My little Pumpkins

I think this wheelbarrow w/pumpkin applique design from Lynnie Pinnie is so adorable! I put it on a shirt for Dashiell:

He likes it a lot, and on a couple different occasions has actually requested his pumpkin shirt. What a doll. He is very hard to photograph in a pumpkin patch though...

I didn't make anything new for Annaliese this year... she can still wear several items from past years. Let me highlight this one:

This "shirt" is actually a dress I made for Annaliese in 2007. I can't believe she has gotten to wear it for four Octobers!! I'm thrilled because it was a lot of work! :)

Monkey Shirts!

We love monkeys at our house. We picked a monkey theme for Dashiell's room when he was born. We've extended that theme to the kids' bathroom and have monkey accessories. (Someday they will have cool matching hooded towels with monkey designs, but alas, that day still hasn't arrived.) Annaliese was thrilled to discover at orientation that her first grade class was going to be the McCarty Monkeys. So imagine my excitement when I got to test these ADORABLE applique design from Lynnie Pinnie!!!  They are now available, AND on sale, so go get them!

Annaliese got the 5x7 Girl Monkey Applique design. (You can read more about the oh so perfectly colored bow here.)

Dashiell got the 4x4 Boy Monkey Applique design.  I love that little tuft of hair on top!

Both kids loved their shirts. Dashiell has named his George. :) It was a challenge to get a good picture of the two of them together. First of all, D thought Superman and Pooh needed to be in the shot:

 

I could not get Dashiell to sit still in front of that wall.  So I thought maybe he'd think it was fun to sit under the table on the opposite wall. He did, but he wanted to sit in Annaliese's lap.  Sweet, but I can't see her shirt...

Then Annaliese and I thought maybe he'd make a monkey face and we could get a silly picture.  No such luck.

I gave up. Here are a couple cute individual shots. This is what Dashiell does when you say, "Smile!" It's so adorable and I laugh every time. His vocabulary is pretty good, but for some reason he has blink and smile confused. :)

And my sweet Annaliese.  She was quite concerned about her gum showing in the picture, so just ignore that green stuff in her mouth, I made her smile anyway.

A little later on, I was able to catch them sitting still beside each other. Appropriately, they are watching Curious George. :)

Baby Shower Gift

One of my husband's coworkers and his wife are expecting a baby within the next few weeks. They have chosen to keep the gender of their child a surprise until delivery, so we couldn't go with the typical personalized gift items. That's ok, I had a couple neat ideas.
First, I headed to Home Depot, pulled up their blog on my phone and got the paint swatches they used to paint the baby's nursery.  Beautiful gender neutral colors. Searched my fabric and ribbon stash, nothing matched. Headed to JoAnns, nothing matched. Unbelievable. I finally settled on a polka dot flannel. The lime is a bit bolder than the paint, but good enough.  Actually some of the dots on the flannel match the blue hydrangea color pretty well, but couldn't find any ribbon that would work. So this gift is inspired by the color palette, but not an exact match. :)  They have also decorated the baby's room with pandas galore, so here is Little Baby Thomas' custom ribbon blanket:

The applique panda is from Embroidery Library. I used the same minkee as what is on the back.

The other item I stitched for Little Baby Thomas is a bib. They have a dog named Joker, so I recreated a bib I did about three years ago.

I quickly selected the gender neutral lime green bib from my stash, but spent quite a bit of time picking the thread color. I do have a blue hydrangea-like color, but I was afraid there wouldn't be enough contrast for it to be really legible. Then later the most obvious choice hit me.  Joker.  Of course it had to be a green and purple bib. So there you go, a little tiny tribute to Marc's nerdhood.

Matching Outfits for the Birthday Twins

Tori has wanted me to make her twins matching outfits for quite a while, and we finally decided to target their third birthday. Are they really three years old, already?!?  It doesn't seem that long ago when I attended Tori's baby shower and she got these gifts.
I used Martha Pullen's reversible patterns, modifying them somewhat. Noa is tall for her age, so I used a size three, but made it the same length as a size 4. Since we are headed into cooler months, I extended the shortall to a longall for Julian. I'll be honest, I just winged it (on a sample first) and I'm pretty impressed that it worked! :)
Side One: Plaid with three-letter monograms

This corduroy is courtesy of Sandy, who recently gave me tons of fabric left from her days of making clothes for her kids. I think it looks great for winter! I used the Circle Monogram Set 3 from Embroidery Arts.

Side two was a bit more challenging, but in the end I think it turned out fantastic! I had purchased some brown fabric with dots that I thought was cute.  But as I cut it out, I realized Tori's kids have slightly different skin tone than my kids and probably don't wear all brown. :)  So Tori and I met at JoAnns and looked around. It is IMPOSSIBLE to find a print that works for both a boy and a girl! We finally settled on a solid corduroy for Julian and an adorable print corduroy for Noa.

