Teacher gifts

Annaliese has had such a good school year so far, and I wanted to give a token of our gratitude to each of the adults that have helped give her an excellent start to her education. In addition to her classroom teacher, I made something for all her special area teachers and the principals.
For the women, I made a Quilted Key Fob from DigiStitches. I used my newly purchased Embird Alphabet #14 for the text. The school colors are turquoise and white and I think these turned out nice! I put their name on the front:

And the school name on the back:

Since the key fobs are a little too feminine for the men, I stitched water bottle koozies for them. The art palette for her art teacher was a freebie on Sew Forum, and I added his name with Embird Alphabet #8.

For her PE teacher I took the whistle from an Embroidery Library basketball design. As I rotated it around to figure out how I wanted to position it, I realized it looked like a "J" -- perfect! I added the rest of the text the Charles font from 8 Claws and a Paw.


In addition to the key fob, I wanted to do something extra for Annaliese's classroom teacher. Since I had stitched a hand towel for Thanksgiving, I decided to do a winter one as well using her name flake.

All the gifts were delivered this morning. Whew! That's a nice thing to check off my to-do list! :)

Dewzies

What's a Dewzie you ask? Why, it's a Mountain Dew Can Koozie!

Carlin and a couple of his friends at work are big Mountain Dew fans. Their shared love for the beverage has inspired much silliness. They call themselves the Dewk Boys (homage to the Dukes of Hazard, I think) and they each have a wacky nickname. Maybe one of them will comment later as to the meanings, if you even care. :)

As a Christmas gift, Carlin and I decided they needed personalized Dewzies. Using this Mountain Dew font (which actually looks more like the older logo than the current one), I asked Kathy to digitize their nicknames, which I stitched on the front:

I used Embird Alphabet #2 to stitch "Dewk Boys" on the back:

Here are close-ups of each koozie, I mean Dewzie, design before they were sewn up. The first is for Mr. Carlin Trammel:

Sweatshirts for Lacie

Would you believe that in the 2 1/2 years that I've been doing custom embroidery, these are the first sweatshirts I've stitched on? I obviously live in Florida. :)

For the pink sweatshirt Marci requested Lynnie Pinnie's Applique Swirl Font. I used Embird Alphabet #17 (Curlz) for Lacie's name.


Marci picked the Sly Owl from Tigerlilyhill Embroidery Designs for the white sweatshirt. I added Lacie's name with 8 Claws and a Paw's Itty Bitty Alphabet.

Holiday Bibs for Dashiell

Wednesday night I stitched the remaining three bibs for Dashiell from Embroidery Library's Baby's First design set.

As a quick review, here are the first five that I stitched, displayed on his window sill (notice the hand trying to mess up my photo...)

And here are the last three:

Dashiell was born December 19th, so technically this is his second Christmas...

... and second New Year.

I haven't taken any modeled pictures yet, so at some point in January I'll update my blog with those pictures.

God is Good!

Ok, so Sunday afternoon I was feeling pretty good about my sewing to-do list, seemed as though most of my orders were such that I could tackle them this week and move to gifts for family next. That night I was chugging away on a big order. Five minutes left on the last design and my machine came to a screeching halt, LITERALLY. Horrible noise, and the needle bar would not move. LOVELY timing.

My attitude was a little rotten on Monday, but by Tuesday I wasn't feeling quite so negative. This morning Dashiell and I headed to the nearest Janome dealer (about 1.5 hrs away). Mr. Henson was able to repair it while we browsed a lovely quilt shop and ate lunch. D and I had the machine back in the car by noon, and headed home. He was a fantastic travel buddy. He blessed me further by letting me move him from his car seat to crib and continue his nap. That enabled me to immediately set up my machine and get back to work.

I was able to pick right up where I left off and finish the last five minutes of the design... you can't even tell where I stopped and started. WHAT A BLESSING!

Annaliese and I have a deal -- if she wants to go to Bible class on Wednesday night, she has to try to take a nap after school. So I got more time this afternoon when both kids were in bed to complete that big order of casserole carriers (pics later). Even got them delivered tonight. And paid, which covers the cost of today's adventure. :)

God truly blessed me today with a speedy repair that didn't cost a fortune, good kids, and successful stitching. THANK YOU, LORD!

But the reality is, I lost 2.5 days worth of sewing time, and now I have to face the fact that not everything is going to get done. Maybe that's why this happened, to teach me to not set such lofty goals for myself... maybe someday I'll learn. :) So I'm off to create a priority list.

When I was considering the possibility that my machine couldn't be repaired quickly, I realized I was going to be very mad if, after stitching so many first birthday shirts this year, I didn't get to stitch one for my own son. So I'm taking a brief hiatus from orders to stitch a few things for Dashiell. As I type I'm doing his 1st birthday, Christmas and New Years bibs. Tomorrow morning I'll do his "1" shirt. Then I'll return to orders. Then tackle gifts with what time I have left.

All that being said, I'll probably be stitching like a maniac (again, Lord willing), but not be able to blog about most of it until December 25. So stay tuned!

Matching Birthday Shirts

Presley and Emeline are good pals who are celebrating their birthdays together, and their mommies requested matching shirts!

Nicole took the girls shopping for the shirts, which apparently was quite an ordeal. They eventually agreed on this style, but each picked different colored shirts. When I showed them a bunch of fabric options for the applique number that would match both, they quickly agreed on this one. Can you guess why? SPARKLES!!
The "3" and "4" are from Chubby Wubby Applique Numbers from GG Designs, and I used Itty Bitty Alphabet from 8 Claws and a Paw for their names.

New Key Fob!

In the busyness of the holidays (stitching orders, Christmas attire for my kids, making gifts), I decided to squeeze in a little something for myself tonight.
A Black Friday sale at DigiStitches caused me to finally succumb to the temptation of Jennilee's Quilted Key Fobs. I grabbed some scraps and stitched one for myself to match the Christmas purse I made two years ago. I used Embird Alphabet #7.

I love the endless possibilities of using fabric instead of being limited to grosgrain ribbon as in my other key chains. I'm anxious to see how well it holds up to use!

Monogrammed Messenger Bags

Valerie picked up these messenger bags for her nieces and nephew for Christmas and asked me to monogram them.

Her nieces' monograms were done in Curlz (Embird Alphabet #17).
For her nephew she requested a diamond shaped monogram, and just a couple days before Apex Embroidery had posted their Diamond Embroidery Font for free. Woo-hoo! A similar thing happened back when I stitched a Buckeye bib for her newest nephew. My coupon-queen friend somehow extends her thrifty skills through me to find perfect freebies for her projects! Saves us both money! :)

Stitching for Sue

Sue contacted me to stitch something for three special little people in her life! I got these done at the end of October, but I'm just now posting.
First up is her grandson Cayden (aka Chunky Monkey), who celebrated his first birthday!

The "1" is from Chubby Wubby Applique Numbers from GG Designs, and the font is Tinker Toy from 8 Claws and a Paw.

Next, a special First Christmas onesie for another grandson,Jimmie.

The design is from Embroidery Library. Kathy digitized the extra text for me using the Girls are Weird font.

Finally, a burp cloth for Hadley. The "H" is from Embroidery Boutique's Vintage Applique Alphabet. I stitched her name with Itty Bitty Alphabet from 8 Claws and a Paw.