Seriously BIG Applique Name Pillow

I have only made a couple of appliqué name pillows (Kylie and Kenzie). I've wanted to do one for Annaliese but joked that hers would be the size of a body pillow since her name is so long, ha!
Then I realized she had a sad, OLD body pillow on her bed that could use a facelift. Or replacement!! So for Christmas I surprised her with a new body pillow!

I bought this super soft pillow cover at Walmart. They didn't have a lot of color options, but this worked perfectly with the current quilt on her bed. While I would have loved to use nine different fabrics, the reality is a) I would never be able to decide on nine different fabrics, and b) my mom made this quilt as a high school graduation gift for me (ahem, 20, yes TWENTY!! years ago) so nothing in my fabric stash was really going to work anyway. I did however have this one perfect fabric that had all four colors from the quilt incorporated in it, so it won!

Next I had to pick a font. I wanted something with some curls and whimsy. I wanted lowercase letters. I wanted the A to be at least 6" tall. And I wanted zig zag stitch because frankly I WAS OUT OF TIME. I started this after 8pm on December 23. Not so smart for a Christmas gift. :) But Embroidery Boutique's Swirly Applique Alphabet fit the bill! So I got to work.

First I merged it all together in Embird. Thirty-three inches wide! I intentionally placed the letters at varying heights so I didn't have to worry about precise placement on this multihooping project.

Then I saved the design in four 6x10 hoopings: An - na - lie - se. I printed templates, taped them together and laid it on the pillow. Here's an in progress picture after two hoopings:

If I were to do this project again, I would take out the side seam on the pillow and then sew it back up. But I really wanted to get to work and wasn't sure I had the time to mess with that. So I did all four hoopings by turning the pillowcase inside out and stitching through the zipper opening on one end. (I should have gotten a picture of that!) A magnified version of doing a onesie, but with LOTS of extra bulk. :)

I did use three different thread colors for the zig zag stitch. And one thing I did to save myself some headache... I waited and trimmed the letters after the zig zag was done. I had such a hard time getting the hoop on in the first place that I didn't want to mess with taking it off and on. So I had to trim carefully to not snip the zig zag stitch. Thankfully the plush factor of the minky-like pillowcase is very forgiving.

 

And I'll admit it was NOT fun removing the tearaway on the inside. I wish my 6x10 hoop gripped polymesh better, it just doesn't stay taut for some reason.
But it was all worth it because her reaction was priceless. It was one of her favorite gifts!

I don't think anyone could pay me enough to do this again. But as an embroidery friend pointed out, surely I'd do it again for Annaliese. :) If she wants a new one someday with new bedding, I'm sure she could talk me into it. But not anytime soon!!

School Spirit Shirt for a New Teacher

A friend of mine is starting her first year of teaching elementary school, and requested a shirt to show some spirit! Her school colors are red and black, and they are the Bulldogs:

I used the Cade Applique Alphabet from Embroidery Boutique. I love this zig zag font! It resizes well, even when I have to squish it to make it fit in my 10" hoop. I increased the pull compensation to make up for the resizing and got to work!
(Am I the only one who has trouble photographing red/black items? I took at least 13 pics and had a hard time getting it in focus, not glowing, confetti dots to sparkle... this is as good as it gets!)

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. :)

Another Name Pillow

Since Kylie's name pillow turned out so well, I decided to make her little sister Kenzie one for her birthday, as well! However, I got it done late the night before her party and I'm just now discovering that I didn't get a very good picture of it... The colors are a bit off in this pic:

I picked a different font than Kylie's, wanting one that would fit in my 6x10 hoop without a lot of shrinking or skewing, and settled on Applique Momma's Anna Kate font.

I picked all the fabrics by looking at an iPhone picture of Kenzie's bedspread, and you would not believe how perfectly it coordinates -- I was SHOCKED!

Name Pillow

It's kind of getting hard to come up with gift ideas for one of my daughter's best friends... I've already made so many different things for Kylie! Since she had a slumber party for her birthday this year I decided to do my first applique name pillow:

I've seen lots of examples over the years, but most recently have been inspired by some posted by Lyn on 8CP's Facebook wall (here and here for example). I love flipping through fan albums on FB! Lyn graciously answered some questions for me about size of pillow and letters, and confirmed that if I merged all the letters in my 6x10 hoop I would end up with a good sized pillow. (If you want a detailed tutorial, she recommends the one from Kimberbell Kids.)
Kylie already has her name on her bedroom wall with wooden letters in the Tinker Toy font, so I selected the Dotty Applique Alphabet from Embroidery Boutique, using the zigzag finish for the quick stitch. All five letters fit in my 10" hoop perfectly! By the time I added a 2" pieced border around the center panel, I ended up with a 12x16" rectangle so I could use a pillow form instead of stuffing my own. Yay!

I selected the colors to coordinate with her bedding. I was excited to rediscover the aqua floral fabric in my stash which I also used for the back of the pillow. I constructed the back to have two overlapping panels so it would be easy to remove for washing if need be. (It also meant I didn't have to whip stitch an opening closed!) Here it is on her bed:

I enjoyed doing this. I've been interested in trying it, but not anxious to tackle one for Annaliese -- her pillow will probably be two feet long! Ha! Alas, now that Kylie has one, I'm sure she's going to ask me sooner or later...

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!!

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. :)