For the embroidery, I stitched an applique "3" using Chubby Wubby Applique Numbers from GG Designs, and stitched their names across it using the Whoa Nelly font from 8 Claws and a Paw.

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Whew, I'm glad these are done. And now that they are, I'm going to make a declaration:
I'm never making an A-line or JonJon again. :)
I have loved the outcome of every single one I have made, but the reality is I am not getting any faster at this. I wouldn't feel comfortable charging my friends what I need to in order to make it worth my time. So I'm sticking to embroidery on ready-to-wear items, and my new found love for reversible pillowcase dresses. Sorry boys, you are out of luck.

First Birthday Shirt

Kimberly contacted me through facebook and asked if I could make her son a birthday shirt like a couple I had posted in my birthday attire photo album.

The applique "1" is from Chubby Wubby Applique Numbers from GG Designs, and I stitched "Bryson" across it using the Whoa Nelly font from 8 Claws and a Paw. She requested this bug material -- I think he is having a bug themed party!

Simon's shirt!

Almost immediately after posting pictures of my newest Publix shopping bag, Kelli emailed me requesting a shirt using that same monogram for Simon's birthday.  I was so happy to oblige... I love this monogram! It's the Taylor font from Lynnie Pinnie.

New Baby and Big Brother Gift Set

Tracy requested these items for a friend who recently had a second little boy.  First, a set of sibling shirts:

I used the sibling designs from Katelyn's Kreative Stitches -- I love them!!!

 

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

Why I save scraps

Last week I bought these cute leggings for Annaliese on clearance at The Children's Place.

Got home, realized she does not have a single shirt that matches this odd shade of purple. My friend Valerie made a keen observation -- they probably pick these slightly off-norm shades on purpose so you have to buy all the coordinating items in their store.  Oh, but not so with me!!  I'll show you Children's Place, I can make something adorable that matches!!

But wait, I get home and look through all of my fabrics and can't find a single purple fabric that matches.  I have at least 17 different purple materials in my stash, and none of them are remotely close. Seriously?? Sigh...

But wait!  My friend Sandy recently gave me tons of materials, even scraps from old projects.  I look through it all and find this jewel:

Now, I have no idea what Sandy used this for, you'll have to take that up with her, but I'm sure it was several years ago. :)  Anyway, look at this tiny little section.

It's a perfect match!  And just the right size for this little bow:

(That's all you get to see for now, this is a design I'm testing for Lynnie Pinnie, and I'll share pictures once she releases it for sale. It's adorable!)

So there you go, this is why I find it worth saving any scrap of material bigger than a 1" square. That's probably why my sewing area is such a disaster.
Thanks Sandy for using such an interesting piece of material, saving your scraps, and then giving them to me! :)

Baby Girl Gift Set

Kathie requested these two items for a new baby girl:

She supplied the text and I used Embird Alphabet #38 for both items.

Hair Clippies!

Ok, I finally jumped on the hair clippies bandwagon. I've seen so many adorable examples (mostly on Nicole's blog), but never pursued it... until Gail released these adorable owl felt stitchies on GG Designs. It's based on the same clip art as an applique owl at Embroidery Boutique, which Kathy has used to make Annaliese a couple of owl shirts. (It also coordinates with this free owl from DigitStitches.)

This is my first set of owl hair clips.  I used fabric for the top layer instead of felt because I was trying to match Annaliese's shirt as best I could.  It wasn't until I clipped it in her hair that I realized the "branch" barrette was the same color as her hair, duh! Oh well!

Since then I have found turquoise flannel, so I'll be able to make Springwood Owl clippies pretty quickly -- these might be fun to donate to an auction later in the year.

The clip covers are sold separately from all the variety of stitchies that Gail sells.  But the ladybug actually comes with clip covers that look like leaves, so I bought that set in order to get my clip covers. They turned out quite cute:

Believe it or not, Annaliese does not have a ladybug shirt. She has asked me to fix this problem. We'll see... :)

Look Who's 2

Tammy asked me to make her granddaughter Kyleigh a special shirt for her second birthday. She requested the text, fabric and thread color... I love being able to create what someone has envisioned!!

 The applique "2" is from the Dandy font at 8 Claws and a Paw. I added the rest of the text with Embird Alphabet #17.

A couple more thanksgiving towels

A couple weeks ago I posted pictures of my turkey towels; now I can share a couple pilgrim towels I also made test stitching thanksgiving designs from 8 Claws and a Paw.  These are for my friend Susan.

This is the 4x4 Boy Pilgrim Applique

and the 4x4 Girl Pilgrim Applique

Quick new key fob

Now that it's October, I'm carrying my fall rag bag again. I decided to make a matching Quilted Key Fob (from DigiStitches). Man, this went together QUICK, it's going to take me longer to blog about it!! :) I had the PERFECT sized scrap in my fabric stash, and I already had the embroidery design ready to go from the Christmas key fob I made in December.