First Day of School 2014

Well, the day finally arrived... my little man is in kindergarten, and my big girl is in fifth grade! How did this happen?!?

This is the one year that they will be at the same school, Dashiell's first year as a Springwood Owl, and Annaliese's last. I am so incredibly blessed that not only do they want to wear applique shirts to school, but they genuinely want to MATCH! Mommy is soaking it in and taking advantage as long as possible. :)
I knew I wanted to use owls, so when I saw Beau Mitchell Boutique's scholar owls at the beginning of summer, I knew they were it!  I added the text with I2S's Covered by Your Grace.

I used the Owl Scholar for Dashiell:

Out of all my aqua fabrics, he picked the chevron! I was surprised...

And the Owl Girl Scholar for Annaliese:

 I didn't really give Annaliese much of a choice on fabric, so thankfully she agreed with my vision, ha!

Here they are, ready to walk to their classrooms! They got lots of compliments on their shirts :)
They had a great first day and we anticipate an awesome year!

Preschool Graduation!

Thumbs up, this boy is almost done with preschool!!

Tonight night was Dashiell's preschool program, and included in that was a brief graduation ceremony for the VPK classes. In honor of that, I made him this shirt, very similar to the one I made Annaliese five years ago.

The monogram is Five Star Font's Diploma~Graduation Monogram. The rest of the text uses the font “Hog Bold HMK” which is the font from the school logo on their t-shirts and bags.

Oh boy, does this kid have personality! He was quite entertaining to watch tonight from start to finish! Not a shy bone in his body... it helped keep me from getting super sentimental and emotional at the program because I was laughing. Or mouthing "STAND STILL!" ;)

It wasn't until I was home comparing pictures that I got teary... Isn't this amazing? They sure do look alike!
We love Timberlane Preschool!!

The Newest Owl in our family

Oh dear, the time has come. Kindergarten Orientation was today!!! ACK!

When I told Dashiell about the upcoming meeting I asked if he wanted anything special to wear and he said, "Yes! An owl shirt!" (our school mascot if you are a new blog reader.) Silently inside I shouted, "YES!" because I have had one picked out, purchased, and sitting in my design stash waiting for this day. I used Pick & Stitch's Bean Stitch Boy Owl design.

 I love the look of her bean stitch design, hoping this style will extend the life of Dashiell wearing applique shirts.

When I showed Dashiell the design, he was concerned about the eyes being different sizes. I did NOT want him to refuse this owl, so I told him "the owl is making this face and saying, 'what's kindergarten all about?'" Then he was totally on board. :) He helped me pick fabrics from my brown and turquoise stash, and then I got to work.
Here he is, saying, "What's Kindergarten all about?!" This is the one and only snap he let me take before leaving.

Whoooooo's ready for kindergarten?! Well this boy is. Not so sure about momma though...

Bunny shirt perfect for a boy

Dashiell requested a bunny with carrot shirt. He had a VERY particular vision, and none of my bunny holding carrots designs were quite what he wanted. And we were about to settle on one (that I didn't own yet, of course) but then I remembered this design... the bunny is not holding the carrot but instead riding on it! He thought it was awesome and I got to work:

 

The bunny on carrot skateboard is from Lynnie Pinnie. So adorable!

I was out of town with my girl for Easter weekend, so I missed Dashiell's Easter egg hunt and party at preschool... no pictures! But here he is posing at home:

and pretending to be on a skateboard:

Another quick superhero-themed shirt for my boy

Yesterday Dashiell told me that he wanted a Venom shirt. I told him I couldn't do it right then but could work on it over the weekend. Then he said to me, "Remember, Lyndsie has to make a design and then send it to your computer!" That made me laugh out loud! Maybe at five years old he does kind of get the process... I've obviously tested a lot of LP designs for my kids to refer to Lyndsie by name!  A bit later he clarified that he didn't want a "cutie pie" design but the actual Venom symbol. :) So I digitized it myself!

I used a triple bean stitch to tack down the knit and trimmed it out of the hoop. Quick stitch, only 5 minutes I think, but MAN that took a while to trim. I didn't get a flat close-up image of the shirt -- it was grabbed and put on immediately.

I wonder what he's going to ask for next?

Holiday shirts with creative hooping

When you look at these two shirts, what do they have in common?

Besides the fact that they are holiday Lynnie Pinnie designs, that I tested, on 4T shirts, for my son. Ok, there's a lot in common, ha! But there's something else in common... can you see it?

These designs fall in the category of "off center" designs. The cape on Super Ginger

and the tail on Heart Monster

cause the body of the character to be off center. Placing these on shirts can be tricky so you have to pay attention. One strategy for good design placement is to scoot the design over in the hoop so it looks centered. But with both of these designs they completely fill the width of the hoop and there is no room to do that. Instead of taking these 5x7 designs into my 6x10 hoop (which would waste a lot of stabilizer), I hooped the shirts off center to compensate.

You can print templates, trim out the design, lay it on your shirt where it looks right, and then hoop your shirt. But I don't like to waste paper (oh who am I kidding, it's the ink I don't want to waste), instead I use my template to help me place my design.

I look at the design carefully in my software (I use Embird). I decide where I think the visual center of the design is (red line) and compare it to the actual design center (black line). For the Super Ginger design, the center of the head is about 14mm to the right of the vertical axis:

and the center of the monster's body is about 11-12 mm to the right of the vertical axis:

SO... what I do is find the center of my shirt, and then adjust where I lay my hoop template down. Instead of putting the axis of my template directly on my shirt's center line, I move it over to the left the appropriate amount. It looks weird to hoop your shirt off center, but in the end, the design looks perfectly placed!

