Fun Kitchen Towel for Wine Lovers

I made several things for my Mom for Christmas and I forgot to take pictures! I did snap one of this kitchen towel after she opened it. I wish I had taken one of the presentation. It was folded and wrapped around a bottle of wine with ribbon.
The towel is one of my thick ones from Williams Sonoma, the best I have found. Luckily, Mom bought me 6 more for Christmas! The embroidery is from Urban Threads. It stitched perfectly.

Happy 2015!!

I hope to do more posting in 2015. I have done plenty of sewing, I just need to take some pictures and get them posted!

The Stockings Were Hung...

Merry Christmas 2014! We had a wonderful Christmas Eve and Day. This is my family room, all ready to go last night. I finished embroidering 7 stocking cuffs, which I will share in detail soon. We had a lovely church service, lots of good food, and thoughtful gifts! Tomorrow we will do it all again when we spend Boxing Day with my parents. Then we will relax for the rest of vacation!! Hope you all had a great Christmas with many blessings, too!!

Snowman Cousin Outfits!

I had so much fun making these "cousin" outfits for my Andy and my god-daughter Ella. This was a gift for her second birthday this weekend and I like to make something with a winter theme so she can wear it past Christmas.

Ella's jumper is Children's Corner Lucy, size 2. It is a very soft featherwale corduroy, purchased from fabric.com. The shirt was purchased at Walmart. The trim is a tiny red ball fringe.

Her leggings are from Gymboree, size 3. They have snowmen on them and the corduroy I had just happened to match perfectly!

Her hairbow has the snowman feltie I digitized in the center. If you want to get the design for free, check my last post!

Andy's outfit has the same snowman applique, from Planet Applique. I stitched it on the corduroy and sewed the patch to a white t-shirt. The pants are Peek a Boo Patterns Castaway Cargos, both are size 6. I forgot to take a picture, but the pants have a soft knit waistband, which Andy loves for comfortable wear. I love it for easy trips to the potty! This pattern is my favorite pants pattern ever- you can whip up the plain version (no pockets) in half an hour!!

I think these outfits turned out SEW CUTE!! I hope the kids can wear them together during Christmas vacation so I can get some pictures.

Back to working on stocking cuffs. I have finished 4 of 7 so far!

FREE Snowman Feltie Embroidery Design!!

I made some sweet snowman outfits, which I will share with you soon. To coordinate with the girl's outfit, I digitized this snowman feltie. My cyber friend Chari Price tested it and made some gorgeous bows to show you, too!

The twig arms are optional. They are the last color, so you can just leave them off if you want a snowman that's easier to trim.

This one has the arms. Don't you love the way Chari made the ribbons match the hat and scarf colors?

The design comes with 4 snowmen in the 4x4 hoop. There are 2 facing each way, so you can make sets if you want 2 matching. Just click on the link below, to join my group and get the file, which includes directions.

You can get the design on my Facebook Patterns Group, FREE for a limited time!!

Back tomorrow with the outfits that inspired this feltie design!!

Andy's Christmas Overalls!

My darling Andy looks spiffy in his Christmas overalls! We went for our Christmas card pictures last week and I got several great shots of all 5 kids, so I am a happy Mommy.

The pattern is "Holly and Hunter" overalls by Bonnie B. I made size 6. The fabric is supersoft featherwale corduroy. It is lined with blue broadcloth. The buttons are metal. The shirt was purchased at Walmart, because my boys love comfort (so they don't embrace dress shirts, though that would be cute, too!).

I shared the applique in a previous post, but here it is again with the added ribbon. I totally copied Planet Applique's sample on this one! I really love their designs- they always stitch so well and I think their styles are great!

Today I am hoping to work on the "cousin" outfits for Andy and Ella. They are turning out adorable. I am also testing a snowman feltie I digitized to be a freebie for you!!

Vintage Baby Bassinet!

This is a baby basket bassinet that I found at a yard sale for $10 last summer. It was in great condition, but the paint was very yellowed.

I forgot to take a picture before I flipped it for painting, but you can see the line of yellow. Even the cleaner area still wasn't a bright white.
I bought a can of Krylon gloss enamel and gave it one coat with a brush.

It came out really pretty! Bright white and shiny. I hadn't even noticed the diamond weave pattern before I painted it. The hood snaps off, too.

Here's a view of the whole thing. I used it to hold gifts at the Baby Shower I had for my friend a few weeks ago. It was a really pretty decoration.
We have an antique tiny iron crib that is a family heirloom, which will be passed down some day. For my other grands, I will decorate and outfit a different vintage bassinet. I think it will be really fine to make bedding for these someday- I think I have awhile to dream on this project!

