Kayla Couture Spring Outfit

I made this outfit last year for my niece Kayla. The skirt is an adaptation of a big 4 pattern. I can't think of the company off the top of my head. I embroidered two shirts to go with this. The design is from East Coast Applique. I deleted the heart and added her monogram on the white shirt.

Kayla Couture Sports Bracelets

My sweet southern friend Cassie of East Coast Applique digitized several sports bracelets. She has them in several sports and also a blank bracelet. The bracelets also come in both adult and child sizes in one download. I've only made these two but I have some thoughts up my sleeve for some more. You can find Cassie's designs here. http://www.eastcoastapplique.com/shop.html Cassie has a lot of unique and easy in-the-hoop designs.

Another cool thing about the bracelets is that Cassie has files for vinyl/leather and for fabric. The pink bracelet is made out of fabric. The soccer bracelet is made out of marine vinyl. You can find remnants of vinyl at Joann's. The bracelets are great for sport's moms. You could put your child's jersey number on the bracelet.

Lemon Bleaching

I'm back! Wow, last year was a ride. My mother's dementia caused her swallowing reflexes to quit working. My sister took her to the ER and she died two weeks later. My mother-in-law was diagnosed in November with lung cancer and passed two days after Thanksgiving. Two weeks later, my oldest daughter gets engaged. That's the major events in a nutshell then combine that with everyday life. I need to get back on track stitching and writing.

This was an experiment that I did over the summer. I wanted a faded, worn-out, shirt for my Kayla. I did some research and first soaked the shirt in a salt bath for three days to soften the t-shirt. The t-shirt was a high quality shirt that I purchased at the Jansport outlet store here in town. After soaking in the salt mixture, I then soaked the shirt in a lemon-water bath. I laid it out in the driveway for a couple of hours. You can see in the picture that the shirt did fade, just not as much as I had wished. Another interesting detail is that I used old t-shirts for the soccer ball applique. The shirts were soccer shirts of two of my girls, Kayla's cousins.

The design is from a friend of mine. It's East Coast Applique and Cassie has some great things over on her Facebook shop. When I saw her split sports ball designs, I knew I had to get the soccer design for my niece. I believe the applique font is from Hang to Dry.

 

Kayla's name was balanced however with the last letter, the 'A', it looks off center. What I should have done was too move her name over a smidge to the rights. It would have been off-center but visually, it would have looked better. 

Kayla Couture Soccer Wear

I thought I'd take Kayla's brand and use it for some soccer clothing for her. I was so excited about the soccer shirts. I'm really happy with how the pink soccer ball turned out. The soccer ball design is from Applique Cafe. The font that I use for her brand is Just Another Serif from 8 Claws and a Paw.

This soccer stick girl is from Designs by Juju. I love the stick figures. I don't use them as much as I used to. I need to change that. They are such cute designs. 

Crayola Kayla

 I've had this design on my to-do list for a year now. I worked it up in my software but when I finished putting it together in the computer, I came to a halt. This design has maybe 45 thread changes. That is a lot. For me, that's about a two hour commitment at the machine. But there was a challenge over at Applique Forum to use a design that is at least six months old that you purchased but haven't stitched out. Well now was the time to cross it off my list.

 I hope that Kayla likes wearing it since I was excited to finally have finished it. The Crayola Alpha is by Planet Applique.

Glamour Girl

Here is a fun little design from Katelyn's Kreative Stitches. I used silver sequin fabric for the lenses.

I had an issue with this design. From this picture, you can see that the black satin stitches were stitched out first. The the pink satin stitch is placed completely on top of the black. In my book, this is a complete waste of thread, time and wear and tear on the machine. That is a lot of stitches to cover. I've stitched out other designs from this company but this is the first that I've noticed this.

Hoo's in the Forest?

Whimsical Fabrics was having a sew-a-long several months ago. This was my first time for a sew-a-long. I finished after the deadline. The pattern used is Macy's Giggles by Izzy and Ivy. This dress used a lot of fabric. I used the size 8 for Kayla and it is big on her. I think she'll be able to wear a long sleeved shirt underneath for school and be fine. Then by next summer, the dress should fit as a sundress. The fabric line is Hoo's in the Forest by Riley Blake. Riley Blake puts out some great whimsical prints. The little owls on the branch design is from Applique Junkie and the hedgehogs on the pockets are from Planet Applique.

