Awesome Mom!!

Mother's Day is approaching, and I've received several newsletters from embroidery sites having sales on their Mother's Day designs. When I saw the advertisement for the "Crafty Mama Sale" at Urban Threads, I knew immediately what Dashiell wanted to get me for Mother's Day. He's only 2 so he doesn't understand gift giving, but if he did, and he had access to embroidery design sites and knew how to use my embroidery machine, I am confident he would have made this for me. So I did it on his behalf. :)

When he saw it he said, "You Super Mom? You fly?"

The Awesome Mom design is from Urban Threads.

 You know I love and adore applique, but there was something very nice about just grabbing six spools of thread and whipping this out without agonizing over which five fabrics to choose! And I love the sketchy look of the outline stitches. It's intentionally not perfectly lined up, and adds to the character of the comic style art.

 It happens so rarely, but it was nice to do something for myself. :)

Burp Cloths for baby boys

We had two baby showers at church this weekend. Michelle requested the baseball monogram from Five Star Fonts for Brooks because his daddy is a big softball/baseball fan. I used Embird Alphabet #8 for all the text.

It turned out so cute that we used the same monogram for William! I just love this ribbon and thread color combination. (I used the stacking font from FSF that comes with this baseball monogram for his name.)

My shower gifts for both families will come later!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter from my family to yours!

Well, Happy Easter from most of my family. I promise he's not grumpy about wearing a pink and purple tie. He was upset about being told where to stand. :)
Last year I went a bit crazy and made a reversible A-line and JonJon set for my kids. I decided "never again" and tried to simplify this year! Annaliese's dress is reversible, but reversible pillowcase dresses are SO much easier! I got this fabric for something crazy like $1/yard when Walmart got rid of it's fabric department. I knew I would use it for a spring dress! I didn't exactly follow a pattern; I referred to this tutorial, but used Martha Pullen's method of construction.

 The applique Circle Monogram Alpha is from Planet Applique.

I picked that 3-letter monogram because I knew I had a small version of it that I could use on the American Girl sized dress as well as Dashiell's tie. (It was a freebie on Sew Forum several years ago, but is no longer available.) And no pattern for this dress, I just grabbed some rough measurements from a nightgown we have for the AG doll and made up my own thing. It worked out... should have made a template of that first. OOPS!

Dashiell's tie shirt uses one of my absolute favorite designs, the Neck Tie Applique from GG Designs. SO simple, but just the perfect proportions, and I love that the tackdown stitches for the knot are separate from the rest of the tie so you can rotate the stripe or plaid. (If you own an embroidery machine, you need this design. And while you are there, check out that pic of baby Dashiell! My how he's grown.)

Ok, hope you aren't tired of pictures, now on to side TWO! I've had this butterfly material in my stash for a long time. I got it for free, and can't remember who gave it to me. I've been trying to use this for two years now! I couldn't figure out what to applique on it, and told Annaliese I was considering leaving it blank since it was busy enough on it's own. She looked at me like I was absurd. So to humor her I searched my fabric stash to see if I had anything that matched. I found some scraps from a quilt that I've had for years that was PERFECT.

I quickly settled on Embroidery Boutique's Vintage Applique Alphabet when I discovered it had a small size as well as the regular 4x4 and 5x7 sizes. This has become my new go-to font for making matching items for girls and dolls!

No modeled pictures yet, I was pressing my luck this morning and have a feeling I'd be met with a grumpy face if I asked her to pose for me again. Check back later here or on facebook.

Bunny Shirts (not Stitched by Janay)

Ok, I didn't make these but I want to show them off anyway! These are Stitched by Grandma Kathy. :)

Kathy used the bunny designs from Lynnie Pinnie. Aren't they so cute?!? Dashiell got the Bunny Boy Applique:

Annaliese got the Bunny Girl Applique:

One of the reasons I LOVE Lynnie Pinnie designs is because of her wide satin stitches. This worked to our advantage because Kathy was able to shrink down the 4x4 size and put it on this shirt for Annaliese's American Girl doll. It stitched beautifully!!

