"My Miss Susie Inspired Wardrobe"

This past year in preschool Annaliese's teacher Miss Susie taught units based on the season and the letter of the week. At the very beginning of the year she read "Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?" when they talked about the letter B. They studied apples while learning about the letter A. Annaliese already had shirts with a brown bear and an apple, so I encouraged her to wear them those weeks.

A few weeks later when they were preparing to study Owls, Annaliese requested a shirt with an Owl on it. At that moment Grandma Kathy and I decided to make a shirt for each topic for the remainder of the year. There were times we were frustrated with ourselves for making this decision, but now that it's over, I'm glad we did it. It was a fun challenge to find the perfect designs and provided lots of inspiration for our stitching! By combining our efforts Annaliese had something to wear for 22 of the 26 letters. R, S, and M were themes covered before doing Owls, and X... well I just ran out of steam at the end of the year.

As a thank you gift I made a scrapbook for Miss Susie. Before handing it over, Carlin scanned each page and has created a digital version of the scrapbook. I now present it to you to flip through!

Scrapbook of "My Miss Susie Inspired Wardrobe"

WHEW! What an undertaking! Annaliese has already been told we will NOT be doing this again for Kindergarten. :)
I eventually plan to make a t-shirt quilt for Annaliese with all the stuff Kathy and I have stitched for her. But I'm not cutting these shirts up yet! Annaliese's buddy Kenzie will probably be in Miss Susie's class this coming fall. We plan to loan her the themed shirts so she too can have a "Miss Susie Inspired Wardrobe"!

If you are interested in design details, I have linked to my original blog posts for the shirts I stitched. For those that Kathy stitched, I've included links to the designs she used.
B is for Brown Bear (and Baby Brother!) by Janay 
A is for Apple by Kathy, design from Pegboard Crafts 
O is for Owl by Janay 
L is for Leaf by Kathy, design from Sew Swell 
P is for Pumpkin by Kathy, design from Needle in a Haystack 
T is for Turkey by Kathy, design from Pegasus Embroidery 
J is for Jesus by Janay 
G is for Gingerbread by Janay 
W is for Winter Woolies by Janay 
Q is for Quilt by Janay 
D is for Dr. Seuss by Kathy 
U is for USA by Janay 
V is for Valentine by Kathy, design from Embroidery Boutique 
H is for Heart by Janay 
F is for Farm by Janay 
Y is for Yellow Duck by Janay 
I is for Insect by Janay 
E is for Easter by Janay 
C is for Cowboy by Kathy, design from Green Bee Designs 
Z is for Zoo by Kathy, applique letters from Five Star Fonts 
N is for Nursery Rhymes by Kathy, design from Designs by JuJu 
K is for Kindergarten! by Janay

Graduation time!

Last night was Annaliese's preschool program, and included in that was a brief graduation ceremony for the VPK classes. In honor of that, I made Annaliese this shirt.

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.

Annaliese had a good time during the program, and we all had a blast watching her. She's definitely her daddy's girl, no stage fright at all! :)
Here she is with her beloved Ms. Susie, who has been a fantastic teacher this year!

Y is for Yellow Duck

In the midst of the farm theme over the last few weeks at preschool, Ms Susie is taking the opportunity to tackle letter Y, since a yellow duck is a main character of "Miss Wishy Washy's Farm." Here is Annaliese's shirt:

The applique duck is from the Barnyard Buddies set at Designs by JuJu. I used fleece for the duck, so he's extra fluffy. :)


Up next, I for Insects. I have a really cool plan if I can pull it off...

F is for Farm!

This week Annaliese's class is studying the letter "F" with a focus on "Farm." I knew this was coming, so back in November when I bought a custom design set from
Sew Many Designs, I picked this cute FARM design. SMD applique designs take a while to stitch out (lots of fabric patches and detail) but they stitch flawlessly and are sooooooooo cute! I especially love her word designs that substitute items for letters (like the NOEL shirt I made in November).



I also have Designs by JuJu's Barnyard Buddies. I had lofty goals of embellishing jeans or a skirt with these designs, but that didn't happen. Maybe at another time...

Q is for Quilt

This week at preschool Ms. Susie's theme is quilts for the letter Q. Woo-hoo! What a great theme! :)
I'm still making my way through the leggings/shirts that Kathy sent us in April. I think these are the last pair of striped leggings. I love them! Here is Annaliese's Quilt block shirt.

The design is from Adorable Ideas. Some time last year I got my choice of a free design set, and I picked the Americana Quilt set, which this is from. I think it looks cute in pink and turquoise too.

My only regret is not paying closer attention to the type of stitching around the squares. If I'd realized it wasn't satin stitches but instead overlapping zigzags, I would have used turquoise thread for the tackdown on those squares... the pink shows through. Oh well... I have to continually remind myself it's just for a four year old. Pardon me, four-and-a-half year old. She didn't notice and was pretty pleased.

