Another Pillow Case for Annaliese

Recently I monogrammed another pillow case for Annaliese:

This is the 5x7 Paisley Frame from 8 Claws and a Paw, and I love it!!  I added her name with the Bethany font, also from 8CP.

Monogramming around the house

Yesterday I stitched some of the new frames from 8 Claws and a Paw.
First I monogrammed some hand towels for my kids.

On Annaliese's towel I used the Swirl Five 4x4 Frame and the Elle font. I picked the colors to match the monkey accessories in their bathroom.

On Dashiell's towel I used the same font and a similar frame (Swirl Four 4x4 Frame), it just doesn't have the extra decorative satin stitching.

I also monogrammed a pillowcase for Annaliese:

I used the Applique Swirl Frame and added her name with the Chez font. She picked the fabric (not my first choice, as usual) and we negotiated on the thread colors. :)

Mermaid Pillow

Kristen asked if I had any mermaid designs to make a cover for a throw pillow for Madison. I showed her Kenzie's shirt, which she said was perfect, so I got to work.

Madison's side of her new bedroom will be decorated with these adorable wall stickers:

Annaliese helped me pick the fabrics to match. She did a good job because Madison loved the hair! :) The mermaid applique design is from Embroidery Boutique. I added her name with Embird Alphabet #7.

Adrian's Pillowcase... finally...

When I posted pictures of Hudson's pillowcase, my aunt immediately asked if I had more of that sports fabric to make one for her grandson. Of course I did not have enough left for a full-sized pillowcase, so I went on a hunt for great sports fabric. Adrian is really into soccer, so this is the final result. Let me show the pictures first, and then the saga:



I searched a couple stores, and decided on this soccer ball print, and bought my supplies, following the directions given on Crafty Chic. I sent Linda a few font options, and we settled on one that had a very sporty look. It was big enough that his name didn't fit within one hooping, but I figured I could rehoop and get it all lined up just fine. I added soccer ball designs to either side of his name and got started. This is when the learning process began...

First of all, LESSON LEARNED, test stitch free alphabets, even from sources that have produced nice designs before. This particular alphabet did not stitch well at all! It puckered like crazy, parts of letters didn't line up, it was a disaster. I should have stopped stitching after the first couple letters, but since I had already constructed the entire pillowcase and was basically on the last step, I decided to let it play out. Even though the first half didn't look very good, I was actually crazy enough to try to rehoop and finish the name. You can see from the picture that I did not get it lined up very well. I went ahead and completed the pillowcase, then included it with a load of laundry to see what it looked like afterward. I was pretty disappointed with the results. SIGH. I'm sure it's good enough to sleep on, but I would be embarrassed for someone to say, "Janay made that!"
Click picture for enlarged view of embroidery disaster:

So I decided to start over. I figured it would take just as long to rip out seams to reuse the fabric than to just buy more and start over. This time, I picked a font I was confident would stitch well (Embird Alphabet #8), fit it all in one hooping, and stitched the name on the band BEFORE constructing the pillowcase. And instead of doing french seams, I used my overlock stitch to prevent unraveling on the inside. It went together so much more smoothly!! Even though it was annoying to botch up the first pillowcase, I'm glad I went through this learning process. Now I feel much more confident about doing pillowcases. And the bonus is that Adrian gets two pillowcases for the price of one. Now I'm just waiting for Annaliese to start requesting them...

Happy Birthday, Madison!

Madison's 5th birthday party was today. When I asked her mom for gift ideas, she suggested a pillowcase dress similar to Abby and Anna's dresses. Currently Madison's favorite colors are turquoise, purple, green and pink, so I went on a hunt to find fabric in one or more of those colors. I found a pretty sparkly striped material with those four colors and felt like I'd hit the jackpot!

For the monogram I used the Dot Alphabet from Julia's Needle Designs). This alphabet is not originally designed as an applique letter, but I was afraid the dots would get lost among the stripes. So I reworked the design to add some tack-down stitches and used purple material to help the dots stand out.

Here is Madison in her dress on her birthday!

Happy Birthday, Hudson!

Little Hudson also turns one today. When I asked his mommy if she had any requests, she mentioned wanting a travel pillow with a personalized pillowcase. I went on a quick hunt for a pillow and case... the two places I stopped were out (of course), so I bought a pillow form and headed home to make my own case! I knew I had great sports fabric in my stash, and thankfully I had enough coordinating fabrics to complete the pillowcase.

I embroidered his name using the Wiggles Alphabet from 8 Claws and a Paw.

To construct the pillowcase, I sort of followed the fantastic directions given on Crafty Chic. Obviously I had to make adjustments since this pillow is only 12"x16" instead of a standard size. This was my first pillowcase, and first time doing french seams. Overall I'm pretty pleased!

Abby and Anna's pillowcase dresses

This morning I was delighted to have the opportunity to see both Abby and Anna in their coordinating pillowcase dresses. They looked beautiful together! Their glowing tans after a week at the beach was stunning under the soft pastel colors. What precious girls!
Close-up of Anna's A
Close-up of Abby's A

Pillowcase Dress for Abby

One of my best friends, Jenny, was in town Monday night. Her daughter Anna is about 5 months younger than Annaliese. We decided to give her the pink pillowcase dress, and it looked PRECIOUS on her. Today I made a coordinating one for her big sister Abby. When they get done vacationing in Jacksonville, they will swing back by Tallahassee to pick it up. I hope to snap a quick picture of them together before they continue their trek home. Here's an unmodeled preview:

Pilllowcase Dress

Here's my first pillowcase dress! I pretty much followed the EZ 2 Make pattern. Next time I'll use wide bias tape (the narrow was hard to work with), and I'll make the dress longer. But pretty good for my first try, especially since I made the pillowcase before starting!
Although I was unsure about placement, I did decide to put this "A" up near the top of the dress. I like the location, but in the end I'm not thrilled with my thread selection -- I wish I had used something other than white for the satin stitch part of the A so it would be more visible. Oh well...
Click on the image for an enlarged view.

Pillowcases

Today was the last Sunday of the quarter for our Bible classes at church. As a gift for my three faithful students in the 4k-1st grade class, I embroidered pillowcases with our most recent memory verse:

This was my first project with a digitized font from Embird. I picked one of the redwork fonts so that it wouldn't have as high of a stitch count as other satin stitch fonts would. I used tear-away stabilizer, so now it's simply the stitching on the pillowcase. I'll be interested to find out how it looks after use and several washings...