Christmas Placemats

Even though I adore our monogrammed placemats, my son (4 years old) complains often because his doesn't look like a D. Ha! So when I saw these new scribble designs from Embroidery Boutique, I decided to grab some red placemats and make a new set for our family to use during December.

I picked four different designs (all that use greenery) but selected the same fabric to keep them matching. The scribble designs are so fast and a cool look! I used HNBL for a crisper finish, but it's not required, a raggy finish would be neat, too. (And my friend Katie used the designs without fabric for some very elegant napkins, check it out here)
Annaliese and I might fight over this one... I think my favorite is the Scribble Whimsy Tree

Here's the Scribble Wreath

And Scribble Simple Tree

And finally Scribble Holly. Don't judge, this was my first one. Didn't use HNBL. Didn't trim quite as neatly as I should have, and DUH red berries are NOT going to show up on a red placemat. After testing this one Rachel did do a new version with applique berries that is really cute. I've bought a new placemat to try again with that design. :) I think using a redish fabric will provide enough contrast so they show up better. We'll see if I actually get to it before we decorate for Christmas...

Here they are all laid out on our little table, I like them!

So go check out EB's new scribble designs. On sale now! The product pictures show them beautifully stitched on shirts, but as you can see, they are very versatile designs!

Christmas towels

Recent testing for four of my favorite digitizers has generated a nice stash of Christmas towels here!

First up, Santa Hat alphabet from 8CP:

 I LOVE this paisley!

 Next, a couple versions of the Merry design from Embroidery Boutique. The larger sizes are appliqué, but this 4x4 size is filled:

 I did one version with two colors:

And another with five colors:

Flourish designs from Lynnie Pinnie. These are perfect for putting a monogram in, but I opted to use fabrics with a pretty motif:

This is the Christmas Ornament Flourish design

And the Christmas Tree Flourish design

 And finally (for now) a sweet Reindeer with Candy Cane from The Itch 2 Stitch

The shape of this little guy lent itself to a stay put towel! My daughter fell in love with it, so it will be staying at our house. :)

Edited to add:
I did two more in December (which was perfect because it rounded out my gifts to the preschool staff)

An I2S customer wanted the "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" in 4x4 size, so I tested that for Cristy before sending it on to the customer:

And I tested this pretty Snowflake Monogram on a towel for 8CP:

My First Christmas

A friend of mine just had a little girl, after already having three boys.  Don't you know she will be the princess of the family?! So when Lynnie Pinnie needed her holiday princess cuties tested, I knew my Disney-loving friend needed one. Isn't this cute?!

I used the 4x4 size of the Belle-like cutie and added the text with 8CP's Walt font.

I told LP that this should be a sign of how much faith I have in her fabulous designs... I "tested" this on a 0-3 month onesie on my single needle using a glitter sheet and metallic thread! If that's not a recipe for disaster, I don't know what is! ;) but of course it turned out perfecto!

Owl LOVE X 2

Long-time blog followers know that we love owls since it's our elementary school's mascot. :)
Last weekend my daughter's BFF at school had a birthday party, so obviously I was already considering a turquoise shirt with an owl design as our gift. What I didn't factor in was that by deciding to use a new-to-me design, I'd have to make one for my daughter, too, so they could match. Ahhhhh... girls. ;)
Today was Twin Day at school, so the timing was quite perfect!

The Owl LOVE design is from the Itch 2 Stitch. This colorful fabric was the inspiration for the color palette:

We selected 3 coordinating Ta Dots and used the print for the owl. My big hang up was thread colors. I didn't have a perfect dark purple, dark pink or .... whatever that green color is. I did have a good match for the lighter purple dot and lighter pink dot, but not for the green dots in the fabric, every thread I had was too bright. So I decided to shake things up a bit (this is very unlike me) and outline the letters with contrasting colors. WHOA! This is bright!

Can I be honest, I didn't exactly LOVE it. But Annaliese did and still begged me to make a second. I really did not want it to be identical, so we rearranged the fabrics and threads for the second version. Equally as bright!

I will confess though that I'm totally impressed with my fussy cutting fabric placement on the owls!! WOO HOO HOO! 

More fall designs...

I've shared some scarecrows and pumpkins already; here are a couple more fall projects before I move into turkeys :)
Dashiell's beloved preschool teacher loves sock monkeys. I have a few aprons for her that I'm going to do seasonal sock monkey designs on, and first up, one for fall!