When she wears this to school tomorrow, I get to go with her. Ms. Susie asked me to come be a guest speaker about quilting. :)

Shirt for "Winter Woolies"

It was back to preschool time for Annaliese this week. Kathy and I stitched several fall and Christmas themed shirts that I doubt Annaliese will choose to wear now that the holidays are over. On to new themes!! Ms. Susie's first letter/topic for 2009 is "Winter Woolies" for W. So I stitched this top for Annaliese:

The design is from Sew Many Designs. I didn't have any cute prints in my fabric stash that matched the jade colored stripe in the pants, so I used a solid for the mittens. To compensate for boring fabric I used variegated thread for the stitching. I used minkee for the cuffs on the mittens, which Annaliese loves.

Here she is modeling her outfit (in her now preferred pose) We ignored the fact that it was 70 degrees outside -- we are pretending it's winter here. :)

Up next: Q is for Quilt!

Christmas Outfit #4/5

I worked off and on all day yesterday but finally got Annaliese's Christmas dress completed. I made a reversible A-line dress using Martha Pullen's pattern, hence outfits 4 and 5.
When I had her try on the A-line I made last December, I couldn't believe how much she had grown in 11 months! So I made a size 5, adding an extra inch in length. It's plenty long, and maybe that way she can wear it again next December.
Side one uses Gingerbread fabric that I have had for years. The dancing ginger girl is from Sew Many Designs. I used fleece for the body.



Side two uses some snowman fabric that I bought on clearance after Christmas last year. About the same time I got a free snowman head embroidery design from Five Star Fonts and knew they would go well together. I'm glad I actually remembered 11 months later! I used minkee for the face. To mimic the word "JOY" in the fabric, I added a lowercase "j" and "y" to the snowman head, from FSF's Hipster Applique Font. Since the overall design ended up being pretty wide, I placed it at the bottom of the dress instead of the the top.


Here is Annaliese wearing the Joy side:

And I just had to include a shot of her wearing this jacket. We received this as a hand-me-down, and I'm pretty sure it's her third year wearing it. Huge at age 2, perfect at age 3, and a tight fit now at 4. :)

Christmas Outfit #2

This morning I got Annaliese's next shirt stitched.

One of the letter/themes for preschool in the month of December is J for Jesus. I found a cute applique nativity scene at HeartStrings Embroidery.

Annaliese had these leggings from last winter that still fit, but the shirt that matches it is too small. Thankfully Kathy had bought a couple navy shirts in the next size up, so I was able to pick fabrics/threads for this design and make a new coordinating outfit.

Annaliese wasn't quite in the modeling mood this morning -- she wanted to try it on with a skirt, and of course I don't have one that matches. Sigh... she didn't seem to appreciate my effort to make it match the leggings! :)

Christmas Outfit #1

I have been stitching like crazy trying to get orders filled, but for the next few days I'm taking a break to sew for my kids. I have four different Christmas clothing ideas for Annaliese that I want to do, and I need to get started and make significant progress on the baby quilt! Today I stitched a shirt for Annaliese.

In October I found these cute pants at Target and knew immediately that I could use Five Star Font's Gift Box Applique Font to make a matching shirt for Annaliese. It was one of the rare times I paid full price for a clothing item for her! We found the perfect fabric in my stash to match the blue packages on the pants. I added her name with Embird alphabet #8.

I like that it's holiday related, but since it isn't the typical red and green, it doesn't scream Christmas, so hopefully she'll get a bit more wear out of it into the spring. If it still fits, it would be good for her birthday in April! She's so glad that I have finally stitched it.

Owl Shirt for "theme of the week"

So I have created a monster. I've made reference to this monster before, but last week she appeared again.

In preschool Ms. Susie has various themes for the week (or set of weeks) that are related to the season and the letter she is focusing on. Earlier in the year they spent time talking about apples. I encouraged Annaliese to wear the two apple shirts she has during that time. Well... last week Annaliese informed me that she needed an owl shirt because that was their next unit. :)

For Annaliese's birthday Grandma Kathy sent her several pair of striped leggings that she can wear this fall. So I grabbed a pair of those and went on a hunt to find an owl design and the right color shirt/fabric to make her an owl shirt. The applique owl I picked is from Embroidery Boutique.

I'm pretty pleased with the results. Annaliese thinks it's really cute, so that's what is important.

Kathy asked me if Ms. Susie has a list of her upcoming topics. Thankfully she gave that to parents at the beginning of the year, so now Kathy and I are on a mission to come up with shirt ideas for the rest of the year. Up next is pumpkins, and thankfully her pumpkin dress from last year still fits! I don't think I'll be able to wear my matching shirt this year though... :)