Sibling Shirts

My friend asked me to make shirts for her kids to wear to announce their exciting news... they are expecting a third! But the cat got let out of the bag before the shirts were finished. :) Thankfully we had already decided to just make them Big Sister and Big Brother shirts so they can be worn once the baby arrives.

I started with Embroitique's Big Sister design and added Charlotte's name with 8CP's High 5.

For Carl's shirt, I merged together "brother" as well, because I haven't purchased the brother version from Embroitque. ;)  Merging it myself allowed me to extend brother across the bottom farther, and then since Carl's name is shorter than Charlotte's it didn't have as big of a space to fill. I thought it all worked out rather nice.

Sibling Shirt Sets

Here are a couple of recent sibling shirt sets I have done. First for my niece and new nephew:

The Big Sister and Little Mister designs are both from Embroitique. I added their names with 8CP's High 5

 And this set was for a friend back home:

They may look familiar, but actually it's my first time using this exact set... MCA's VINTAGE sibling set. I love the look and the quick stitchout of vintage applique letters, I'm so excited she released this version! I added their name with MCA's Angelina.

Sister Shirts

Michelle ordered this set of sibling shirts for her granddaughters, so sweet!

These designs are from The Itch 2 Stitch.
I am the BIG sister (Michelle liked the fabric/thread combo in the sample pic so that's what I used)

and I am the lil sister (we swapped colors)

Sibling Shirts

When Kaz arrives he will make Kendal a big sister.  I used this as an opportunity to try out a new set of sibling designs from Original Stitches!

I debated for quite some time what fabric I should use. I finally settled on good ole gingham, and love the results!
Big Sister design in pinks and gray:

And Little Brother design in blues and gray:

Welcoming Baby Caden

Caden's grandmother has been keeping me busy! Baby shower was today, so now I can show my work:

First, a set of sibling shirts:

The big brother and little brother patches are both from Applique Momma. I added their name with Jolson's Architect. I think I have finally figured out a fabric/thread/font combo that I LOVE with this design. Yay!

Matching monogrammed shirts using 8CP's Baseball Stitch Applique alphabet (oh, and the bib, too!)

And a couple burp cloths. I was told to do whatever I wanted, so I used it as an opportunity to finally use some cute designs that have been sitting in my stash! The Puppy Patch is from Applique Cafe -- isn't this precious?! I added his name with 8CP's Bobby.

And MCA's Jungle Jungle Applique Alphabet. Looking forward to using this again in larger sizes!

Whew! Add to that an additional burp cloth from Michelle, and I did a lot of sewing for little Caden recently. THEN I had to come up with my own gift. EKK! What's left?? Well, I'll save that for a separate blog post. :)
Michelle requested 8CP's Split Banner Applique Font

Welcoming Baby Landon

I know at least NINE families expecting babies at the moment, so you will be seeing several posts about baby shower gifts in the next few months. First up, baby Landon! His arrival will make Peyton a big sister, so I took this as an opportunity to use new-to-me sibling designs:

Aren't these so cute?! As I was merging together designs similar to my last sibling set, an embroidery friend of mine showed off pictures of her most recent project. I stopped in my tracks and changed plans!

The Big Sister and Little Mister designs are both from Embroitique. Embroidery friends, if you purchase the designs, I'd appreciate if you would use those specific links when you add them to your cart! :)
I was super excited when I scrolled through my 8CP font images that I found High 5 was a perfect match to add their names! Peyton loves purple, so I was excited to use these Riley Blake chevrons, purple/orange for her and aqua/orange for him.

I have never used Embroitique designs before, so I don't know if this is her typical style or not, but the applique words on these were digitized in a unique manner. Instead of treating it as three separate letters, it was one whole object. It was intriguing to watch the pathing on the whole thing -- there weren't any jumps going from outside the letter to the holes in "big". The only reason I mention this is in case you happen to be stitching one of these on a little inside-out 3-6 month onesie that you are holding open with your fingers... beware that the needle may not follow the path you expect. ;) 

I also did this burp cloth, using Lynnie Pinnie's Little Cutie Space Explorer Boy. I was testing it for LP and intentionally decided to not use the Buzz Lightyear white/purple/green color scheme to show how versatile the design could be. Out of this world adorable!

Gifts for a new baby girl

Friends of ours just had a baby girl, which makes PJ a big brother! I wanted to send sibling shirts, and they were willing to be surprised, so I took it as an opportunity to try something new. I love how these turned out:

I love MCA Applique's sibling designs and have used them a couple of times, but I wanted to try the same concept with different fonts. I used Embroidery Boutique's Cade Applique font for BRO and SIS. I love the zig zag version of this font, it's my go-to pick when creating applique words. I added the rest of the text with 8CP's Bobby font.
I bought these Riley Blake dot prints specifically thinking about using them for sibling designs!

I also included a bib and burp cloth set:

I looked through all of my applique fonts to find a pretty P, and picked EB's Swirly applique. Then I started searching through the over 600 fonts I have on my 8CP CD, and was thrilled to discover that Harvey is based on the same font!! Woo-hoo!

Big Sister to be

I was recently asked to make a shirt for a little girl to wear while visiting extended family to announce some big news... she's going to be a big sister!

