Jungle Shirts

Lauren's friend Melanie is taking her kids to New York for a birthday trip. Jordan apparently wanted a jungle themed party and Melanie decided to take the kids for a big adventure. So Lauren thought having some jungle themed shirts that they could wear would be fun.

My biggest problem with embroidery is the thought process. With garment sewing, I can go into a fabric store with a vision. I may change my mind once I see the fabrics available but I'm more confident with my choices. I have the toughest time with embroidery trying to pick out the perfect design, the perfect threads, the perfect font and the perfect fabrics for the applique. It can take me over two hours getting the design ready and I haven't even taken the garment to the machine yet. This jungle theme was no different. Did I want the designs to match? Did I want applique or a fill stitch? What size design. What an affair.

For Mikayla, I ended up with a design from Applique Corner. I thought I had some giraffe print fabric and found none. So I used this golden yellow polka dot. . Then I for the life of me find a ruffle that would work for the mane. I came across the bag of trims that I bought in NYC this summer. I held up the pink stretchy loops and said "go for it". As usual, by the time I get finished with something it's night time that is the only time I can take pictures since I don't have time in the morning in addition getting ready for work. Hence, the blurry pictures. This design was a tad more of a challenge. For one, it took a while to get it lined up on the shoulder. It still wasn't quite where I wanted it but hey, it could always be worse! The one thing I didn't like about the design is the size difference between the head and the body. I felt the body should have been bigger.  The second challenge was getting that trim to stay clear of the needle without getting my fingers in the way of the needle. I'm ok with most of the trim except for the tail. That is a little messy but I just was not going to rip it out.

For Jordan, I decided not to do applique but a fill design. I had several monkey designs from Embroidery Library and this design was my final choice.The t-shirt is still a little wet from spritzing the shirt to remove the purple marker that I use to line the design up.

Baby Isabella, A Hungry Badger?

 

We have a new baby in the business family. One of Jeff's employees is now a proud father. These are some things I made for her. 

We live in the Badger state, Bucky Badger that is. So the bib is a take on the Wisconsin Badgers and that little YouTube video on the Honey Badger. When I was thinking about a baby gift, I thought I would do a badger applique. This design is from Embroidery Library. Then the idea hit me to use the phrase from the honey badger but turn it into the hungry badger. I believe I used Leon from 8 Claws and a Paw for the saying.

  

I put the same applique design on this little onesie. I used a font from my software package, can't remember which one though.

The little polka dot frame is from Embroidery RN. I can't remember which font I used for the letter "I".

Of course some burp cloths. The large monogram is Sweet Varsity from Planet Applique. The small font is the Steinweiss Script from Hang to Dry. I love that font.

Little buggy design is from Planet Applique.

This cute cow design is from Applique Chick. Jeff and his employees are agronomists that work in the dairy industry so I had to have something dairy related.

Are You Ready for Some Football?

A couple of months ago I was in Target scouring the clearance sections. I found a nice yellow polo shirt for my nephew Braden. I sent my sister a message asking her if he would like a football design. I sent her the link to this football design. She said, send the shirt but no design. Ok, he's in eighth grade. My feelings weren't hurt. Well after the polo shirt arrived, she told Braden I wanted to put a football design on the shirt. Well wouldn't you know he liked the idea. These may be the last things I make for him. He's at an age where I don't think he'll want any more. I guess there's just too much competition for his t-shirt attention and auntie loses.

The football design came from AK Designs. The design came in several sizes and I decided to go with the largest. I then did a search for football sayings. I really wanted to use a Vince Lombardi saying but I can only fit so much into the embroidery hoop. So I kept on trucking. I finally found this saying and decided it might fit and it was a decent saying for his shirt. Now, once again the difficult challenge of finding the perfect font for an eighth grade boy. I ended up using the font called Diner from 8CAAP.

 I bought this cave art football design last month from Embroidery Library and finally tried it out. I love this design. I think it's fun. I hope Braden thinks so.