Happy Thanksgiving Turkey Shirt!

This was such a fun project. Andy had a Thanksgiving party at preschool today and I wanted to make him a cute shirt to wear.

 

The design is from Planet Applique and as usual, is masterfully done. It stitched perfectly! I can always count on them for great appliques. The shirt is a size 5 Garanimals tee from Walmart. I was hapy to find the cream color. (You may notice the grain of the knit is way off, but otherwise it's fine).

Here is the shirt in action! It looked just adorable on! He will probably wear it again on Thursday, though I did buy matching sweater vests for Andy and Davy. We'll see...

On Thursday, we are having family here and will enjoy a feast, games, puzzles, and decorate Gingerbread Houses to kick off the season. We already had our Christmas card pictures done and I have done a lot of my shopping. Andy's Christmas overalls are finished, so I think I am in pretty good shape!

I hope you all have many Thanksgiving Blessings!! 

I have some great Christmas projects and baby items to share soon!!

My P.H.D.

Yes, a P.H.D. for Lisa! It's the Projects Half Done club for me. I have started (or planned) so many projects: now I need to finish some!

This is how much is done on Andy's Christmas Overalls. I always choose a color theme for the kids and this year we picked royal blue with silver. These are a very soft corduroy with the jingle bell applique from Planet Applique- I never go wrong with their designs. Not to say the same for the thread I used. The silver stitched beautifully, but when I tried to outline the letter in blue, the thread was horrible. I ended up going over it with silver and it looks OK now.

Katie made this teddy bear cake for the Baby Shower we ran last weekend. Thank goodness that's over with!

Rosie made these cute baby face cupcakes, too! I have really talented kiddos!

This is a prototype smocked barrette for my new smocking guild. They need a project to make with 8-10 year old girls and I offered to make a sample. It's just a smocked piece glued onto a large snap barrette. What do you think??

 

Not yet begun are: a bargello Christmas tree skirt and stocking cuffs (7 of them- aaargh!)

I also started crocheting an owl hat for Andy, but I don't have enough done yet to share. What are you up to??

Baby Shower Prep: Feltie Favors

Well, I've been busy and just haven't taken the time to blog. I have worked on several projects, though!
I am running a baby shower on Saturday. My friend is due with a baby boy on Christmas! I made some onesie and diaper feltie candy holders as a decoration/favor.

I digitized these myself a couple of years ago for another friend's baby shower. They are easy to make, but it still took a few hours to make 21 of them. The onesies stitch 4 at a time and the diapers 3 at a time in the 6x10 hoop.

I used 2 layers of felt, but added a layer of baby-themed cotton over the onesies to make them look prettier.

The diapers are just 2 layers of felt.

They all hold a sweet surprise: Ghirardelli squares or Hershey bars. For the shower, I will hang these with tiny clothespins on my mantle. One candy will have a sticker on it, so whoever chooses it will win a prize.
I promise to blog sooner with the shower favors, a bassinet I painted, and more!

Fall Table Runner- 2fer

 

I made my Mom a table runner for her birthday AND one for myself, too! The pattern is a little postcard that I bought at a quilt shop- it's called "Two-For" by Pieced Tree. The only change I made was to shorten it to 4 pumpkin blocks long, because I thought that was long enough and I only had that much of the pretty pumpkin fabric!
I wanted to make a fall-themed runner to leave on my table when it's not in use and I thought this pattern looked easy but attractive. The fabrics were from a bundle of fall-themed fabrics I bought for a dollar at my quilt guild auction in June. They were donated by a friend who just moved away, so the runners will be special in that they will remind me of her, too. She has excellent taste in fabrics and color selection.  This was a "charmed" project, as I call it when it goes with no problems. I has just enough of the fabric and I made no mistakes! The machine stipple quilting went without a hitch and I was able to piece enough of the brown for binding.
Now I just have to finish off mine. It may actually be done in time for the Fall holidays - yeah!

Detail of machine stipple quilting

Chicken Quilt Progress

I got the top of the Chicken Quilt put together. It took a long time to fit the blocks together, but I love how it worked out. The top is like a chicken coop with the rooster, nest, and hen. The bottom is a farm scene with the flowers and animals.

I want to add at least one border and I found this terrific fabric at Walmart. It is corn kernels! Corn is one of my chickens' favorite foods, too!
I will update again when I get the borders on and work on the quilting.

