Monograms for Maddox

Katie asked me to monogram a few shirts for her sweet boy. I get to hang out with Maddox at preschool and he is just precious, how could I say no?? She supplied the shirts and had an idea for each one:

The red shirt is a design pairing I have used before and really liked! The applique M is from Embroidery Boutique's Cute Alphabet. I used Cleopatra from 8 Claws and a Paw to stitch his name.

 For the other two shirts I used 8CP's Seventy...

... with some editing. :)
I'll be honest, a three-letter monogram with first letter M and middle letter J can be a challenge! M's are generally wide and J's are generally narrow in fonts that work best for boys. I really liked the look of Seventy, but here they are in their original form:

The whole monogram is way too wide, and it's not very balanced. So I decreased the width of the Ms to 70%, keeping the height the same. Then to make the width of the satin stitches match better, I increased the pull compensation of the first M and decreased the pull compensation of the J. I was pleased with the results! I love using well digitized designs in software I can trust -- it stitched perfectly!

Big Sister to be

I was recently asked to make a shirt for a little girl to wear while visiting extended family to announce some big news... she's going to be a big sister!

When the mom mentioned her daughter was really into elephants, I knew exactly which design to use, the elephant pair in Designs by JuJu's Roly Poly Elephants set. I used Embird Alphabet #7 for the first line, and 8CP's Dancer for Big Sister.

UPDATED 1/20/13:
Concurrent to the above project, another friend asked for a Big Sister reveal shirt. BUT my poor friend Brittany has been so sick that there was no way they could keep the pregnancy a secret to reveal at Thanksgiving and the news got out. We lost the urgency and making a "big sis to be" shirt got pushed to the back burner. That turned out to be ok because last weekend they found out the baby is a boy, so I was able to make the little elephant blue on Kendal's shirt! :) Same design, different color scheme, so cute!

Tree Truck

I'm behind on blogging! There just aren't enough hours in the day! So this will be short and sweet. Tracy asked me to make a shirt for little Sawyer:

 She picked Applique Market's Truck with Tree design, and I added his name with my all time fave 8CP's Whoa Nelly.

Ok, off to monogram shirts for another little friend at church. :)

Holiday Shirts for Brooks

Like last year, I have made a couple of holiday shirts for Brooks!
Up first, a turkey shirt for Thanksgiving:

This is Appliqué Momma's Turkey 12. Love this tiny argyle print. I used Cubed from 8CP to add his name.

And for Christmas:

Isn't this cute for a boy?! This is Lynnie Pinnie's All-Star Christmas tree. I used 8CP's College Block Small font to add his name. I love that font, it's one of my favorites to use with sporty designs!

Ok, in a design with this much detail, thread changes and jump stitches are inevitable. What I love most about Lynnie Pinnie designs is how efficient and user friendly they are. I took a couple pictures in the midst of stitching to show you what I mean. The left shows that all the footballs were finished and all the baseballs and soccer balls were started on the same step. The right shows that the soccer balls and basketballs were finished on the same step.

 In both cases they were sequenced perfectly so that the jump stitches are never stitched over, and the needle never crosses paths with previous jump. I was able to let the color completely stitch without stopping every 30 seconds to trim a jump, because there was no fear that my embroidery foot would catch on a jump stitch. For me and my beloved old single needle, this is a HUGE DEAL. Thank you Lyndsie for remembering your single needle days! :)

Happy Fall You Guys!

My FINALLY project:

I finally used one of the colored microfiber towels I bought the first week of October. 

I finally used this cute chevron from Hobby Lobby. 

I finally used this adorable Pumpkin Applique from She Sew Chic that I *had* to have (even though I own a ton of pumpkin designs already). 

And I finally used this fun phrase jokingly suggested amidst one of many "how do you spell y'all?" debates in a Facebook group. I mean, it's spelled "y'all" but I don't actually say "y'all." I've lived in the south for seven years, but my Midwest roots run deep. So for fun, I added "Happy Fall you guys!" with the Punctuation Matters font from 8CP. It makes me smile. :)

And yes, in a mere six days I'll be getting out my Christmas towels. But I finally got this done, and it will be waiting for me next fall!

My Little Noles Turkey

Let's start right off the bat with the cute kid, who is in the stage where "smile" means "crinkle your face as much as possible"

Isn't this design adorable?? Dashiell happened to be standing near my computer when I first saw the Divided Football Turkey design from Original Stitches. He said, "A turkey with football feathers?!? That's silly! Can you make one for me?" :)
I got the design that day, but his turkey shirt from last year still fits, so I started to talk myself out of it. But then yesterday I saw a really cute shirt using the design and decided at the last minute to make it after all, so glad I did!

There are two versions of this design. One has all the football feathers the same color so you can use brown fabric for traditional footballs. OR you can get this design that allows you to use your favorite team colors for the football feathers. So clever! Go Noles!

Simple Designs for Ornaments and More!

There are benefits and drawbacks to being a member of an active applique group, and one of those is getting sucked into a craze! Even though it cost me a couple late nights, I'd say overall this time it was a benefit!

New from Lynnie Pinnie, simple little applique designs that are intended to be quick stitching and put inside a small embroidery hoop!