Vrooooom!

My little nephew Connor is a car fiend. He's been this way since maybe crawling stage. I envision that this little guy will become an auto engineer. He has the brain of an engineer and the career runs in the family. The problem that I have with making things for Connor is that everything seems so babyish for him. Like I said, his brain is in engineering school right now even though he's only six. I hope he likes the shirt. The flame fabric for the helmet is the same that I used on his pillowcase. I need to make it a point when I go fabric shopping next to really make an effort to buy decent hair fabric. Connor has red hair. I can't just slap on red fabric and call it a day. I went with a light brown and that didn't quite do the trick. The applique is from Planet Applique.

This next shirt is a toile design from Embroidery Library. I just love all their toile designs. I purchased the shirt on clearance from Target. I was pretty sure I could find a design that would work with the stripe. I wish the design was a little bit larger but oh well. That's the largest it came in. The great thing about toile designs is that there is only one color so no constant thread changes.

I have been wanting to do a pillowcase for Connor for some time now. I figure it was hard to go wrong with that one. The fabric is from Alexander Henry, at least the giant car print was. I found that while shopping at Nancy's Notions one weekend. The black and white racing fabric came from Hobby Lobby. The font is Heavy Heap. I couldn't find a purchased font and I tried to do the auto digitize the font in my software but it didn't look very pretty. One of the gals over at Sew Forum was gracious enough to digitize it for me. Heavy Heap is the font used for Mattel's Hot Wheels products.

Is this a crazy mix of prints or what? I hope the little guy likes it.

Let's Play Ball!

I do so many girl things that sometimes it's fun to do some things for boys. My problem is that sometimes the boy embroidery designs may be a little babyish. I'm taking a chance on some things for my nephews. I figure if it's too babyish, hopefully they'll at least wear them to bed!
I love how this shirt turned out. Too bad my camera skills need improving. The color of the t-shirt is actually a bright, bold yellow. I really like the colors. The design from Applique Cafe. The font is Kindergarten from 8CAAP. Instead of using fabric for the football applique, I used a piece of leather. I really like how it turned out.

The next design came from Embroidery Library. I really like this design also. Very traditional and can be used for any age group. I have been doing so many applique designs, I somehow lost my brain when doing a regular embroidery design. This design has about 25,000 stitches. I really needed to beef up the stabilizer but totally didn't do it. So there is a little bit of puckering and the design did curl coming out of the dryer. My sister-in-law will just have to touch it up with the iron unfortunately.

The final design comes from Planet Applique, a cut little baseball player. The baseball cap had a gold star on it but I skipped over that part and decided to put Luke's name on the cap. The font is Roman I think and it came from my software. I didn't want to merge the lettering with the design so I had to came back and do the lettering as a separate design. As hard as I tried, I just couldn't get my centering correct.

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.

St. Nick Finally Arrives

St. Nick finally made his way over to the east coast. You would think that he would get to the eastern coast of the United States first since he's coming over from the Netherlands. The children in the Fox Cities area leave out their shoes the night before St. Nick arrives. In New York, St. Nick doesn't fill shoes with goodies (no, not even Manolo Blahnik's). He fills casserole carriers with candy. You can't run to catch a cab in NYC if you have goo from Peppermint Patties stuck to the inside of your stiletto's.

The casserole carrier is fairly simple to make. You start with the embroidery design on one placemat. You add the handles to the other placemat. Stitch out a buttonhole then stitch the two together. The really cool thing about this project is that it is made with a button that I bought at the Antique Mall. I was somewhat hesitant to use such a neat button but I thought it looked nice on the casserole carrier.

Now, all this talk about St. Nick reminds me of a young Natalie Wood and Edmund Gwenn in the original Miracle on 34th Street movie. Susan (Natalie Wood) is watching Santa Claus (Edmund Gween) with a little girl who just came from a war orphanage in Holland. Santa Claus is able to speak with the little girl in Dutch and the two of them sing a song about Sinterklaas. This is the beginning of Susan starting to believe that Kris is real. This scene warms my heart every time I see it.

