Bubble Buckies for the Birthday Girl

My niece turned two last week. When I asked if there was any special theme for her celebration, her mommy said that Gabriella really liked Bubble Guppies. It's amazing how fast you can get out of the realm of toddler shows because I know nothing about Bubble Guppies, ha! But I had a cute mermaid design in my stash, so I put together this for her to wear. Once completed, when Gabriella saw it she exclaimed "Bubble Buckies!" so apparently it was a win!

The applique 2 is from Happytown's Swanky Numbers Applique set. The mermaid cutie was from The Applique Club, and I added her name with DBJJ's Ruby font. Using Embrilliance Essentials it was so easy to remove hidden stitches from the overlapped appliques and curve the text around the 2.

Applique Monogrammed Tank Top

A little friend of mine had a birthday party today. This is the most last minute gift I think I have ever made... I hit start on my machine at 1:05 and party started at 2:00 :) It had to be sweet and simple, so I picked a one fabric applique (her initial) with her name!

I used I2S Wacky Applique font for the A. This is a really chunky font that shows off the fabric. I've had this cute fabric sitting in my stash for a while, just waiting to be used for a little girl who LOVES pink! I added her name with Jelly Bean.

Monogrammed Beach Towels

My daughter's two special friends both had birthdays recently. It's growing challenging coming up with new ideas for these girls.... We've done so many things over the past 7 years! This year we opted for monogrammed beach towels and sunglasses cases:

I used the 3.5" size of I2S One Thing for the towels:

And the 1" size for their names on the sunglasses cases:

Preschool Graduation!

Thumbs up, this boy is almost done with preschool!!

Tonight night was Dashiell's preschool program, and included in that was a brief graduation ceremony for the VPK classes. In honor of that, I made him this shirt, very similar to the one I made Annaliese five years ago.

The monogram is Five Star Font's Diploma~Graduation Monogram. The rest of the text uses the font “Hog Bold HMK” which is the font from the school logo on their t-shirts and bags.

Oh boy, does this kid have personality! He was quite entertaining to watch tonight from start to finish! Not a shy bone in his body... it helped keep me from getting super sentimental and emotional at the program because I was laughing. Or mouthing "STAND STILL!" ;)

It wasn't until I was home comparing pictures that I got teary... Isn't this amazing? They sure do look alike!
We love Timberlane Preschool!!

Baby gift for Wilder

I recently made this gift set for friends of ours that had a second little boy:

I made matching shirts for Wilder and his big brother using I2S Box Font, and added their names with Girls Have Secrets. You know what my secret is? This font is great for boys! Ha!

I couldn't decide if I should outline the letter in red and do name in blue, or vice versa. Decided to do one of each!

For the burp cloth I used this little monster design (from The Applique Club) and added his name with Behind These Hazel Eyes:

and the bib... well like Shepherd's bib when he was a baby, it is a bit of an inside joke from one dad to another. Both my husband and Wilder's dad enjoy James Bond movies (they record a podcast together in fact). This came up as a joke and had to be made into a reality.

This project was one where BX files saved the day! Can you imagine merging all this letter by letter, especially when you weren't sure what font to use in the first place?! I typed the phrase in Embrilliance, scrolled through several different fonts to decide which one I wanted to use (Covered by Your Grace), then once I picked it, I save the design as a PES file. Then I opened in Embird to get it sized exactly as I wanted (kept height the same but squashed the width to fit on the bib) and adjusted the pull compensation to thicken up the letters to stitch better on the terry bib. So fast and came out perfect!

You can see the little cutie wearing the bib on Tumblr

Monogramming for myself!

Big news at The Itch 2 Stitch... Fancy Circle has had a facelift! Lots of changes to the files, but the two most significant changes were altering the size of the right letters, and adjusting the fill settings for the large sizes. I'm super excited about it and was anxious to put it to use! I monogrammed a couple items for myself to show the differences between the 4.5" and 5.5" sizes. I used the 4.5" size on this bag sitting in my stash. At this size the font is completely satin stitch!! (Previously there were small sections of the center letter that had a split satin stitch.)

Isn't it gorgeous?!

For one of my coverups I used the 5.5" size. It features a split satin for most of the letter.

Equally pretty!

I've got a sweatshirt waiting for a jumbo monogram... I might try a double hooping project using the 6.5" size! We shall see... ;)

SODA-lighted you were my teacher! (Take 3)

For the last two years I've made can koozies for teacher appreciation week, and they have been so well received I did it again:

This year I used I2S Fancy Circle Small (the 2.5" size) on the koozies. The little SODA-lighted tag is a free printable I found last year on the Tammy Mitchell Designs blog. I love the little play on words sort of appreciation gifts. :)
Ms. Snyder is a big Phillies baseball fan, so I used blue and red and baseball ribbon:

 For Mrs. Williams I used this cute owl ribbon that has been in my stash forever waiting to be used on a Springwood Owl project, and paired it with a pink koozie:

 They were a hit!

Home is where your mom is

For Mother's Day this year I made cards for our moms:

I just love this "HOME is where your MOM is" design from I2S. And I love the sentiment! Even though we have lived in FL for nearly nine years, Central IL will always be home. My in-laws are still living in the same house they were in when my husband and I started dating, and that quickly became a second home to me. And although my parents moved out of state after retirement, their new house feels like home to me none-the-less... because MOM is there!

To attach the designs to notecards, I did the following:

-- I hooped tearaway and used spray adhesive to secure my woven fabric to the stabilizer.

-- I created a rectangle the size of the notecard and used that as my tackdown stitch (I actually put two in my 6x10 hoop)

-- Then I stitched out the design in the center of that rectangle.

--I removed the hoop from the machine and taped the notecard to the backside of the hoop inside the stitched rectangle.
--Then I stitched a triple bean stitch rectangle that was inside the outer rectangle by 1/4".

--I removed the stabilizer, trimmed the fabric to be the size of the notecard, and then frayed the edges.

I've used a similar technique before on other cards.

C is for Cherri!

This week was teacher appreciation week at our preschool, and as our gift to Ms Cherri I appliqued one more apron! We had done a sock monkey with a pumpkin for fall, and then a sock monkey with a snowman for winter, so this time I made a general one that could be worn the rest of the school year: C is for Cherri!

I like how this turned out! The C applique is from DBJJ's Sock Monkey Alphabet and I added the text with their newest font, Ruby.