dress anymore. I spent another month or so debating what sort of little winter character I could use with pinks and reds that could be used for Christmas and beyond... but that didn't ever happen either.
Inspired by this pretty floral fabric that happened to have a touch of brown in the print, I decided to go spring! We picked EB's Swirly for her initial on the bodice of the dress:

And used the applique flower that is in the January design set from the Applique Club:

Whew, we are done! And thankfully even though this girl seems to be getting taller everyday, this dress is still a fantastic length for her. Maybe, just maybe it will still fit next fall! And flowers bloom year round here, so it will always be in season, right?!

Sweet and simple monogrammed dress

Way back at the beginning of the year when I bought some Monag dresses I got a red one in Annaliese's size, planning to use it this winter for Christmas. However she has gotten quite tall (I just had to buy size 10 jeans for her yesterday, where did my baby go??) and I knew the Monag dress would be too short without legging underneath. By the time I got around to buying some, I decided to shoot for a winter theme instead of Christmas. I happened upon these cute leggings at Gymboree. With the snowflakes and hearts it's perfect for wearing December-February (and beyond if it's cool enough)!
My creative juices were running dry, so I used it as an opportunity to give 8CP's Jingle font a try. I plucked the snowflakes off one of LP's "Little Hoops" designs and the hearts off of LP's Simple Hearts on a Clothesline design to scatter around as a frame.
Sweet and simple!

IF I had waited a few weeks longer, I would have used this new design from Original Stitches, which would have been PERFECT! I may just have to find a shirt to match these leggings and give it a go!

For this child I have prayed

God has done a mighty work in the lives of my brother and sister-in-law! The existence of my niece is a testimony to the power of prayer. 1 Samuel 1:27 is printed on the wall above her crib, so when I saw this new design from Lynnie Pinnie, I knew immediately I would use it on a project for Gabriella.

Her name was digitized for me using the font Mister Giggles. Here is a close up of the 1 Samuel 1:27 design, isn't it lovely?

This little romper dress has been in my stash forever. Annaliese received it as a baby gift over eight years ago. I can't recall if she ever wore it, but I always hung on to it, so sweet and simple. I decided this was the time to upcycle and hand down. :)
Can't wait to see a picture of Gabriella in it!

(and if my other baby niece is thinking, "hey, what about me?" someday an unexpected surprise will arrive in your mailbox, too.)

Ready to cheer on the Noles!

This weekend I made a cute little bandana dress for an even cuter little girl! When Brittany saw Annaliese's Seminoles skirt, she wanted something similar for Kendal. I used every bit of that fabric, but I knew I still had some FSU bandanas in my stash and could make her a dress like I did for Annaliese a few years ago. It turned out so cute!!

On the bodice, I used the Vintage Split Football Design from East Coast Applique. I added her name with College Block Small from 8 Claws and a Paw.

While I'm sharing this design, let me also show you the Split Tennis Ball design.  I tested this for ECA using yellow fleece and it turned out so cute!

I put it on a hand-me-down onesie that has a sweet yellow trim. This upcycle item is ready for a new home. Any tennis fans with a baby girl in the family? :)

NINE letter applique name :)

I finally did it! I made an applique name dress for my daughter!!

I've been putting this off for a long time since her name has NINE letters. I wanted to do it early in the spring on this Monag dress, but Annaliese wasn't interested. Which was fine, I was a touch nervous. So when she said she wanted an applique name on this sundress from last summer's WM clearance ($5!!) I jumped on the opportunity.

I used Embroidery Boutique's Cade Applique Alphabet (zig zag version) with a lot of design editing. Not that there is anything that needs to be fixed, EB designs are awesome! But I had to significantly squish the letters to get her name to fit in my hoop. I reduced the width to 53% but height stayed 100%. That's why I love zig zag applique fonts, they are pretty forgiving. If you look up close the stitches are closer together on the horizontal parts and spread out on the vertical, but using a matching thread it's really not noticeable.