Fingertip Towel "L"

Since we got chickens for pets, I understand a lot of sayings better, like: "why did the chickens cross the road?" "To go visit our neighbors!" "Pecking order" means the biggest, bossiest hen is the "ruler of the roost!" And so I can say, fingertip towels are "rarer than hen's teeth." They just aren't popular anymore. My Mom always makes her bathrooms inviting with a little vase of flowers and a "fingertip" towel to dry your hands. If you've never seen one, they are larger than a washcloth and rectangular like a hand towel, but much smaller.

I bought six white ones on ebay and they are nice. The velour finish is soft and great for machine embroidery. These work well for embossed designs, so on my first one, I did an embossed seahorse in white on white. It looked great, but I gave it away without taking a picture.

The second one is this "L" from a new embossed alphabet at Designs by Juju. It was on sale for $4 when I bought it.

I have 4 more to experiment on. I would like to find a source for these in colors. Do any of you use fingertip towels??

Autumn Grace Sew Along Dress

I participated in the Sew Along over at Ellie Inspired Patterns Group. Laura is very generous with her patterns, teaching, and give-aways. If you aren't a member of her group, you should be! I have been smocking for ages, but Laura has tutored probably 30 or 40 first timers through this project.

While I love picture smocking, I find that I enjoy doing geometrics much more. This design is very simple, but the added ribbon makes it look a bit fancy. It was very quick to do, too!

I had smocked in red/pink to match this pretty fabric. When I started construction, I realized that I only had 1 1/4 yds- not enough! I went to buy more, but it was sold out. I could either make a top or figure something out to make a dress as I originally intended.
I added a panel of white batiste to the floral fabric, then covered it with a "faux" apron. I used Swiss embroidered trims and will add a red ribbon to the apron insertion when I have a chance. I think it turned out very cute.

Here's a view of the back. It is a basic peasant dress shape and should be quite comfortable to wear. I made size 3.

Tomorrow I have to finish a little quilted wallhanging for my Quilt Guild Challenge. Then it's back to the "Wee" Project I started. Lots of fun projects going on here- what about you??

Sew Alongs & Smocking!

 I've done 2 of Ellie Inspired's Sew Alongs recently. This "Best Friend's Dress" is made of very soft, floral corduroy. It is a size 3 with a ribbon casing at the waist. It is a super-quick sew with the dolman sleeves. I got some purple leggings to go under this.

 This smocking is for the current sew-along for the "Autumn Grace" pattern. It is a peasant dress with a smocked insert. I love the Oriental-looking flowers and the pink and red combo. The smocking was very quick and I like the addition of the ribbon. I'm hoping to construct this dress tomorrow.

 These adorable smocked inserts are CHEATERS! I bought them from Beaux and Belles online. I love, love the top one with the chickens (which you may remember we have as pets!). I am hoping to put it in some Jeffery overalls for Andy for Thanksgiving.

 I couldn't resist these ballerina inserts. Oh, Rosie would have loved these when she was little! I hope to turn one into a yoke dress for Ella sometime.

These florals are very pretty, too! I love adding these to my stash for when I want a smocked outfit without all the work! Back soon with more to show!

Princess Celestia Purse for Hannah

My talented teen Katie is a very sweet and thoughtful person! She wanted to send something to her best friend's little sister for her birthday. She remembered how much she and Rosie loved their jean purses when they were little.

We used an old pair of Andy's jeans from the consignment pile. They are pretty little, which makes the purse a nice size for a 6 year old girl. Katie knew that Hannah loves My Little Pony, but not just any pony would do. Her favorite is "Princess Celestia" probably the most complicated one to embroider! We found the design on Etsy and it stitched out quite well, even on the thick denim (2 layers because of the pocket).

What good is a purse without a few things to keep a girl going? Katie had picked up a special lollipop, some pencils, and a bracelet on a vacation recently. We added a $2 bill for fun. We wondered if people would think it's counterfeit if you try to spend it? I have one left in my car to try on an unsuspecting cashier sometime!
This package will ship out tomorrow. I think a special little sister in Florida is really going to love this!

A Wee Project, part 1

I stitched two little embroideries for sweet baby boys. Can you guess what I am making? I have several projects going at once and this one shouldn't take very long to finish. This train is from Artistic Designs. It is stitched in DMC 50 weight cotton thread. I love, love how soft it is and how it looks!

This design is 3 of Oma's Mini Baseball designs put together. This one is stitched in RA rayon, because I don't have bright colors in the DMC. I still used cotton thread in the bobbin, though.
I hope I will get these little projects done soon so I can share them with you!