Happy Birthday, Annaliese!

Today is Annaliese's fifth birthday! It's an especially Good Friday!

I hoped to have a little gathering on her actual birthday, but was afraid lots of her friends would be out of town for Easter. Would you believe that virtually everyone said they could come?? How fun for Annaliese!

When I asked her about a theme (expecting her to say "My Little Pony!!") she said she wanted to have an Easter egg hunt. Easy enough! In lieu of requesting everyone bring their Easter basket or buying goody bags, I decided to whip out bags the kids could use for the egg hunt and then take home with them. Of course they had to be personalized... this created self-inflicted stress, mainly because we had thunderstorms all spring break and I didn't run my embroidery machine for 7 days straight. I was rushed this week to get Annaliese's Easter dress made (expect a post later this weekend) as well as these bags. But they are cute, and I'm glad I did it.


Expecting ten guests plus Annaliese, I made eleven bags total. Each is made from one fat-eighth and 20" of grosgrain ribbon. I used Embird Alphabet #8 for the boys and #17 for the girls.

Here the bags are, ready to be filled:

And in action!

Ready for Opening Day, again!

Last year I stitched matching shirts for Debby's grandkids to wear on Opening Day of baseball season. A year has passed, there's a new grandbaby, and the rest are getting bigger!
Here is Simon's shirt for his very first opening day:


Naomi quickly outgrew her romper from last year and has recently been caught wearing Gideon's shirt, so they needed new ones:



The baseball monograms are from Five Star Fonts.

Rachel's shirt from last year still fits, but she sure looks older!

Ok, I couldn't pick just one from each family, so here you go... sibling pairs and individual shots.






You can see more precious pictures on the Sheets' blog.

Annaliese's Birthday Shirt

Annaliese's birthday is Friday, so I stitched her birthday shirt this weekend.

I picked Lynnie Pinnie's applique cake -- it already had five candles, perfect! I'm not sure what I think of the variegated thread. I think if I had it to do over, I would have used the purple and blue threads for the icing accents. But Annaliese loves the "striped" thread, so I guess it's fine. ;)

I picked fabric/threads to match this skirt we've had for quite a while.

On to stitching birthday gifts and her Easter dress!

Dashiell's First Easter

This weekend I stitched Dashiell's First Easter bib. The design is from Embroidery Library, Kathy did the text for me again.


It's amazing how much he's already changed from his first Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day. I can't wait to compare the pictures when I get the whole set done. Next up, Fourth of July. Whew... that's a little bit of a break!

Daddy's requested burp cloth

A while back Carlin and Annaliese were playing superheros, she called herself Batgirl and dressed up in her mask and wore Daddy's cape. Carlin often pretends to be Batman with her. They decided Dashiell will be Robin when he's old enough to join in on the fun. When I did the last batch of burp cloths for Torin, Carlin requested one for Dashiell, too. Carlin didn't think he'd like the "flannel down the middle" style, but still wanted the symbol on red, and suggested this:

For this version I bought 1.5" ribbon and stitched a smaller version of the design on the ribbon. And it's off center for a reason -- Robin's symbol is a pocket-sized emblem, not a big chest emblem. There is always a method to Carlin Trammel's madness :)

Another Special Delivery

Beth ordered a Special Delivery onesie for a relative... check out the city name!! I'm pretty impressed how well that tiny "Charlottesville" stitched!

All dressed up for church!

Dashiell really doesn't have any "church clothes" yet, he's too small for the cute sweater vest outfits -- and they aren't all that practical yet since mostly he sits in his carrier or is wearing a bib over his clothes anyway. So I decided to take matters into my own hands and make sure he looks dressed up for church in spite of being in a bib and onesie! :)


The embroidery design is from GG Designs, and stitched beautifully!



I decided to use "Applique Fuse and Stick" following method 1 outlined at Terradon Embroidery. I ironed the fusible to my fabric and hooped that. then I stitched the outlines of the applique pieces. Thanks to the generous size of my hoop, I was able to fit the pieces for both ties in one hooping. That really helped me to not waste fabric! I rotated the "knot" part of the tie so the stripes would be at a different angle from the rest of the tie. Here's what it looked like before I cut the pieces apart:

Kaitlyn's 1st Birthday Attire

Marcy's little girl is turning one and she asked me to personalize a couple items for Kaitlyn to wear at her party. First is a cute A-line dress made by Marcy's mother-in-law. She had already put the cupcake on it, I simply added her name.


This dress is too precious to risk getting messy, so Marcy also asked me to stitch a onesie for Kaitlyn to wear as she eats her cake. Marcy had used the Curlz font for her invitations and party hat, so we stuck with that theme. Kathy digitized the "1" for me, and I added "Kaitlyn" with Embird Alphabet #17.


And here she is on her special day with a cute tutu!

Monogramming for Dashiell

I monogrammed this solid light blue onesie (from Target, Circo brand colored onesie pack) to coordinate with the striped pants, which came with long sleeved onesies that are too warm to wear now.

The monogram is from Cactus Punch Monogram Vol. 1; when I saw the double diamond frame, I knew immediately it was what I wanted to go with those stripes!