Sinterklaas, kapoentje
Gooi wat in mijn schoentje
Gooi wat in mijn laarsje
Dank je Sinterklaasje

Christmas Totes

My sister Jodi called last week and asked if I could help her out on her neighbor gifts for Christmas. She wants to put together a package with pancake mix and syrup. I think she saw something similar either in the Land's End or LL Bean catalogs. The bags in the catalog had a monogram on them. Jodi was hoping for the last name. I initially told her that I couldn't do the names, they would be too long for the bag. I had searched for a font that would work for the bags. I decided at the last minute to stitch out the entire last name. It was a little difficult to keep the bag out of the way of the needle. If I had oodles of time and desire, I would have taken the bags apart to embroider then stitch them back together. That would have made things easier. I usually press the items before I embroider but somehow I missed that step yesterday. The Christmas pine letters came from Sonia Showalter Designs. The rest of the name is a font called Melody from 8 Claws and a Paw.com. The letters don't quite look like they match but they both are the same font. Now all I have to do is to find a box and get them in the mail for Jodi.

Some recent projects

I worked on a couple of dresses for Kayla at quilt retreat. The little boys shirts for Connor was ready to be mailed a while ago but I never made it to the post office. I finally drove everything to the post office this morning. I am hoping that everything is large enough to wear next year since Auntie Ellen is late as usual.

Last year I bought several pieces of candy cane fabric. I was just waiting for the right pattern. I had been looking at the Portabellopixie pattern "Claire" and wanted it badly. My obstacle is that the patterns are expensive, about $16 then you need to add shipping on top of that. You won't find this at Joann's or Hancock Fabrics. It came to me one day that the candy cane fabric would be perfect for this and bit the bullet and ordered the pattern. The little Santa elf is from Planet Applique. It's a cute little applique. My only issue is that there was about 33 thread changes with this design. I think the design took almost two hours to complete. I love this design though. It was worth the time to stitch it out. I will definitely make this dress again.

Over the summer, I found the cupcake fabric on clearance at the Wal-Mart store near the office. It has sparkles in it so I knew that it would be perfect for Kayla. I had most of the dress finished then decided to take this up to retreat also so I could cross it off my list. The pattern came from the website YouCanMakeThis.com Once again, I kind of shuddered when I hit the "pay" button. You get spoiled when you can buy patterns on sale for 99 cents. The indie patterns do not go on sale. I really wanted Kayla to have a little twirly dress and I didn't see anything in the Big 4 patterns books so I bought this pattern off the internet. The cupcake design is from Embroiderylibrary.com. The watermelon outfit is similar to the outfit that I posted for Mikalya.

For Connor's shirts, I found the designs off the internet for free. I wanted to add a little hammer or some other tool to the garage design but decided Connor probably didn't want a lot of decoration on his shirts. I purchased his shirts a size larger because I know that I can procrastinate and they would be too small before you know it.

Irish Gifts

Jeff, Taylor and I were invited up to Conor's relatives cottage for July 4th. Taylor stayed for several days but Jeff and I only drove up for a day. It was a beautiful day weather-wise. We took a drive with Conor's parents to see all the family land. We also took a ride around the lake in the pontoon boat. As a thank you gift, I embroidered the kitchen towels for Conor's aunts and the apron is for Conor's mom. The family celebrates their Irishness so I thought they would enjoy some Irish decorations for their kitchens.

Last October, Jeff had mentioned in passing that it was Tim and Yvonne's 25th wedding anniversary. I think he went to one of Conor's football games that I didn't go to. So I had a week to figure out what to do for their anniversary. I came up with this casserole carrier with a claddagh. I also baked a cake to put inside of the carrier.