Monogrammed Shopping Bag

This summer Publix had these shopping bags for sale. I love blue, and thought the pink/green/white circle pattern was cute! Plus the store logo is tiny and at the bottom. I just had to have one. Last week I finally monogrammed it for myself:

I used the Taylor font from Lynnie Pinnie. I've had this design set for a while, anxious to try it out but never taking the time to do so. I have seen some adorable sibling shirts using this font! It stitched beautifully. My name gets a little lost with the print of the bag so if I were to do it again, I'd probably just leave that off.


Funny story... for the first time ever yesterday I opened my purse as I was checking out at the grocery store and discovered I didn't have my wallet. Thankfully home was close by. The girl was able to suspend my order and I told her I'd be back in 10 minutes. She said, "That's right, you've got to come back for your bags!" :)

First Grade!!

I cannot believe the summer is over and a new school year has begun! Even though she doesn't need any new clothing right now, I just had to make something special for Annaliese's first day of FIRST GRADE!! :)

For whatever reason I could not get motivated to work on this until last week. I took the risk of asking for Annaliese's ideas... since we retired her apple shirt, she decided she wanted an apple on it. She has become quite the proficient reader (she read over 35 chapter books this summer!!) so I wanted to incorporate books as well. Lynnie Pinnie's School Books applique was perfect! I made one modification -- instead of stitching "MATH" and "READING" on the spines as it comes, I changed it to "FIRST GRADE". Kathy digitized it for me using... are you ready for this... the First Grader font. :)

I decided to embellish a pair of denim capris she already had. I snagged the apple off of the 4x4 design and stitched it above the hem of the left leg.

Here's my big girl, all ready for the first day of school!

Baby Shower Gift

Today Nicole (and big-sister-to-be Presley) got showered with love and baby gifts by family and sisters in Christ; here's my gift!
Back in March we had a shower for Amanda -- when Emeline opened her big sister shirt, Presley said to her grandmother, "Tell Janay that she needs to make me one!" :) So I've known for several months that I would make another sibling set. And I'm pretty sure best buddies Emeline and Presley are excited to have matching shirts!

The BIG SIS/LIL BRO designs are from Five Star Fonts.
For Presley's shirt, I used two different colors of the sequins material for the applique. Dawson's is a filled stitch design. I added their names below the sis/bro designs using the Montana font from 8 Claws and a Paw.


Brian is an accountant, so I made this burp cloth for him to use with Dawson. The dollar bill-like frame is from a freebie on Ann the Gran. I deleted the middle of the design and added the text with Embird alphabet #8.

I'll be honest, I don't know what happened with my thread selection on that one... I'm sure I held the thread up to that ribbon, but when it was done, it did NOT match like it was supposed to. I was so disgusted that I decided to make another burp cloth. :) I've been anxious to test out this new masculine 3-letter monogram font anyway... Circle Monogram Set 3 from Embroidery Arts -- I love it!

Make that 28 shirts :)

Ok, ok, I know yesterday I said it was ridiculous that Annaliese has 27 custom embroidered short sleeved shirts. But at least six of those are seasonal and not exactly in the mix right now. AND this is a shirt/skirt set that I've been intending to work on for a long time, in fact I've had the fabrics picked out since spring break (the ONLY two in my stash that match the skirt) just waiting for the right design.

We settled on the hot air balloon applique design from Planet Applique.

I'll be honest, I'm not thrilled with the shirt. It's not the design -- I think the hot air balloon is precious and it stitched out just fine. The problem is my fabric choice. And my current mood. But Annaliese loves it, so that's what matters. I LOVE HER! :)

I used the smaller size of two lavender shirts I have for Annaliese, so she will outgrow this one quickly and I can redeem myself on the second shirt.

I do still plan to stitch a back to school shirt for her. I do not know what it will be yet, but hopefully by Monday morning it will be done!

What's a girl to wear??

Ok, I admit, this borders on ridiculous.
When I put away Annaliese's clothes today, I had a hard time getting her shirt drawer to close. So we decided to go through the shirts once again and try to prune it out. The problem is she LOVES every shirt that either grandma or I have made for her (that's a blessing, really) and doesn't want to part with them. I spread them all out and took this picture:

THIRTY-SEVEN shirts. Let me specify, 37 short-sleeved shirts. This does not include long sleeved shirts or dresses that we've done. And according to Annaliese, they all still fit. I guess that's the benefit to using size 6/6x when she turned four years old. She's grown up a lot, but thinned out, so really these shirts do fit. I was able to convince her to retire 10 of the smallest ones. But still, 27 shirts... no wonder I'm having a hard time getting motivated to make a special back to school shirt for her. Any ideas? I only have a few days left!

