First Day of School

Today is Annaliese's first day of Kindergarten! She is so excited!!

Annaliese received some back to school clothing items from her grandmothers (which I'll post pictures of later this week on our family blog). And in the end, I'm pretty sure that Annaliese will prefer those items. But I really wanted her first day of school shirt to be made by me! :)
Back in the fall when I bought the designs for Annaliese's NOEL shirt and FARM shirt from Sew Many Designs, I also bought this SCHOOL design. Kathy helped me out by digitizing the rest of the text using the font First Grader.

I picked a light brown heather shirt from my stash and brown thread to match a skirt she already had.

I know it may seem like a lot of work for something dated, but I'm sure she'll wear it more than just today (she wore her First Airplane Trip shirt a ton). AND I know eventually her shirts will be put into a quilt, so I like having it dated for that reason. Not that I have to justify myself to you. Just explaining my thinking. :)

Now I'm off to boo-hoo with some friends.

Having a HOOT!

Ok, this requires a bit of a story. For Annaliese's birthday she got to go to Build-A-Bear for the first time, and made April the Panda, dressed in a ballerina outfit. In June we made a return trip for a new outfit, beach gear. Recently she said she wanted to go back and get regular clothes. We decided to take Annaliese on a surprise trip to Build-A-Bear before school starts. Now, once we got inside she started to get distracted by the Disney Princess costumes, the pajamas and robes... but I was on a mission to find a "regular" outfit. Sadly she is already at the point that if I suggest something she immediately comes up with reasons NOT to do it, so I had to find something "perfect" that I could convince her to choose. When I saw this shirt:

I knew it was the one. Cute because it was pink and purple, and it would be a great back-to-school outfit for April because it has an owl on it (Annaliese's school mascot). I also enthusiastically told her I already had a purple shirt and a new owl design so I could make her a matching shirt. That cinched it! We got the shirt, a matching pink corduroy skirt, back pack and tennis shoes.

We get home, I grab Annaliese's shirt (which is actually lavender) and head to my computer to show her the owl design. It doesn't actually match as well as I remembered. Annaliese and I tried to figure out how to incorporate the stripes at the bottom. I came up with a solution and she was satisfied...

... but I wasn't. I decided to go all out and try to match it as exactly as I could by digitizing my own applique owl! I did it all myself! (Except for the feet -- I realized this morning that I forgot to do those and knew Annaliese would point out they were missing, so I borrowed them from another owl design.) I finished digitizing it last night, and this morning I bought a new shirt that was a closer match than the lavender one.

Are you still with me? Ready to see???

This is the most complicated applique design I've digitized so far, and overall I'm pretty pleased. On this shirt I'm most disappointed with the lettering... I don't know why the text at the top didn't turn out as nicely as usual. Oh well. I used Embird Alphabets #38 and #8.

Annaliese was excited to see the final product. She didn't know I had worked on a different owl design that matched exactly. She's all set to wear this on the second day of school, but was willing to try it on quickly so I could take a picture and blog. How accommodating. :)


Side note:
April's Having a Hoot Shirt: $6
Annaliese's Having a Hoot Shirt: $3.50 + lots of labor :)
April's pink skirt: $6
Annaliese's pink skirt: under $3 on clearance last year.
April's tennis shoes: $8
Annaliese's tennis shoes (after BOGO at Payless) $7.50

Hmmmmm... does that seem right to you??
Annaliese's backpack did cost more. Her's was $10, April's was only $5. :)

Ring Bearer Pillow and Flower Girl Baskets

Melanie asked me to make a ring bearer pillow and monogram flower girl baskets for the wedding of a family friend. The colors are salmon and brown, and this is what we came up with. I used Embird Alphabet #38 for all the text. I made the pillow out of taffeta, adding satin ribbon.


The flower girl baskets were purchased at Michaels. I did the embroidery on satin ribbon and attached it to the baskets.

I hope the bride was pleased!

The ever-changing dress

Last summer my mom wanted to make a twirl dress for Annaliese. She found a cute sundress at Walmart, chopped the bottom off and added two really full ruffles of purchased material to the bottom. Annaliese LOVED it.

