Basketball Items for Luke

For some reason, I love designs that have flames shooting out of them. I found this basketball design at Bows and Clothes. The design called for the use of two fabrics for the flames. I had flame fabric on hand and decided to try that instead of a plain red and a plain orange or yellow. The font is Clarence that came with my 4D Extra software.

 

I saw this basketball fabric at Jacqi's shop. Gosh, I wish they would quit coming out with such beautiful novelty fabrics. I could work on other items besides pillowcases. At least they're a quick project. For those of you who follow my blog, the banding fabric is the same that I used on Whitney and Joshua's beer pillowcases last year. I love that fabric. I thought the same fabrics would work with the basketball fabric. 

 The font is also the same as I used for the beer pillowcases. It's "Pharmacy" by Jolson's.

Cowboy Themed Baby Items

I've had several of these cowboy designs for a while now and have been itching to stitch them out. My friend Kim has a new grandbaby so here was my chance to try out the designs. Most of the designs are from Planet Applique. The cowboy hat is from Designs by Juju and the little cowboy is from Aunty M Designs.

Gifts for Gabriel

Quite a while back, my dear, dear friend Kim let me know that she was going to be a grandmother. Both of her children were expecting babies. Jacob's baby was delivered this past Monday. Ali's baby is due in August. I did these items kind of at the last minute. I was waiting on the sex and name of Jacob's baby. So once I was armed with the information, I had to scurry about to get these things made.

As luck would have it, I needed to go to Wal-Mart for something. I spied these onsies on clearance. I decided to grab a bunch. I usually make more burp clothes but time was of the essence since I was heading to Omaha. I wanted to hand deliver the baby items. I'm a procrastinator. If I didn't finish these, more than likely, little Gabriel wouldn't fit into them by the time UPS delivered them. The onsies were perfect since it would cut down my sewing time. Now the big decisions were "what designs to use." The airplane and the Jack Russell Terrier design came from Planet Applique. That little dog onsie is perhaps my favorite. I kept looking at it and it reminded me of the times the girls and I watched Wishbone on PBS. The whale applique came from Embroidery Library and the Splotch Font and Diaper Dude came from Five Star Fonts. The appliqued "Baby" is a freebie from Digistitches.com. And finally, the baseball is a freebie from SewForum.com. The font on the baseball is Tinker Toy from 8 Claws and a Paw. Whew!

Do you remember back in December when I showed a mini tutorial on embroidering on tote bags? I decided to take a couple more pictures, this time while the onsies were stitching out. I wanted to try and show you how little working room there is when embroidering on the onsies. They are not my favorite things to embroider because of their tiny size. I turn the onsie inside out to help with keeping the fabric free. I have to use my fingers to keep the fabric away from the needle. The embroidery unit can chew up a onsie faster than you can say "baby spit-up." One of these days, I'm going to either break a finger or severly puncture my finger by keeping it so close to the rapidly moving needle. The last picture is one of the burps stitching out. My kind of project. I'm not risking my hand on this one.

My Neighbor Gifts

After making Jodi's gift bags, I can't say that I was gun-ho to make more. But as time was getting closer, I wasn't any closer to coming up with anything unusual so I decided to steal my sister's idea. Luckily, I only had five bags to do. Well actually six, my husband asked for one more after I finished these so off to Hobby Lobby tomorrow for another bag. The ribbon is a little gawdy but that is what was close by and I didn't want to rummage in the basement.

In my gift bags, I added the two containers of pancake mix that Jodi used, the old-fashioned mix and the cinnamon mix. I put in a bottle of pure maple syrup, Door County Christmas coffee sample pack and some English breakfast tea. Whew, another year done. I hope my sister let's me know what she is going to do for her neighbors sooner next year!