Kathy also made Annaliese and her doll matching hair clippies. She used DigiStitches' Snap Clip Mini Bunny.

I love having talented moms. They help out when I don't have time to make holiday wear for my own kids, or by making curtains or quilts... All things I long to do, but don't take the time for. Thanks Kathy!

(Ok, less than 48 hours to go and all I've done is cut out the material for Annaliese's reversible pillowcase dress. Here's hoping D naps today so I can get the embroidery done!)

Burp Cloth

Michelle requested this burp cloth -- I think we've used this alphabet at least three times now. Love this little monkey! :)  The design is from the Monkey Shines Applique Alphabet Uppercase set sold on OregonPatchWorks. I added "Sean" with Embird Alphabet #2.

Nerdy Ribbon Blanket, take 2!

When big brother Torin was born, I made a special one-of-a-kind superhero ribbon blanket for him. Now two years later little brother Nolan has arrived and needs his own special one-of-a-kind superhero ribbon blanket!
You've seen these designs already -- after digitizing them I first stitched them on some burp cloths that I sent to Jason and Anna before Nolan's birth.  I ran out of time to get the blanket made before he was born, and now over a month later it's done!

I used flannel for the front - I almost leaped with joy when I finally found gray flannel locally! :) I used white minkee on the back:

Here are close-ups of the applique designs. These are actually a bit bigger than the designs I did on the burp cloths, which made them easier to trim out.

I would love to see the boys together with their blankets, but alas, they live hundreds and hundreds of miles away, so I'll have to wait for a picture. :)

Little Sibling Bibs

Recently 8 Claws and a Paw Embroidery released some new sibling designs that I think are cute! I decided to stitch the "I'm the Little Brother" and "I'm the Little Sister" designs on bibs from my stash:

Since I didn't have specific recipients in mind, I decided to make the big elephant yellow -- it will be good for any baby, whether the baby has a big sister or a big brother. I think it would be super cute to use pink or purple in the case of a big sister and blue or green in the case of a big brother.

I also have the "I'm the Big Brother" and "I'm the Big Sister" designs. They would look really cute on a tote bag for the new big sibling to take to the hospital on a first visit! Hmmm... that's a great idea I had while sitting here blogging. Maybe I'll just do that. :)

Promote Your Brand with Adorable Kids!

My husband recently started working for Onyx Group. Last week he got his hands on the digitized logo and sent it my way. I was anxious to test stitch the design, so guess who got a new t-shirt!!

(Special thanks to Sarah for letting me use this picture!)
The embroidery design is actually the pocket logo for adult shirts, but it looks great centered on a 2T shirt!

The Onyx shirts also include a tiny version of their signature dot on the back below the collar, so I added that to Dashiell's shirt, too.

I took Dashiell by the office wearing his new shirt -- he was quite the hit. Everyone loved seeing a 2 year old wear their brand. :)  While there I confirmed that it was alright for me to play around with the design and another idea, because I knew what was next...
When Annaliese saw Dashiell's shirt, her first question was, "Where did he get that?" It was quickly followed up with, "I want one, too!"
I felt like for a size 7 shirt though, the logo was too small to be centered and too big to be in the pocket area. So I decided to create an applique design of the Onyx dot and use the already-digitized name in the center, just like their logo:

 We were all pleased with the results!

And here they both are, showing off the back:

 

Now I just need to be sure they have Daddy's business card in their pocket so when someone asks, "What is Onyx?" they can whip one out. :)

Recreating a logo

Recently I was asked to add embroidery to a Build-A-Bear shirt for someone trying to recreate a particular outfit. I was up for the challenge, so she gave me the BAB shirt as well as the shirt with the logo I was going to imitate. It turned out to be a pretty quick project! I used Embird alphabet #16 for the word Angel. It's not exactly the same font, but very close. I digitized the little halo to go on the A.

After I delivered the shirt, I learned the story behind the bear and his outfit, which brought tears to my eyes. This little project quickly became one of my all-time favorites. I am very blessed to be able to work on custom items that are meaningful to the recipient.