Isn't this precious? This had a 6 minute stitch time, simple shapes to trim, and just triple bean stitching. I used the 4" size of the Tree with Star for Little Hoops design and put it in a 4" embroidery hoop. So cute!  I still haven't finished off the back, and I need to add a ribbon loop and bow to the top. After I make several more I'll post again. :)

Since I only bought two of these little hoops (for now, I'll be hunting more down) I decided to try a different medium. I have seen Hallmark cards with fabric stitched on them, and of course I'm always drawn to them but never buy one because I think, "I could do that!"
And now I have!

I hooped stabilizer and used spray adhesive to attach my card stock. I stitched the design as normal. Then I cut away the stabilizer (even though I used tearaway, I was afraid I'd rip the card while trying to actually tear it away). And then I glued a piece of paper on the inside. If I had been smart I would have printed a nice holiday message on that paper BEFORE gluing it down...

This is the 4" version of the Trees and Snow Applique for Little Hoops design.

So there you go, a new applique craze started courtesy of a Pinterest find and a fab digitizer that got excited. Happy to be along for the ride. :)

Recent stitching for my family

Here are a few random things I have done for my family recently.
Confession -- I am a T-shirt and jeans girl. Always have been, always will be. Maybe putting a big monogram on a sweatshirt will dress me up a bit! Even this picture isn't all that accurate. If you see me wearing my new digs, I guarantee my hair will be in a ponytail!

This is Master Circle from Monogram Wizard. A friend digitized it for me (thanks Kristie!). Now that I know what a 6" monogram looks like in person, the Fancy Circle Monogram from Itch 2 Stitch is definitely on my wish list.
The nice thing about monogramming myself is that I can break all sorts of monogramming rules. I've been doing embroidery for over 5 years and this is only the second time I've done my 3-letter monogram. (First time was on my fall rag bag.) I go by my middle name, so I'm not a fan of my traditional first/LAST/middle monogram. Don't get me wrong, Mom, I love my name :) I'd just rather not have to have multiple conversations about why there is a K on my shirt. Plus the left J is always so much prettier than the right! So I opted for middle/LAST/maiden. Love how it turned out! I'm seriously considering adding a tone-on-tone monogram to every blank shirt in my wardrobe now.

I made a shirt for Annaliese that is appropriate to wear 364 days a year!

The Alice cutie is from Lynnie Pinnie, and I added the text with Going to Disney from 8CP. (I can't take credit for the phrase though. I was inspired by a cute project done by Sweet Maple Baby. Thanks for letting me be a copycat, Sarah!)

I picked this shade of blue fabric because I loved it. I was so excited when Annaliese paired it with this skirt, completely forgot she had it! Note her pose... all day long she put her little hands out to be like Alice. :)

And this sweet towel is hanging in my kitchen:

Don't you love this cornucopia design (also from LP)? I love all the detail in the stitching (leaves, pie pan, satin stitches around the corn). I had fun picking fabrics for this!

My little fabric stash builder

After preschool Friday I stopped by Bernina Connection in search of a particular fabric. While we were there Dashiell found some green fabric with little monkeys on it and said he wanted to buy it so I could make a shirt.
I said, "Oh, like the Lightning McQueen shirt you never wear?" (just that morning he had refused to wear the shirt when I suggested it.)

I told him I didn't have a project in mind for it so I wasn't going to buy any.

He said (get this) that we needed to buy it now before someone else buys it. 

WOW!! I have not specifically trained him on stash building/fabric hoarding but he has got this DOWN. He almost had me with that. :)

I still said no, and he continued to whine and complain about it. Kind of threw a mini-fit that sealed the deal on my "no".

As we were checking out he told Lynn (store owner whom we go to church with) all about it, and described what he wanted. He was calm and rational and articulate and charming... rather convincing and totally enchanted all three women working there. I looked at Lynn and said, "I suppose I should embrace this for as long as he's interested, right?" Afterall, he won't always be a three year old who wants to wear mommy-appliqued shirts. So I went back and grabbed the bolt. Well Lynn cut a quarter yard and handed it to him and didn't even charge me. Said she was partly to blame for the situation by continuing to question him about it. :)  The stipulation was that he had to show her what mommy made.

 

While he napped that afternoon (woo-hoo!) I brainstormed what kind of design I could use to show off as many monkeys as possible. You see that was part of his negotiating technique. When I reminded him he already had a monkey shirt, he said, "That only has one monkey on it. I don't have a shirt with LOTS of monkeys." 

I looked through my applique alphabets to see if I had a big chunky D that would maximize fabrics, and then I remembered this cool font!

This is technically the D from East Coast Applique's Baseball Alpha, but instead of using white fabric I used the monkey fabric, and I skipped the step with the red stitching across the ball. (You can see my friend Wendi's sample of the alphabet here)  I added his name with Embird Alphabet #4.

I really like how it turned out. What a neat way to show off cool fabric. And it was a quick design -- one fabric to trim, one thread in the machine!

 

Dashiell was really pleased. As soon as he saw it he gasped, grabbed it and ran to show daddy saying "I love it!" and then came and gave me a big hug. Here he is at St Marks yesterday:

 And acting like a monkey!