Hockey Tote

To go with all the other hockey items, I appliqued this tote bag from Dollar Tree. The design is from Luna Embroidery.

I'm usually much better on my names. You can see that Logan is crooked. I really hate that. I stitched out this bag before I purchased my 10 needle. Because the bag is vinyl, I couldn't do a basting stitch around the perimeter of the design. It would have left holes that couldn't be fixed. So I used some KK2000 and kind of held the bag. Sometimes I'm able to pin the bag to the stabilizer but it just depends on what hoop I'm using. I pin on the blue straps, If the hoop is small, then I'm not able to do that.

Hockey Towel

This is one of my favorite towels. The design is from Luna Stitches. She has a lot of helmet and hat designs. I sent her a message asking if a goalie mask would be possible. This is what she came up with. You can find her site at http://lunastitches.com/category/new.htm.

The font is Tangerine from Trendy Stitches.

Quick Baby Gift

I saw a picture on a Facebook group using this design on a onesie. I fell in love because 1. it looked easy and 2. I knew that I already owned this design. This may be my new go-to baby gift. There are only two fabric pieces to cut. The design is from Lynnie Pinnie. You get the applique monogram plus a matching font in two sizes. Time was tight so I used a font from my software to make the curving of the baby's name go faster.

 The flannel burp cloth tutorial can be found here. http://sewlostforyou.blogspot.com/2012/01/burp-cloth-tutorial.html

 The bib is from Ikea. You can get a pack of five for cheap. They are a little bit thin and this one is a tad wonky. Usually they are straighter.

Sock Monkey Fun

Maybe this title should be reworded to "What not to make for a craft fair". Let me tell you what I would do differently. For starters, no pockets on the pants. Yes cute detail but adds too much time. The applique is cute but also too much detail. There are way to many pieces on that applique. Finally, using corduroy for the pant ruffle. The fabric choice takes a little bit longer to sew. I priced this outfit at $35 which was very reasonable for the amount of time that was put into it. It did sell. I need to find time to stitch up the rest of the sock monkey corduroy then rework the outfit to make it more profitable.

 I sold this little sock monkey outfit at my first craft show. Last summer, I saw the cute sock monkey corduroy for sale at Hancock Fabrics. So I picked up a couple of yards. I really need to make another outfit and put it in my non-existent Etsy shop.

The sock monkey applique is from Designs by JuJu. 

The pant pattern is Britches and Bloomers. It's a great easy pattern. I just wish the sizing went higher than a size four. It can be used for both boys and girls.

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.

Sophia and Zoey

Here are two more birthday shirts. I only have a couple of birthday shirts up on Lauren's website. I want to be cautious about posting too many items. I have a day job and I want to make sure that I'm not swamped with orders that I can't take care of right away.

 

 

Barnyard Birthday For Brissa

Lauren is using more models to promote her site. One of the babies was having a farm themed birthday. Mom sent Lauren a copy of the invitation. So we decided to do use this cow design. The invitation was very different. Mom had used several fonts. One of the fonts was Pharmacy. I have that embroidery font from Jolson's so I knew I had to incorporate that into the design.

 

The little cow design is from Applique Chick. The "Two" is Jack N Jill from 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.

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.