I haven't gotten a good picture of my son in his monster shirt yet, but here he is in his Super Ginger shirt. Now that Christmas is past, we do not run the risk of you telling him his shirt is funny or cute. It is not funny. It is not cute. It is cool. Got it? COOL. Very important distinction. Remember that for next year if it still fits him. ;)

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the Trammels!

I love these PJs from ARB Blanks! I ended up not doing the Christmas preorder. Cristy surprised me with a pair for Annaliese in a box of blanks goodies, so I waited for Dashiell's red Valentine's PJs to arrive to make them a matching set. We picked a snowman so it would be seasonably appropriate for a couple months (because you know, we get so much snow here in FL, ha!) Annaliese picked the fabrics and wanted the designs to be identical. We use I2S's Snowman, and added their monograms with Natural Circle.

I guess I didn't get a close up picture of Dashiell's shirt, just Annaliese's. The only difference is we left off the pink cheeks on his, and it has his initials instead.

Man of 5teel

Today my little man is FIVE! I'm not going to dwell on it much because I might cry. So let's talk about his shirt!
This kid is way into superheroes and has been his whole life. With the exception of his first birthday I have made a superhero themed shirt for all of his previous birthdays: Two-perman, Boy Wond3r, The 4lash, and now let me introduce you to my little Man of 5teel!!

We went back to Superman. We brainstormed all year for a different superhero to create a five emblem out of, but just couldn't think of anything. The reality is he LOVES Superman, was getting a Superman Imaginext set for his birthday, Man of Steel came out this year (not that he's seen it...) and frankly, an S looks a lot like a 5! Ha!

I digitized this myself using the same style as his Batman Beyond shirt (and the Super Seven shirt I made for Sean). I tacked down knit with a triple bean stitch, and trimmed leaving a raw edge exposed. Gotta love a design with a 4 minute stitch time!!
I based the emblem after the most recent Man of Steel symbol, but drew it to look a bit more like a five.

I was pleased with the results, and he loves it, which is the most important part. :)  He's a super kid and I'm thrilled he's mine!

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.

Making my boy happy!

Some projects take significant planning, require tons of decisions and meticulous work to create an awesome shirt.
Other times you get a quick idea and throw it together super duper fast.
This was the latter!

My son recently got his hands on my husband's old Batman Beyond action figure and they have been watching episodes on Netflix. Yesterday Dashiell was quite upset with me because his screen print Batman tee was still dirty (where oh where is the laundry fairy?!) and he NEEDED it to dress up as Batman Beyond. I reminded him that his shirt was gray, not black, and had a yellow/black logo, not red, so he would have to use his imagination anyway. That didn't go over well. ;)
Then I thought... hmmmmm... Do I have a black shirt? I sent him off to watch something with his big sister and I cranked this out really fast. LOOK AT THAT SMILE!!!

I have no desire to be a full time digitizer, but it is nice to have digitizing software for times like this. I traced the logo in my software and converted it to a triple bean stitch. I hooped a black tee I got on clearance for $1.25, laid down a piece of red knit and stitched the outline. Trimmed it out and took it back to my son.

His reaction was so cute. Gasped, said thank you, then immediately said, "I have to show this to Daddy!" He changed right away, slept in it, wore it to preschool, and I've promised that if he will wear pjs tonight I will wash it so it's clean in the morning. I hope the newness wears off before Sunday morning! :)

First Day of School 2013

Another school year is here, and my kids are ready!

Oh wait! I promise that's the result of bright sunshine and gnats on the grassy lot outside of school. Let's try again against the building...

Both of my kids were very excited to start school back up today! That is a blessing I do not take for granted. They were also both thrilled with their first day of school shirts that they helped design. Neither are exactly what *I* would have picked in terms of fabrics and threads, but it's exactly what they wanted, and I aim to please my two favorite customers. :)

Annaliese selected East Coast Applique's "Sweet Grade" design. I added "4th" by using the 4 from 8CP's Frills and the th from 8CP's Waiting.

She has two skirts in her closet that we love (great length for her long legs plus they built in shorts) but they are ODD colors and we can't find matching shirts for them. Applique to the rescue! :) Although honestly I didn't have much fabric in my stash to match them either. She decided to pick colors so that it would match BOTH skirts. Whew, that was a challenge but we figured it out!

 Dashiell loved ECA's School is a Blast design. I wish I could have recorded our negotiation session picking fabrics and threads. Green had to go (it's sneaky afterall). It was ok for the pencil to be yellow, but the star could NOT be yellow. So he made that red and insisted that "is" be yellow in it's place. He also wanted a solid red P and not one of my "beautiful" fabrics (I had picked a cool chevron or a cool stripe for him to choose from). So... it's not exactly the most balanced and legible design, but it's what he wanted :)

 And his reaction to the completed shirt made it worthwhile: "Wow Mommy that's great! I could wear that forever!"

Our kids delivered their school supplies in personalized shopping totes:

 Annaliese's classroom is decorated with a baseball theme, so I used ECA's divided baseball (vintage stitch) and 8CP's College Block Small.

Dashiell's teacher likes cherries :) So I went on a hunt for a large single cherry design to use as a patch. I ended up modifying 8CP's Applique Cherries design. I separated out one of the cherries and enlarged it A LOT (like 80%?!) which of course made the satin stitches huge. That's ok, my plan was to delete them anyway and just make it a raggy patch. When I deleted the satin stitches, I noticed the tackdown was a lovely blanket stitch, which worked perfectly! :)  I added her name with 8CP's Janessa.