Items for Chloe

Jennifer asked for a couple personalized items for baby Chloe. The first thing we worked on was a stocking. Jennifer brought me a red stocking that she had purchased, and while she was here for Thanksgiving we looked at embroidery designs to add. She wanted a design on the stocking and Chloe's name on the cuff. This is what we came up with:

The cute applique gingerbread design is from Designs by JuJu.

I used 8 Claws and a Paw's Tinker Toy font for her name, adding the hat to the C.

The other thing Jennifer wanted was a onesie for Chloe to wear during her upcoming visit to meet her grandmother:

I used Embird Alphabet #17 to do the text.

Fulfilling Gift Certificates

Back in September Michelle asked if I was willing to give a gift certificate for the Special Delivery onesies. She would be able to give the certificate as a gift, but leave it up to the parents to give me the details, ensuring no mistakes in the stats were made. I thought it was a great idea, and Carlin created one for me.
Fast forward a couple months, and the first one has been redeemed!



Updated 12/4/08:
The baby for the second gift certificate has also been born. Her onesie looks the same, just different details:

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 #3

In addition to the Nativity shirt, I got Annaliese's third Christmas shirt stitched yesterday, finishing about 20 minutes before our guests arrived to eat, so I didn't get pictures taken until this morning!

Last year I bought these cute leggings at Wal-Mart on clearance after Christmas. I thought the strand of lights was cute and knew I could find several matching designs. I gave Annaliese several options, and she picked this NOEL design from Sew Many Designs. Annaliese just told me that her favorite letter is the "L" (I picked pink and red fabrics to match the candy canes in the pants) but her most favorite is the fuzzy reindeer. :) I made sure all the lights in his antlers matched those in the leggings as well.

So here she is in her third outfit. Now I just have an A-line dress to make and I can cross "Annaliese's Christmas wardrobe" off my to-do list!

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.

Christmas Shirts for brothers

After I gave Angie the Special Delivery onesie for her newest little boy, she asked me about making matching Christmas shirts for all her boys. We spent quite a bit of time looking at designs, and after a futile search for a solid red onesie for the baby, we opted to only stitch shirts for the twins.

The S'more Snowman designs came from Sew Many Designs. I added the boys' names with Embird Alphabet #8.


The baby isn't being left out... Angie found a cute Christmas onesie that already had this reindeer on it, and I added his name:

The other request Angie made was to stitch a burp cloth for her. She gave me the cloth diaper which already had red stitching on it. I added the phrase and black checked ribbon. Angie and her husband are Alabama fans, but they are hosting Auburn family members for Christmas, and she decided she must have this on hand. :)

One of the benefits to not being a native to this area is that I have no real allegiances to local schools, so it doesn't pain me to make anything team related. Although I had to be careful on this one... My alma mater Illinois' colors are orange and blue... so I was sure not to pick my preferred shades of orange and blue. :)

First items for our baby

With only 6 weeks to go, I finally did some initial stitching for our expected baby boy! Carlin's office threw a baby shower for him yesterday, inviting Annaliese and I to join them. It seemed bizarre to go to a baby shower empty handed :) so I decided to make a couple things specifically for my Mr. Carlin Trammel and take them as a surprise.

First of all I did a burp cloth for Daddy. I'm due Dec 29, so LORD WILLING this will be used by Carlin. But if the baby doesn't cooperate, I guess we'll give it to another deserving family. :D

The dollar bill-like frame is from a freebie on Ann the Gran. I deleted the middle of the design and added the text with Embird alphabet #8.

The green cloth diaper is from a pack of Gerber prefold premium cloth diapers. The "boy" pack has 2 each of dark blue, light blue and green. The "girl" pack has purple and 2 shades of pink. I had seen them for the first time when I went to register, and decided I must try them! I'm probably one of the few people that registers for blank diapers, onesies and bibs... thankfully I've started receiving those items and can begin personalizing!

The other thing I stitched for our baby is a onesie:
I took Carlin's Stormspeed Entertainment logo that I digitized last week, and added the text "Newest Star" across it. Should be pretty appropriate since Carlin uses Annaliese a lot in his projects.

It was nice to finally start to do something for our soon-to-be second born!

Siena's Cave

Jason and Anna are good buddies with little Siena (daughter of mutual friends), who is turning three. Recently Jason and Siena have started a tradition of building a cave whenever their families get together. Sometimes it can be a hassle to find a blanket or sheet to use, so Jason decided to give one to her as a birthday gift that would be specifically used for their cave. What a creative idea!
Per his request, I bought a black king-sized sheet and embroidered "Siena's Cave" in pink (a favorite color of Siena's) using Embird Alphabet #18. Envision a sheet being draped over some chairs, and centered over the entrance is this:

On the back corner I also added the to/from information. I'm guessing these are nick names they have for each other:

My camera struggles photographing the black and red combination; trying to compensate with Photoshop really washed out the blue. Please know that Annaliese grabbed her stuffed Elmo and Grover and helped me pick thread colors that matched exactly. :) Oh, and she picked the pink, too, which is much brighter than pictured. All the colors look much better in person.

Maybe the next time the FitzSimmons and Rodgers get together they can take a picture of the sheet in use as a cave!