Annaliese has grown like crazy since last year and the dress was too short. Plenty big around, but the bodice was too high and the bottom of the dress was above her knee. So I decided to chop off the bodice, create a waistband and make it a skirt. Now it hangs below her knee and she can continue to enjoy it. Of course she needed a coordinating shirt, so I asked Mom to send me scraps from the ruffle material and I appliqued a flower.

The flower design is from the Bloomin' Applique set from Designs by JuJu.

Here's my pretty girl, all ready for kindergarten orientation!

Recent stitching...

Here are several items I've monogrammed in the last week or so...

Kristen asked me to monogram Madison's backpack. Thanks to her request, I learned that Old Navy had cute backpacks, and immediately ran to get Annaliese's! Madison chose Embird Alphabet #38 for her name:


Susie and Lisa requested that I monogram this blanket for Ellie, who is starting her freshman year at UF. I used the Elle alphabet from 8 Paws and a Claw.


Melanie requested matching cups for her daughters. Jailyn got a Playtex sippy cup and Jayla got a water bottle. The "J" is Deco Alphabet from Designed by Jane and their names are stitched with Harrington from 8 Paws and a Claw.



Her son Jaeson got this onesie (I digitized the star, used Embird Alphabet #8 for text):

JR's backpack

When Daisha updated their family blog with pictures of JR's first day of school, I realized I had never posted a picture of the patch I had stitched for her.

Now, JR is not starting kindergarten like Annaliese. He's pursuing a Masters of Divinity at Harding Graduate School of Religion. As a surprise gift, Daisha asked me to make a big patch that she would later attach on whatever backpack he picked. Here's what I stitched, per her request, knowing that JR would LOVE it. (I bought a new alphabet for the occasion, this is Embird Alphabet #30.)

If you'd like to know more about the statement, check out JR's blog, Keep Thou My Feet, I'm not getting into a theological debate here. :) Although I will say that Annaliese kept asking me what it said and what it meant -- she just didn't get it. Daisha and I both reassured her that JR loves Jesus. You know, it's like the song, "Oh, how I love Jesus, because he first loved me!"

Here's a picture of the patch now in place on JR's bag:

Annaliese's backpack

Yesterday I monogrammed Annaliese's backpack and made a little accessory. (Cole is on an owl stitching spree this week and inspired me to use a design I bought a long time ago but hadn't stitched yet. Do you have these in your stash, or do I actually have an owl that you don't??)

I stitched her three-letter monogram with Action Font from 8 Paws and a Claw.

Her elementary school's mascot is an owl and their school colors are aqua and white, so I stitched out this little softy for her to attach to her back pack. Whooty is from DigiStitches and comes in various sizes. I stitched the smallest; this picture should show it's actual size.

Now Annaliese wants a bigger one to sleep with! Maybe a "night before Kindergarten" gift, if I can get my act together.

A Project Five Years in the Making

Well, really it only took me two hours from start (idea) to finish (shirt). But the reason for this shirt has been five years in the making...

Today my daughter got her long hair cut off for the first time, and donated it to Locks of Love. I stitched this shirt for her to commemorate the event!

The applique numbers are from GG Designs' Chubby Wubby Applique Numbers. I love this sequins material -- isn't it neat?!? (Thanks to Kathy, I have it in about 15 different colors.) The Locks of Love Logo uses the font "First Grader", so I asked Kathy to digitize the text for me (I did the little heart in Love).

And now what you really care about...

BEFORE

AFTER

Gifts for Baby and Big Sis

One of Carlin's coworkers recently had a baby. The office threw a shower for her earlier, but since they were keeping the gender a surprise, I waited until after the baby was born to make a personalized gift. Now that we know she's a girl, I made matching shirts for baby Amery and big sister Leah:

The "L" and "A" are from Embroidery Boutique's Vintage Applique Alphabet. I stitched their names with my newly acquired Itty Bitty Alphabet from 8 Claws and a Paw. I LOVE this alphabet, and imagine it will become one of my standards. It's much like Tinker Toy but with a touch of whimsy.


I also stitched this burp cloth. The lovely monogram is Empire font from Embroidery Arts.