I had to get my merge on for this project. Even though DBJJ has a harvest themed sock monkey set, it's not yet available in applique form. So I made up my own! I used a girl from the original Sock Monkey set and merged it on top of a pumpkin from the Harvest Patchwork set. I did quite a bit of editing to simplify (one fabric instead of five, delete some interior satin stitches and let the tackdowns provide detail) and remove the pumpkin stitches under the monkey. I love how this turned out!

I ordered a long sleeved brown shirt for Annaliese earlier in the year, and as long as we live in FL I don't think I'll do that again! By the time it got "cold" enough to wear long sleeves, most of fall is over! I'm hoping a sunflower can endure through the next few months better than wearing a pumpkin or turkey in January. ;)

The sunflower applique is from the Itch 2 Stitch, and I added her monogram with Natural Circle.
I really like this design. Only 2 fabrics, but the petals are outlined with two different colors so it adds a bit of variety, but not a nightmare to trim. :)

Pumpkin Shirts 2013

Yesterday we took a quick trip to a local pumpkin patch!

As of late, virtually all my projects have been centered around testing designs. I love doing that -- getting to pick my very own fabric combos before seeing what other embroiderers do. This project however is the exact opposite, ha! I saw a beautiful pumpkin shirt posted by an I2S customer on Facebook and fell in love -- could not get it out of my head! So I decided to borrow the idea for my kids. Please don't think less of me. :)

The pumpkin trio applique is from I2S. On Annaliese's I used I2S's Fancy Oval monogram and this chevron with purples:

 For Dashiell I used I2S's Natural Circle monogram with the aqua chevron:

I love how these turned out and I hope they still fit next year :)

Shirts for the Gulfarium

Last Sunday we took the kids to the Gulfarium in Fort Walton Beach. It was a beautiful day and a fun end to a busy weekend at Destin.

It also was a great excuse to make a shirt for my son that he had requested a while ago! When I received my copy of the "I Want It ALL!" CD from Designs by JuJu, he saw the shark design on the cover and asked for a shark shirt. I didn't do it right away... but at 10pm the night before we left for Destin. Ha!

He and Annaliese collaborated on this, picking the black/gray TaDot fabric since Annaliese's dolphin shirt used a TaDot print, as well. Without really noticing until I was done, the shark and dolphin are in basically the same position! Crazy, huh?

They had lots of fun and really enjoyed the dolphin show.

Happy Fall, Y'all!

This last week it FINALLY felt like fall here in FL. Time to share some cute shirts I've appliqued recently. Pumpkins and Turkeys to come in later posts... for now, how about these adorable scarecrows?!

Numerous I2S customers requested this design be modified for the 4x4 hoop and I jumped at the chance to test them because they were so cute, and I had great small-scale fabrics I wanted to put to use. :) Aren't these adorable?
Scarecrow Boy Happy Fall Y'all design -- I loved using this tiny argyle with the diamond patch on his hat:

and Scarecrow Girl Happy Fall Y'all design -- I've been so anxious to use this brown floral, I thought it was precious and perfect for fall designs!

I knew of two little babies whose grandmothers would probably snatch them right up... and I was right. :) I also made a matching shirt for big sister of one of the babies:

This design is definitely not for the faint at heart, but like many of my favorites, SO worth the effort!

Happy Fall, Y'all!

Awareness Raggy Patch Hats

This year I was unable to attend our local "Making Strides Against Breast Cancer" walk, but I was able to support a friend! Tarika asked if I could help her team by embroidering hats. She purchased the hats and I made a raggy patch for them that included her team name:

Special thanks to Rachel of EB who modified her free Awareness ribbon for me by converting it to a raggy design. I added the text "Demi Duos" (team name) using 8CP's Kayleigh, which was as close as a match I could find to the font that was printed on their team shirts last year.
I was able to get 6 of these in my 6x10 hoop, so I stitched them all first (hooped tearaway, 2 layers of flannel and one later of gingham on top, a layer of pink floated on the bottom)

Then trimmed them all out and fluffed them up:

Then glued them all down!

Here's a picture of the team from the event taken by the MSABC photographer, Ada Images and Designs (photo used with permission).

This was a fun project to work on and I was delighted to donate my time to a great cause!
However... I'm not really in the business of selling raggy patch hats, so if you are in the market for one, let me give a quick shout out to my friend, Tracy. She answered all my questions and gave me honest feedback when my first patch attempt was too big. :) Her hats are beautiful, click here to see my favorite posted on her fb page Naptime Craft Mommy!