In addition to resizing the letters, I overlapped them as well. I decided to remove the overlapped stitches within my software. I didn't change the placement and tackdown stitches, that's too much work. :) Just deleted the zig zags.
To accomplish this, I watched it stitch out in sew simulator. When it got to the part where the stitches started to go under the previous letter, I hit pause, then split. Continue running sew simulator and just before the point where the letters no longer overlap, split again. Then I deleted the little section I had cut out. Thankfully about halfway through I remembered that in Embird if you hide colors from view, it skips them while in sew simulator mode. That made the process a lot faster by the time I got to the last overlaps I was trying to delete!
In the end I'm not sure it was worth the effort since it's a zigzag design, but it definitely would be for satin stitches. It didn't take too horribly long, and since it's my daughter's name, it's quite possible I'll use the design again. ...But then again, you know my love for fonts and variety. Ha!

Since they are zig zag letters I knew the tackdown stitch would show, so I wanted matching threads on each one. To save myself from tons and tons of thread changes, I did each letter in it's entirety before moving on to the next, starting with the "e" and working back to the "A".

Machine said it had a 17 minute stitch time (woo hoo zig zag stitches!!) but I clocked it, it took me 42 minutes. :)  Not only is it nine letters cut around, but four of them had little holes I had to trim away as well! WHEW! You have NO idea how thrilled I was to be done and let out a sigh of relief that it was on there straight and centered!

And look at the happy girl!! Makes it all worthwhile. :)

Birds of a Feather Sundress

At the end of last summer I grabbed some of these cute sundresses for Annaliese in the next size when they were on clearance. I used one of them this week:

I was fascinated by Hang To Dry's "Birds of a Feather" design and wanted to give it a go. I think Crissie's turned out so much cuter, it looks great on white! Still not sure what I think about it on this turquoise....
The design is 3 rows of birds, but I was limited by the space on the bodice, so I deleted the third line. This light airy design made it easy to fill the space on that dress even with the gathered waistband.

I wanted something big on the bottom, so I used Lynnie Pinnie's Simple Bird. But since the flock of birds at the top was finished with a triple bean stitch, I didn't want the thick satin stitches on LP's bird. So I simply used her tackdown stitches and left it raggy. I merged it with a line from the HTD design, but it doesn't really show up well as Annaliese wears the dress.

Annaliese helped me pick all the fabrics for this. Once we selected the stripe for the large bird, I let her pick the nine fabrics for the little birds from my scraps. And I mean scraps! These birds are tiny and don't require much fabric at all!! I did use a layer of white felt under them to help the color pop and not be dulled out by the dark background.

Two more dresses... a pink and a purple. I need to figure out what to put on them ASAP!

Monag!

Ok peeps, true confession time. I'm coming up on five years of doing custom embroidery, and until last month I had never used a Monag item. Embarrassing, right?? I have a tax ID number and could apply for a wholesale account, but I don't have the upfront money or storage space to buy in bulk, so I just don't. Until my friend Nicole put in a request for an empire waist knit dress and I started doing research. I found someone destashing dresses on Applique Forum for a decent price and decided to buy a few. Then I found a matching long sleeved shirt at Studio MCA and got to work!
Nicole wanted applique name items for her kids. I used the Cade Applique Alphabet from Embroidery Boutique. I had to do some resizing to get the names to fit in my hoop, but that's why zig zag fonts are perfect for these projects!

The kids looked so cute together a couple weeks ago at church!

I also got a pink dress for my daughter. I really wanted to do an applique name for her, but she just wanted an A. I should be grateful instead of disappointed -- one letter is easier than nine! :) We picked Lynnie Pinnie's Applique Swirl font.

So after working on these three items, I'm "sold". Monag is a fantastic brand for embroidery work. Someday when I go big time :) I will use them exclusively. Until then, I've got four red long sleeved empire dresses in my stash (size 2, 4, 6, 8) and will order from resellers like Studio MCA. Top notch customer service!!

Jump rope anyone?

I loved to jump rope when I was little. I remember doing "Jump Rope for Heart" events in elementary school. So when I saw this design, I just loved it. Thankfully Annaliese did, too, so we put it on a little sundress for her!

This is the 5x7 size of the Jump Rope Girl Applique from Lynnie Pinnie:

 

This dress had been sitting around for several weeks. We had another design picked out (fabrics selected and everything) but I had been busy filling orders and hadn't gotten to it yet. So glad I waited, this is precious. Annaliese loves it!

