Louisa's first monogram

Last week Louisa brought me two tote bags to monogram for her. When I offered to email her a few font options, she said, "You pick! I've never had anything monogrammed before." So I picked my current favorite, Monogram KK that I got from Sew Crazie Designs. They weren't the easiest things to hoop, but I was pleased with the final results:




(Tiffany, while they look like the bag you bought for your friend, this material and bag style was easier to manipulate in my machine. :) )

Matching Spring Attire for Easter Sunday

Back in the fall Carla and I ordered products from Dharma Trading to do embroidery for our kids. I had one short sleeved dress left, and needed to stitch on it before Annaliese out grows it. I decided that Easter was a good opportunity to use it, but didn't want designs that were holiday related. I went with a spring theme so that she could wear it often throughout the next few months. While helping me brainstorm, Kathy suggested some beautiful flowers from Carolyn Designs. We decided that it would be pretty to scatter several along the bottom of the skirt and put a smaller design on the bodice of the dress. Here's what the final outcome looks like:


This was my first multi-hooping project. To achieve all the embroidery on the bottom, I printed templates for six different flowers and all the little creatures and laid them out on the bottom of skirt. Once I had them arranged the way I wanted, I merged designs within Embird to stitch it in 3 hoopings instead of 6-10. The orange and pink flowers with hummingbird and snail were in one hooping, the yellow and pink flowers w/butterfly were in a second hooping, and blue and purple flowers w/a snail were in a third hooping. I was a little nervous stitching the last set of designs, hoping I had placed everything well so petals of one didn't stitch on top of stems of another. I was thrilled with the results!
(Click to enlarge)

For the bodice I found 3 freebies on her site of flying creatures, so I merged them and stitched them in a fourth hooping.

So after four hoopings, 18500 stitches, fifteen colors, and 32 thread changes, it all got done Thursday night. When Annaliese saw it Friday morning she said, "OH MY! Can I wear it??" :)
I decided to make a matching shirt for myself. This morning I bought a new white top and stitched it all again. It's basically identical. I did switch thread colors in five places primarily for contrast reasons. I can tell when looking at them in person, but my close-up photos don't show a difference. I was afraid I would need to add an extra flower on each side of the design, but when I put it on, it looks fine.


My one regret about this project... When I ordered the romper for Naomi, I almost ordered this shirt for myself. Wouldn't that have been perfect?? Oh well. I like the style of this square neckline shirt, and I'll be wearing the shirt for years to come, while Annaliese only has a couple months in her dress.

Here we are Easter Sunday. Carlin held his breath long enough to take a picture of us in front of the lovely bushes at church. :)

More stitching for Ada

Well, would you believe baby Ada decided to enter the world less than 24 hours after I finished my gift to Sara? When I found out the news first thing this morning, I realized I needed to hustle on the order Sara had placed for additional monogrammed items!

Sara selected the Curly monogram (from Sew Forum) in navy on the white onesie:

She selected Embird Alphabet #38 in black for the "A" on a pink burp cloth:

And finally she picked monogram KK (from Sew Crazie Designs) in light pink for the heirloom bib (top material is 100% acetate):


While I was at it, I even stitched Ada's Special Delivery Onesie (design from Sew Terific). I hope to make a trip to the hospital tomorrow to meet Ada and deliver all the goodies!


Only one more delivery of boy twins, and then the current baby boom at church will be completed! Whew! :)

Remainder of Sara's Gift

As mentioned before, as of the date of Sara's baby shower they hadn't picked a name for their sweet girl, so I made a ribbon blankie and gave her a certificate for the rest. She hasn't delivered yet, but they have settled on a name, so I was able to finish her gift today.


The first burp cloth uses the dot monogram from Sew Forum. I added her name with Embird Alphabet #38. Since Sara is decorating her nursery with black/white toile and pink accents, I chose this color scheme.


Kime requested a "Daddy's Little Girl" burp cloth, so I used Alphabet #38 again for the text, and added paisley designs to go with the ribbon.

Ready for the Easter Egg Hunt!

Tomorrow morning is the Easter Egg Hunt at church. Annaliese had a pretty specific request for a shirt, and after several hours of searching high and low for what I wanted that was affordable, this is what we eventually agreed upon.

The design came from Applique for Kids. Annaliese picked yellow fleece for the chick and the purple fabric for the egg. I even let her pick the thread colors. We negotiated on one, but she specifically said, "I know you prefer that green, but I want this green." Ok, ok, it is her shirt, and it's just grass... :)


A neat unplanned bonus (and this happened with the unicorn shirt, too) is that one of the headbands that Amy made for Annaliese matches it perfectly, and before today she didn't have anything that coordinated well with it. Woo-hoo!

Custom Hooded Toddler Towels

Below are a couple of custom hooded toddler towels that friends have ordered recently. I followed the same pattern as before with one exception -- instead of a washcloth for the hood I used half of a hand towel. It makes the hood a little bigger, it was actually easier to construct, and it's more cost effective. I wish I had tried it sooner!

Stephanie requested one as a gift for Liam's first birthday. I use Embird Alphabet #33 for the text.



