My first in-hoop project

This little Snowbaby is a design from The Embroidery Market. It's a fun easy project. I bought all the supplies (fleece and stuffing) and stitched it out today. As an added experiment, I added an "A" to the heart to personalize it for Annaliese. She loved it and took it to bed with her. It's tiny in her hands now, but for a baby it would be perfect. Should be completely washer/dryer safe. It's nice to have one to experiment with before giving away.
The things I learned...
1. Use felt for face (as called for in the directions) instead of fleece. The extra thickness was difficult to trim, and caused some stitching errors around the head.
2. Don't use Jokerman font for a single letter monogram. The letter A standing alone looks as though the embroidery machine did a poor job stitching--you can't tell that it's from a funky font.

What went wrong here?

Well, this evening I had a less than perfect outcome on the first thing my husband has asked me to embroider...
Kathy had previously digitized and embroidered Carlin's Stormspeed Entertainment logo (the Torbolt) on a pair of shorts. Those shorts need to retire, so we purchased a new pair. Tonight I added the logo to the new ones:

At a distance it looks fine, but up close is another story. Click to see a larger image:

So what happened to make the satin stitching around it be all extra loopy? Wrong stabilizer on the bottom?? Do I need a different needle for this type of material?? I guess I should have asked for help BEFORE stitching it than after. I just didn't think it would do this...

Happy 4th of July!

I watched Gideon today, and was able to snap this cute picture of Gideon and Annaliese in their 4th of July outfits! How cute...

Current Quilting Project

Right now I am in the midst of making a keepsake quilt for Ella. Her mommy Carla wanted to use fabric from her nursery theme:

We came up with this design to allow for large squares of the focus fabric and have a scrappy look to it. I have all the blocks pieced, and for the most part all the rows completed. I need to do some embroidery work on the lower right block. Then I'll stitch the rows together, add borders and it will be ready to quilt!

First Burp Cloth!

Last week a friend loaned me a burp cloth she had purchased at a boutique. It was great -- minkee on one side and terry cloth on the other. I traced the outline of it to make a pattern... I like the shape of it.
So today I made my first Burp Cloth. I used flannel -- embroidery on the top layer, but it's three layers all together. Certainly could look more polished, but I'm satisfied with my first try.
As far as the design...I got the idea from a post on Sew Forum (the expectant mom is a teacher). The apple came from Embroidery Market and I added the text with a font on my machine.

More Toddler Towels

Annaliese loves her "Princess" toddler towel that I made at the beginning of May. It has been a challenge to tackle daily swim lessons and baths the last two weeks with only one towel! So today I made this one. Her swimsuit is pink with white polka dots, so it will coordinate well. The alphabet (Casual Dot) was a freebie at Ann the Gran. Sigh... her crazy long name... it took 22 minutes to stitch that out!


The second one... I was commissioned by Jan to make a toddler towel for her granddaughter, after seeing the ones I made for Bryce and Devin. I took the crown from the design I used on Annaliese's, and used my newly purchased Curlz alphabet in Embird to do the lettering.

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

A Case of "The Tank Tops are Too LONG"

Yesterday I made two bandana dresses. One is a Fourth of July dress for Ella, 2.5 yrs old. I took a 2T tank top and used red and blue bandanas to make the dress. Quick simple project, right?

Well, what I didn't pay attention to is how LONG the tank top was. When poor Ella put it on, the waistline was a good 2-3 inches too low. That's significant on a little girl! So this evening I cut the skirt off, trimmed off about 2" off the shirt, and sewed it back on. To cover all my stitching, I added navy ribbon (which has red accents you can't see in the picture). It turned out beautifully and now fits Ella perfectly! She wasn't too thrilled with the idea of getting her picture taken at that moment, but cooperated!



Now I'll have to tackle the second one I made yesterday... It was for Keeley's 2nd birthday party. I used a 24 month tank top for her, pink and purple bandanas, and embroidered her initial on the tank.

Thought it looked precious, until her mommy held it up to her -- I think it might touch the floor if she were to wear it as is!! Since Ella's modification worked, I need to get this dress back to fix...

Matching FlipFlop outfits

On Sunday I also embroidered the flip flops on tank tops for Kylie and Kenzie. Please note their adorable hairbows (which perfectly match the embroidery thread and stripes on the shorts) that Valerie made -- Annaliese now has a matching bow, too! It's nice to have crafty friends to do trades with! Some day soon we'll get a pic with all three girls together.