My quick stitch version of an applique font

Over a month ago I used a new applique alphabet from Lynnie Pinnie and completely forgot to share my project with you! She released the Stitchy Applique font, which has a hand stitched look around the edges. It's designed in such a way that you should leave a little extra fabric around the tackdown since it isn't finished with a satin stitch. I was excited to put it to use!
Even using the smallest size of the font in my biggest hoop, I had to cram all the letters of Annaliese's name side by side. BUT IT FIT! :) However, there really wasn't enough space between letters to trim the fabric. So I tried a quick and easy way to applique names on these blankets! It was SUPER fast, you should give it a try!

Here's what I did:
I only ran the placement stitch for the first and last letter, and laid a big piece of green knit on top.
Then in matching thread I tacked down the first, middle and last letter. Truly just to tack it in place. Since I'm not trimming out each individual letter, I didn't bother tacking down everything. This was simply to save time.
Then I ran the final "stitchy" outline of the letters in a contrasting thread.
Finally I trimmed around the outside of their names, not worrying about in between letters and holes.

The kids loved having their Christmas blankets monogrammed. Aren't they so cute, sitting here all ready for Christmas??

I know, I know, you probably didn't even look at their monogrammed blankets. :)
I can claim the adorable kids, but their pajamas arrived courtesy of Grandma. She ordered the pjs and used LP's Peeking Santa Frame on them (with I2S's Barnyard Font for names). We are so blessed!

Experimenting with Box Font and Chevron!

At the beginning of November another embroiderer shared a picture of an adorable shirt using the Box Font from the Itch 2 Stitch with two chevron fabrics. A conversation followed that inspired my own experimentation with the Box Font and chevron. I had been adding all sorts of chevron and Christmas prints to my stash, and finally got to play this past weekend. And what better project than kitchen towels for all the wonderful women I work with at preschool?!

I'm not sure which is my favorite, so I'm just going to put them in alphabetical order:

I love this design set!! :)

Nameflake Ornaments 2012

I haven't made nearly as many nameflake ornaments this year as in years past. Two I'll post in my Facebook album after Christmas since they were purchased as gifts. But these two have been received and I'm excited to share them, they just might be my favorite ones yet!

I used my AccuQuilt circle rag die to precut the fabric (a technique I tried for the first time last year, details here). I reused a decorative stitch circle I had created and used only one time four years ago for my mom's ornament; I was thrilled to discover it was the perfect size to use with the raggy circles!! Since both of my nieces were born this year, I put 2012 in the center. So pretty!!
Gabriella's nameflake:

And Ailynn's nameflake:

Quick little burp cloth

It's kind of ridiculous how much time I can spend getting a design ready to send to my embroidery machine... Finding the perfect design (which usually includes searching for something new I don't already own), picking a font that matches the character of the design *just right*, belaboring my fabric and thread selections... I love doing it, but it always takes so much longer than actually making the item!
So I recently impressed myself with how fast I cranked this out for a last minute request! (Can't say no to your boss as she heads out to meet her brand new granddaughter!) I picked a ribbon I knew I had fabric/thread to match, a "tried and true" font with a pretty L (8CP's Candi), AND I picked a design from my stash (dragonfly plucked from a FSF quilted patch freebie from DIME magazine, not sure if it's available, but FSF has this satin stitch dragonfly applique based on same artwork if you are interested).

Quick and cute!! I really should learn from this and make fast decisions more often. :)

Monogrammed Gift for Isabella

My husband asked me to make a gift for a friend of his who is a brand new dad. I haven't met the mommy, so I used it as an opportunity to try some new fonts and new fabrics I've been anxious to use. Personalized baby gifts for little girls are always fun!

BUT... Honestly "I" names can be tricky! I scrolled through at least 2 sites worth of applique alphabets to find a pretty applique "I", and selected 8CP's Curlz Two Applique Alphabet. While the applique version of the font is relatively new (not on CD) the satin stitch version Court Jester has been around, I just haven't put it to use until now!

I'm also super excited that 8CP has just released an applique version of their Mandi font so I used it, too. But in this case I used the lower case "i" for her name because, well, it's cute with the heart!

YAY for chevrons!! ;)

Decorated Candy Jar

This fall one of the big trends in the embroidery/applique world is making charms for jars and pillows. And burlap is pretty popular, too! So I combined a couple idea to make a gift for our preschool director:

The design is Applique Momma's Christmas ornament. But instead of tacking down a ribbon loop at the top of the ornament as in the directions, I tacked down a length of ribbon across the center so I could tie it around a jar. I ran the placement stitch, laid down the ribbon and ran the first tackdown stitch, then laid down the burlap and continued on...

Turned out cute! The E is from 8CP's Happy Birthday font, which was appropriate since this was a birthday gift. :) My intention was to put a specific "round number" of pieces of candy in the jar, but Ms. Elaine isn't old enough to fill the jar with Hershey Kisses! So instead she got nearly two bags worth. Just a tip, go get yourself some Mint Truffle Kisses. Yummy! 

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. :)