Jan called requesting a hooded towel for a co-worker who recently had a baby. It is my understanding that there are firefighters and paramedics in the family, so with those suggestions I came up with this design for the towel for Kenny G (the baby's nickname).


The fire tools and medical symbol came from the Stitchitize Designs that came with my Janome, and I added the text with Embird Alphabet #8. I really like the way this turned out and hope the new parents are pleased!

Something for us!

About three weeks ago I attempted to do something for Annaliese since she had the stomach bug -- I thought I would stitch a shirt for her to cheer her up. I bought this new-at-the-time applique set of ponies from Designs By JuJu. Annaliese helped me select which ponies she wanted, what fabric to use, etc. Then I sat down to stitch them. As I was stitching the basting stitch, I goofed and got the carriage out of alignment, rendering my machine unusable until I could get it repaired. ARG. Then I got a slew of orders before and after I got my machine repaired, so just last night I finally got to a point where I felt I could squeeze in something for my daughter! (Which I am sure is the primary reason Kathy gave me the machine in the first place...)
So here's her new pony shirt. Well, actually a unicorn in this case.


I also had planned to put a different pony on a pink striped shirt. Of course her first question this morning was "Where's the other shirt?" but I'm hesitant to stitch two long sleeved shirts now that it's March in FL... It's time to move to short sleeved shirts!

And while I was at it, I actually made something for myself! I've been meaning to stitch a water bottle koozie for myself since Kathy gave me some in... AUGUST. I had just enough time before bed last night to do it. I used the Whimsy Dot font from Five Star Fonts. I decided to try variegated thread for the big J, although it doesn't show up well in the picture. I'm not sure what I think about it... I'll probably stick to a solid colored outline in the future.

Ready for Opening Day!

Debby's grandkids are going to be ready to cheer on the Baltimore Orioles when baseball season starts later this month!


After posting the baseball monogram t-shirt I made a couple weeks ago, Kelli emailed me requesting a shirt for her daughter Rachel. Daisha quickly got in on the action, and after an exchange of emails and designs we had a set ready to go! I bought the t-shirts locally over the weekend and we ordered the romper for Naomi from Dharma Trading. It arrived this afternoon, so I immediately took it to the laundry room so I could embroider it and get this set complete. I wanted to see them all together before we have to ship Rachel's to Berlin.
Here are close-ups of the designs:




Aren't they precious? I just love this monogram set from Five Star Fonts.

I was also pleased with the little white romper dress. I was able to hoop it such that I only stitched through the "dress" layer, so the back side won't even rub up against her skin!
And FYI -- I ordered two rompers just in case I goofed up. Of course this design stitched perfectly, so I have an extra 3-month romper. I have no plans for it currently, so it's available if anyone is interested...

I can't wait to see the kiddos in their shirts!
UPDATE:
Here are pictures of Rachel in her shirt, and a slide show of Naomi and Gideon in theirs.

Barbara's Order

Barbara's co-worker has two bundles of joy joining her family soon as each of her daughters is having a baby girl! To honor this Barbara ordered baby gift sets.


The pink & green burp cloths are from a new monogram set I recently got. Whimsy Dot was digitized by Anita of Five Star Fonts. This is the first time I have stitched out a monogram from this set, and it is PRECIOUS! It may become my new standard...


The pink & purple burp cloths are from the Rhumba monogram set available on Judie's yahoo group Sew Crazie Designs.


One of these babies is making Emma (3.5 yrs old) a big sister, so Barbara also ordered this shirt for her. The text came from a free design posted on Sew Forum (no longer available), and the face is a combination of parts from a design set from Embroidery Library.


(oh, and there's nothing fancy to make those teeth shiny... just a bit of water-soluble stabilizer that is reflecting light. It will disappear upon the first washing.)

Baby Girl Gift Set

Sabrina ordered this sweet gift set for her cousin:

The monogram is "Rhumba", digitized by Judie of Sew Crazie Designs
and available on her yahoo group.

I had a bib the same color as the purple ribbon, so I reversed the thread colors for the bib:

I was even able to resize the name small enough to put on the pacifier clips!

Tammy's order -- Special Deliveries!

Tammy contacted me a couple weeks ago requesting a Special Delivery onesie to give as a baby gift. She warned me at the time that she would need two more in March. Well one came early, and one arrived on March 1! So I've stitched three of these for her in about 8 days!
I have depleted my supply of white onesies in my preferred brand, and they aren't available locally at the moment. So we decided to stitch these on blue and pink onesies. I LOVE they way they turned out -- they are my favorite yet!
(The design is from Sew Terific.)

Second Rag-Style Diaper Bag

I guess the best form of feedback is getting an order! In November Tori received the rag-style diaper bag that Melissa had ordered. After Christmas Tori told me that she liked it so much that she wanted to order one for a friend. I got it done this weekend and delivered it to Tori this morning.

Tori's friend had a boy, and his initials are ERG. Tori requested a blue bag, and these are the fabrics I picked.

For the monogram, I used the Elevation Monogram from My Embroidery Haven.

The inside features 7 different pockets to stash goodies, just like Tori's.