When the mom mentioned her daughter was really into elephants, I knew exactly which design to use, the elephant pair in Designs by JuJu's Roly Poly Elephants set. I used Embird Alphabet #7 for the first line, and 8CP's Dancer for Big Sister.

UPDATED 1/20/13:
Concurrent to the above project, another friend asked for a Big Sister reveal shirt. BUT my poor friend Brittany has been so sick that there was no way they could keep the pregnancy a secret to reveal at Thanksgiving and the news got out. We lost the urgency and making a "big sis to be" shirt got pushed to the back burner. That turned out to be ok because last weekend they found out the baby is a boy, so I was able to make the little elephant blue on Kendal's shirt! :) Same design, different color scheme, so cute!

Someone is going to be a Big Brother!

No, no, no, not Dashiell. After I typed that subject line I realized it might be misleading.

Friends of ours are expecting baby #2, and asked me to help them announce their news. I love projects like this! The new baby will make Zachary a big brother. Pamela had a specific vision -- plaid applique circle with "Big Bro" embroidered inside and name below -- and I was happy to deliver. Now that they have shared pictures of Zac in his new shirt to announce their news to friends, I can share it on my blog:

It took me a few attempts to pick the perfect font. We wanted something easy to read, definitely for a boy, but not babyish, and bold enough to show up well on top of a print. The Pops font from 8 Claws and a Paw fit the bill! I really like this font, stitched beautifully!

Personalized Gifts for an Unnamed Baby?

So what do you do when you attend a shower, and the parents haven't decided on a name for their baby yet? You improvise! :)
An easy solution for a baby boy gift idea is a sports themed item using their last name! I used Lynnie Pinnie's Football Helmet design in FSU colors, and added the last name with College Block Small from 8CP.

The other thing I wanted to make for the Evers family was sibling shirts. I started with big sister Kate, who loves purple:

I used my new Box Font from The Itch to Stitch and added the text with Gadzooks from 8CP.

For little unnamed brother, I printed a template of the design and pinned it to a onesie with the fabrics I plan to use. I love this little chevron print, and it will look good with the aqua blue for little brother!

UPDATE:
Little brother Mason has arrived! I'm anxious to see them in their matching shirts. :)

Sibling Shirts, Fireman and Princess style!

A friend of mine just had a baby girl last week. Here are the sibling shirts I made for her:

I love these sibling designs from MCA Applique. After using them on a recent set I knew I wanted to give them a go again, but with different little add-ons to personalize it even further. Jonathan is WAY into firefighters. And I heard through the grapevine that my friend is decorating Emily's nursery with a princess theme. So I contacted Melissa at MCA to see if she was interested in digitizing a fire helmet and crown to include in her "toppers" series. Boy did she deliver, and fast!! Don't hesitate to ask a digitizer if you have an idea -- they may run with it faster than you can search for a decent alternative! Thank you again Melissa, they turned out awesome!!

Jonathan's design has the Fireman's Hat merged on top. I used MCA's Angelina font to add his name.

Emily's design has the Princess Crown merged on top. And notice I used the same fabric? I've been anxious to try this fabric on a boy/girl sibling set, pulling out the blue for the boy and the pink for the girl. I think it works!

Sibling Shirts

Ann asked me to make a set of sibling shirts for her niece who has two boys and a new baby girl. She gave me freedom to do what I wanted, so I took the opportunity to finally use MCA Applique's Big/Lil Bro/Sis design set. Every.Single.Time I see these designs in use by other embroiderers I fall in love with it all over again!

The designs come with "lil'" and "big" already there, and you can purchase MCA's Angelina font to add the names. However, 8 Claws and a Paw has it's own version of this same font (Thin Lizzy), so I personally didn't purchase MCA's, but used what I already owned. A quick word of caution... 8CP's version is thin (hence the name!) so if you want the thickness of the name to match the thickness in MCA's design, you'll need to adjust the pull compensation in your software with 8CP's, or buy MCA's.
The siblings designs don't come with extra little add ons. MCA sells several applique designs appropriate for that so you can truly customize the shirts for each sibling set. However I was looking for some sort of critter that was appropriate for a 6 year old boy and I settled on Applique Momma's Bug Mini design for the boys and the Ladybug Mini for Alexis. They turned out pretty cute!

Two sets of Sibling Shirts

One of the benefits to giving a gift certificate at a baby shower is that big brother can have a say in his special shirt. In this case, big brother was VERY concerned that his little brother didn't have any camo yet, so Miss Janay remedied that. ;)

I used the Cooper Applique font from 8 Claws and a Paw for their first initials, and added the text with Embird Alphabet #8

This set was another shower gift that Nicole requested. At the time of the shower the mom wasn't 100% sure of the baby's name, so we just did big sister's shirt, and included swatches of the fabrics with a gift certificate for baby brother:

The sibling designs are from Applique Momma. This is the zig zag 5" size of the Big Sister design. I added Peyton's name with Embird alphabet #8.

 And now that little brother has a name, I have completed his onesie -- put this on a newborn size without ripping out the side seam! Yes, I'm crazy.

This is the zig zag 4" size of the Little Brother design.

Such a sweet set, I love these Fabric Finders Tri-checks!!