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.

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.

A Birthday Onsie for Stacy

My daughter Lauren called and asked if I could make a onsie for her. She was making a birthday tutu for someone and wanted a onsie that would match. The tutu will be turquoise, hot pink, orange, green and yellow. We decided to do this little birthday balloon. The design is smaller than I like. But bumping the design up to the next larger size would be too big and I didn't want to deal with a large embroidery hoop on this little garment.

 

This font is called Girls and it's from 8 Claws and a Paw. It's a gorgeous font. The balloon is from Planet Applique.

A Penguin for My Mom

I sent my niece a nice little care package right before the holidays. My mom was up from Florida and was at Brenda's house when the package arrived. My sister caught my mom looking into the box a few times. She thought that those little garments belonged to her. You see, my mom has Alzheimer's.  My sister called me to let me know that the package arrived and I should really make mom some things.

I figured that if she thought the little designs that I made for Kayla were hers, then I better make her something Kayla-like. I went to the store and came home with this chenille sweater. I decided that I had some cute penguin designs and I would try one of them. This design is from Hang to Dry Applique.

It was a little bit bulky stitching this up. Besides the thickness of the sweater, I used polar fleece and then a chenille plush for the little guy's face. Yes indeedy, very thick but my machine kept on chugging. In all seriousness, the machine is making a buzzing sound now so that is not good.

Pillowcase of the Month Club Finale

Finally, finally. The last pillowcase for the Pillowcase of the Month Club for Kayla. This was actually the June pillowcase. I mentioned in previous post that I was dragging my feet on this one because the stitch count was so high. The count was over 40,000 stitches and 40 thread changes so that equates to at least two hours watching the machine stitch this out.

I wish the main fabric was a little more vibrant. I couldn't find any good slumber party fabric and I saw this at Hancock's and thought I better grab this. I had the slumber party theme in my mind and didn't want to change that thought.

The designs were from Julia's Needle Designs. I saw the set quite a while ago and bought it and new it had to be for a pillowcase.

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.

Tobaggan Girl

 I kind of fell in love with this design and had to have it. I guess it stems from living up north. Your world is winter, cold and snow. You either embrace it or you move to Florida. The design from Applique Corner. The fabrics are a mix of flannel and polar fleece. I still need to do a little more trimming.

A Girly Mascot

 

 This little t-shirt is for my niece. The mascot for her elementary school is an eagle so I thought I would find a design for her. I checked the schools website and really couldn't tell if they had school colors so I just chose a red t-shirt. A mascot is suppose to be fierce, right? I put a bow on the eagle. A girly eagle can be fierce don't ya think! The design is from Applique Corner.

If The Shoe Fits

I'm losing count. I had both of the pillowcases planned for some time. I actually purchased the shoe fabrics in Minnesota a couple of years ago. The birthday fabric I bought at Nancy's Notions a couple of months ago. I finally put them together and I'm real happy with them both.

Too bad I didn't take the time to repress this pillowcase. I finished it at a crafting fundraiser and pulled it out of my bag. The shoe applique is from Five Star Fonts and the actual font is Fairytale from 8CAAP. The fabric is Sandy Gervais for Moda and the line is called Objects of Desire. Perfect for the little shoe diva.

I love how this pillowcase turned out. The font is Gracie from Embrotique. The little balloon applique is from MCA Designs. The fabric is so bright, colorful and fun. The fabric designer is Kari Pearson for Quilting Treasures. Happy Birthday Kayla!

Plump Pumpkin

I wanted to make my niece a fall shirt. I had seen so many cute applique pumpkin designs. It was hard to pick one. It's just like picking the real thing! Anyway, I decided on this plump pumpkin design from Applique Market. Nice and simple and a fairly quick stitch out. The great thing about this design is that she can wear it for both Halloween season and Thanksgiving season. 

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.

Football Mom

My sister Jodi is a football mom. Both her boys play football. I saw this design and fell in love with it. I've seen other designs but liked this one enough to purchase it. The design is from Katelyn's Kreative Stitches. It took a while for the machine to stitch it out. I did this late one night and was dozing at the machine. I'm crossing my fingers that it fits her.

Basketball Again!

I used both of these basketball designs last month. This time, I used the "real" basketball vinyl that I found on the Joann's clearance shelf. The new vinyl certainly a more authentic look. However, the last basketball t-shirts I used a flannel backed tablecloth vinyl. I think it still had the look of a basketball and it was easier to stitch on. The new vinyl that I purchased has little bumps on it, just like a basketball, but it's more difficult to get coverage.

I made these shirts for my nephew Donovan.

Here is a side by side comparison of the two fabrics. The true basketball vinyl is on the right. I think I have almost a yard of this stuff. That should last me for quite some time seeing you only need between three and five inches for an applique!

And Now One for Kayla

We are closing in on the pillowcase of the month club for my niece. I'm still missing her June pillowcase. I'll also have one extra so she'll have a baker's dozen when we are through. 

The font is the Pumpkin font from 8 Claws and a Paw.

Let's Play!

My nephews are getting too big I think to wear stuff that Auntie makes them. I thought this design from Applique Corner might work for Donovan. I was a little hesitant with it due to the font. A little young looking for him. I maybe should have edited that out and replace it with a different font. He likes the shirt so I'm ok with it I guess.

The t-shirt is actually brown. Get it, football brown. It looks black here but it really is brown. So we already know that I didn't want the t-shirt to be too babyish for him. Well using a quilting cotton for the applique wasn't going to cut it. I start to look around the sewing room. I spied a bag of faux leather and other upholstery fabric. I decided that faux white leather wasn't quite right. I then found some microfiber fabric. The right side of the fabric wasn't right either but the back or wrong side of the fabric was just right. It had this very rough texture to it. Nothing girly about that. It was a bit of a challenge to stitch through. My thread was shredding trying to get through it. I decided to try a different brand of white embroidery thread and that did the trick. Went onward without any problem. I did have to go back and manually satin stitch where the shredding occurred.

The other difficult thing about the fabric is that I think it took a toll on my small, curved, very sharp embroidery scissors. The fabric was very thick, really too thick for those little scissors. I had cut leather with them without a hitch. This time, I'm fearful I wasn't so lucky. I used them to cut thread yesterday and they were pretty dull. I don't have any idea how to sharpen these curved blades. I'll have to research this little dilemma.

Now One for Matthew

My family went down to Kansas City this past summer for my sister's big birthday shindig. The day we left, we stopped by my sister Karen's house to pick up daughter number three and say goodbye to daughter number one. They decided to stay at Karen's house because of 1. the beer, 2. the in ground swimming pool, 3. the beer.

My nephew Matthew has been growing vegetables this summer. Matty may be seven or eight. What can I say, too many kids in the family. He planted his huge garden and has been tending it. When we stopped by, he got a bag and sent us back to Wisconsin with potatoes, onions and cucumbers. We ate the potatoes up right away. Great job Matty! 

I knew that I wanted to make him something farming related. When I stopped by Hancock's, I saw that they had all of the John Deere fabric on sale. Yippee. We're in business. It took a little bit of time to find a simple font that would be similar to the font that the tractor company uses. The font is called Chachie and is available from 8 Claws and a Paw.