H2O + Sun = Fun

This cute little sun design was used in this month's challenge over at Applique Forum. The design is from Luna Embroidery over at Etsy. I had no idea what I was going to do. I started to look thru my patterns and saw the Ruffle Pop skirt pattern from Tie Dye Diva. I found my inspiration. I pulled out so many fabrics to audition. None of them seemed quite right. Maybe it's because for years I have been collecting fabrics for quilt making. One piece of fabric might have worked but I didn't have a piece that complimented it. What I ended up with are these bargain basement $1/yd Wal-Mart fabrics. About six weeks ago, Wal-Mart has some huge fabric blowout. I think I picked up seven pieces of fabric. The blue and yellow certainly fit the sun and water theme. I can't say the blue fabric worked for the water applique but I wanted everything to match.

Now that I settled on the pattern and the fabric, I needed to figure out how to pull everything all together. The design comes in both small (4x4) and medium (5x7) sizes. The largest size was best for the t-shirt. I decided to bring the design down to the skirt and the smaller size was perfect for that.

The design did not have a saying and I felt I needed something. I kept searching for surfing sayings and that wasn't getting me anywhere. So I changed search words and then tried summer sayings and found the "H2O + Sun = Fun". Perfect!

I'm pleased with the outfit. I wish the fabric was a tad higher quality but it works for a summer play outfit for my niece.

The Gumball Outfit

I've been wanting to try my hand at a vinyl design. The gumball design was the perfect choice. The applique is from Planet Applique.

Now, what better to go with this shirt than a........................BUBBLE SKIRT!

The pattern is McCalls 6276. The pattern may look familiar to you. I made the ruffled skirt several months ago for my niece.

My niece loves this outfit. My sister sent an email that she wore it all weekend. She had two parties to go to and she wore it to both parties.

The Branding of Kayla

 Every fashionista deserves to have a brand, right? I've been thinking about this for maybe a year now. I wanted to experiment with making a brand for my niece. So off and on I've been playing with fonts and putting letters together and working on names. Of course I didn't bother to get my niece's input or my sister's for that matter! I tried working with Kayla's last name and the monogram just wasn't quite right. So I had to venture down a different path. I had to give Kayla's brand a name. So Kayla Couture (and so much more!) it was.
 My goal is to use her logo on more of her dress garments, not so much her play wear. The font that made the final cut was "Just Another Serif" from 8 Claws and a Paw. Too, too bad that Chanel has the best logo around and I couldn't use that. Drat.

Alright, let's look at some of Kayla's garments and accessories. I think every couture house has some very basic, chic black and white ensembles. This outfit was one of the very first that came to my mind. I got this fabric in the clearance bin. Quite honestly, I get a lot of Kayla's specialty fabrics in the clearance bin. Cottons cost a fortune but nicer garment fabric I can get for cheap. Too bad for the industry that people don't use the fabric but I luck out with some steals. Back to Kayla's outfit. I immediately thought she needed a pencil skirt to go with this t-shirt. I spied the fabric at Joann's I think. It might have cost me $1 or $2 to make. The pattern that I used is McCalls 6274. If you look at the pattern, the skirt kind of has a safari feel to it. Well all I had to do was to omit all the pockets. Viola! Pencil skirt!

Here is my version of the pattern. What do you think?

Notice her logo at the bottom of the skirt?

Doesn't this dress look huge? I made it a size 8 so it will work for back to school. This pattern is New Look 6018. This pattern is now out of print. I'm grateful that I purchased it when I did.

Now for some accessories. A sunglass case.

A summer hat.

A beach tote.

Finally, this is for Kayla's mom. I figured my sister needs a lingerie bag to wash Kayla's shirts in.
The Frame is the Mia frame from Planet Applique.

Well, that's it for now. I have a few more ideas for Kayla Couture. Stay tuned!

A Patriotic Tank

 This month's challenge over at Applique Forum was the design had to be "red, white and blue and a little sparkle too." I'm still catching up with not being home much in April. I wasn't planning on doing the challenge but the $2.00 tank sale at Old Navy changed my mind. Now my challenge was to figure out what I was going to do. I wanted to incorporate a fireworks design. But what to put with it. Certainly there were a lot of great patriotic designs to choose from. The design chosen is from Applique A Day. The fireworks design is from Lynnie Pinnie.

I think the shirt meets the sparkle criteria. I used sequined fabric for the star, metallic thread for the fireworks and rhinestones.

Poodle Girl

When I saw this design from Hang To Dry, I immediately thought of finding some French or Parisian fabric to make a dress or skirt to go with it. One day in the sewing room, I spied the leopard print knit and immediately thought about pairing it with a bright pink. So I made the skirt (without a pattern!). I wanted to put curved pockets on the skirt but then decided that that might make the skirt a little bulky.