Proud of their Uncle!

My brother recently graduated from the Marine Corps Bootcamp. In honor of that I made these outfits for my kids to show how proud they are of Uncle Brice!

Annaliese's dress was made following the T-shirt dress tutorial from Just Deanna. I took a navy t-shirt, chopped it off, did the embroidery work, then attached the skirt. I purchased the Marine material at Hobby Lobby (it can also be found online). The ruffle material was in my stash from the Bargello Flag quilt I made several years ago.

I used a roomy shirt and made the skirt long, so she should get to wear it for a couple years.

I used Embird Alphabet #7 for "Proud Niece of a" and Alphabet #16 for "US MARINE".

Annaliese's dress took me about 3 hours to make; Dashiell's outfit was done in about 15 minutes... embroidery on a onesie, khakis were already in his drawer. :)


Here are a couple close-up shots:


Brice heads out for infantry school this week, so please keep him in your prayers!!

Monogramming for Kaitlyn

Kaitlyn is a blessed little girl -- she has a grandma who sews for her! Momma Marcy asked if I could add her monogram and name to a couple items, like I did for her first birthday dress and some other baby items.
Grandma made this beautiful eyelet dress; my photo does NOT do it justice! Marcy wanted Kaitlyn's three-letter monogram added to it using the Empire Monogram Font from Embroidery Arts. It's always a little nerve-wracking to stitch on an item I can't replace... :)

Kaitlyn will get to visit Disney next week. Grandma and Mommy already collaborated on this shirt to add the mouse head and trim -- I simply stitched her name, using the Walt font from 8 Claws and a Paw.

Monogrammed Dresses

When Valerie ordered the spring dresses for her girls, she also ordered these Double Lettuce Edge Empire Short Sleeve Dresses from Dharma Trading.

We spent quite a bit of time looking through fonts to create these monograms. You'd think it would be easy, but J's and T's are weird -- if they look like J's and T's, they are boring, and if they are pretty, you can't tell what letters you are looking at. J's often look like I's, T's often look like J's... so annoying. Trust me, I know. I share the three same letters in my monogram as these girls, and I rarely stitch anything for myself because I can't find fonts I like. But these turned out pretty cute and I'll have to remember it for myself someday! We settled on the Carrington font from 8 Paws and a Claw:

Spring Dresses

Valerie ordered a couple Short Sleeve Ruffle Dresses from Dharma Trading for me to applique designs on for her girls for spring time. The girls spent some time looking through my blog to come up with ideas, and then we got together to develop a plan.
Kenzie knew right away what she wanted -- a unicorn, pink body, purple hair, gold horn. That was easy!

The unicorn is from the Pretty Ponies applique set from Designs by JuJu.

Kylie had lots of ideas, so we spent time together on my laptop looking at designs. I completely understand -- it's hard to pick sometimes! She settled on these hearts:

Also from Designs by JuJu, this design is from the Simply Hearts Applique set. She selected these fabrics from my stash of pinks and reds.

Anxious to see them on the girls. Maybe pictures will be posted on Facebook later...

Baby Girl Gift Set

When Kristen found out her brother and his wife were expecting a baby girl, she requested this set (which got shipped just a couple days before she was born!)

The initial inspiration was a similar set I had stitched earlier for baby Peyton -- since her niece will be called Lily, she wanted to go with a floral motif. I used the Flower Power monogram from Julia's Needle Design. "Lily" was added with the font "Amazone BT" digitized for me by Kathy.

For the bib I stitched her name using the same font, and used the flowers from the monogram.

Kristen also wanted an A-line dress, primarily for the other side (which you'll see in a minute). I knew Hobby Lobby had material that matched this ribbon, so Kathy graciously purchased some for me and mailed it my way (we don't have a Hobby Lobby close by, sniff, sniff). I stitched her name again on the dress, using the same font. It's a tad more subtle than I would have liked, but it's still pretty. It is a Martha Pullen reversible A-line size 1.


Kristen's brother is a huge University of Miami fan, so she wanted a little dress for Lily that would display some team spirit!

The fringe cheerleader on megaphone design is from Nobbie Neez Kids. I added "Daddy's Little Hurricane" with Embird Alphabet #8.