Very Customized Baby Gift

Kelli's good friends have a new baby boy and she contacted me about creating a very customized baby gift set. This was such a fun project to work on -- I love doing this stuff!! No fears of a duplicate gift here! :)

The dad is a huge Star Wars fan, so on a t-shirt we put "Future Jedi" on the front and "Max" on the back.


Kathy digitized the text for me using the Star Jedi font.


Since his initials are MJ, and the dad is also a huge Michael Jackson fan, along with how awesome Michael Jordan is, Kelli suggested this for a bib:

The microphone design is from 8 Claws and a Paw (thanks Julie!), as is the Happy Days font I used for MJ. The basketball is from EmbroideryDesigns.com.

The mom carried the torch for the Olympics several years back. Kelli suggested "I hold a torch for Mommie" for a burp cloth.

The torch flame embroidery design is also from 8CP. I added the text with Embird Alphabet #8.

No bake cookies

These no bake cookies have no calories, too! :)

Today I stitched more designs from the play food sets I told you about here. The snack set is not yet available on SWAK, I'll try to update with a link once they are listed.
Chocolate Chip cookies:

All the sugar cookie designs came with embroidered sprinkles, but I left those off and used my new sprinkle fabrics.



I kind of regret using this fabric on the heart and flower cookies -- since the patches are so small and satin stitches are so LONG, very few sprinkles actually show up. Oh well! This fabric will be good for the poptart designs, as well as all the adorable cupcake designs I have to go on birthday shirts. :)

Side note: According to blogger this is my 500th blog post. CRAZY! Thanks for reading!

Sweet Bunny shirt

Kylie picked this adorable Baby Bunny applique design from Planet Applique to put on her shirt.

I used a super soft minkee -- isn't it precious? I might have to make another one really soon based on Annaliese's reaction to it... :)

Play Food!

Last week Kathy surprised me by purchasing a set of play food designs for me (from Dee of Band to Bow/Nobbie Neez Kids). I've only made a couple things. They are SO CUTE and I'm anxious to tackle more!
First I made these poptarts:

Then I made these slices of pizza:

The design set came with pancake/syrup/butter, egg, bacon, doughnut, cookies, popsicle, hamburger and all the fixings, french fries, bread/jelly/peanut butter... so many fun things to make! You can see some of the designs on SWAK:
Breakfast set 1
Breakfast set 2
Dinner Set
I'll try to remember to update these links when the lunch and snack sets are available.

Aren't they fun??

Bowling towel

A WAY long time ago Carla asked me if I could replicate a hand towel she had seen with a bowling stick figure embroidery design on it. I searched high and low and could not find anything remotely close to it. Then mid-July I get an email from a site that had all their stick designs significantly on sale, and one reminded me of that bowling design... and what do you know, they had the exact one! Amazingly enough, even though months had passed, Carla hadn't given up on me. :)
Carla goes bowling with her husband, so I imagine this will be used often!

The "Bowler Jane" design is from EmbroideryDesigns.com. I added her name with Embird alphabet #8.

First Birthday Bib

Myra asked me to make a special bib for her granddaughter's first birthday! I used the applique 1 from GG Designs' Chubby Wubby Numbers, and stitched "Arianna" with the Itty Bitty font from 8 Claws and a Paw.

Are you ready for some football??

Dashiell is! The school colors of my alma mater, the University of Illinois, are orange and blue, so when I saw this shirt on clearance last winter I grabbed it for Dashiell (FYI those are navy stripes, not black). I recently got a new monogram set that I've been anxious to try, and this was the perfect canvas for it!

The "D" is from the football applique alphabet by Planet Applique. I used a suede material and think it turned out pretty neat!


Now Dashiell is ready for football season... except down here in FL with basic cable we don't get many Illini football games. And mommy doesn't like football. And daddy is too busy with grad school to watch it. Oh well, we can still show our loyalty... Go Illini!!

Baby Boy Gift Set

Tracy asked to make a bib/burp cloth set for a friend who recently had a little boy. She perused my Facebook photo albums and picked a monogram/color scheme that she wanted me to reproduce -- makes my job easy! :)

The monogram on the burp cloth is from the Dot Alphabet at Julia's Needle Designs, and I stitched "Owen" with Swirley font from 8 Claws and a Paw.

They've got spirit, how 'bout you?

Can you believe it's August 1?? School will be starting before we know it!
Carla's daughter Ella will be starting kindergarten this fall, so she asked me to make a couple shirts for her (and one for little brother Grant who will be going to preschool there as well). Their school colors are purple and yellow, mascot is a tiger, so we got to work creating two cute designs!

For the yellow shirt, Carla picked Embroidery Boutique's applique tiger design. I used Embird Alphabet #14 for the text.

For the purple shirt (and white for Grant) Carla picked Lynnie Pinnie's applique tiger design. I used Embird Alphabet #8 for the text.