Category Archives: embroidery blanks

Mickey Mouse Outfit

Our son took his family to DisneyWorld on Mother’s Day to celebrate Laurel’s 6th birthday. Her princess shirt was shown in a previous post and, as expected, our little Disney Princess fan loved it.

Laurel’s shirt with added jewels and French knots

Robert’s tee shirt features a 5×7 Mickey from the Big Magic card. The added grass is from Fil Tire’ and Fancywork Elements, a collection done by Suzanne Sawko and me. I use this grass very frequently. Somehow, to my eye, it just doesn’t seem right to have a figure floating on a shirt, walking on air. So I often add the grass as a foothold. Continue reading

Cinderella Fan

 

For Laurel’s 6th birthday, the family is going to DisneyWorld.  Like most post-toddler to pre-teen girls, she is fascinated by the Disney Princesses.  Her Cinderella panties are always the first to be selected when the fresh laundry is folded and put in her drawer.

I’ve always made matching outfits for Laurel and Robert to wear to DisneyWorld. They enjoy knowing that no one else in the world has an outfit just like theirs.

For each visit, Laurel wears her latest Minnie dress and Robert his newest Mickey Jon-Jon, the outfits coordinated in fabric and primary mouse colors, red, black and white. Just 15 months apart in age, they are nearly the same size and always draw admiring glances. Continue reading

Treehouse Cafe

If becoming a grandmother was only a matter of choice, I should advise every one of you straight away to become one. There is no fun for old people like it!~Hannah Whithall Smith
NOTE: It’s all this old English major can do to scratch out “was” and insert “were.” What ever happened to the subjunctive mood in English? But I must respect the quotation marks. See end of post…….

Today, as planned, my little homeschoolers had lunch in the treehouse. Laurel was appropriately dressed in her ladybug knit outfit (see earlier post Frog Ballet), made from an inexpensive blank set from WalMart.

Frog Ballet

Laurel, comparing sizes with her birthday

It’s nice to have a quick and easy little project in answer to the regularly scheduled question, “Will you make me something, Nana?”

This comfortable two-piece knit outfit is just the sort of thing that Laurel likes to wear in the summer.  The skirt features three froggy ballerinas from Sew Many Designs’ (www.sewmanydesigns.com) Feelin’ Froggy applique’ collection.  The shirt is embroidered with a pair of ballet slippers hanging from a floral swag.

Machine embroidered applique’  is especially suitable for knits because the designs are usually not as stitch intensive a filled motif.  Sew Many Designs is one of my favorite sites.   Their collections cover every subject,  are cute as can be and are reasonably priced.  And  they always stitch out beautifully.

 

It is so hard to find children’s wear like this, with no embroidery or screen printing.  I bought a set in blue and red, but wish I had bought one of each color available.  Then the next time she asks me to make her something, I can whip something up in a heartbeat.

Even-Steven

Now this is a terrific modern project for an old fashioned Nana. Finding something to make for older boys is a real challenge, but these quick and easy, low maintenance pajamas are just the thing for any guys who no longer wear sleepers.  And that includes men.

Judy Day made this sleep set for her 8 year old grandson. His name is not Steven, but this was made to keep things even.  She loves heirloom sewing and smocking for his prissy little sister, but she always includes something special for Jackson. These were in his Easter package.

 

She simply purchased a pair of knit shorts and a tee shirt in colors to match the alma mater of Jackson’s maternal grandfather.  Since the boy already has more University of Tennessee Volunteers gear than most of the football team, he requested some Georgia Tech attire. I guess Judy didn’t want him going out in public in anything but UT duds.  Jackson loves them.

With our Robert now almost 5, I know it’s time for me to be looking ahead for masculine things to make. He, too, has a prissy sister and I don’t want him to feel slighted.  Of course, to his way of thinking, he’s got the better deal when he gets an embroidered Spiderman tee shirt and Laurel gets an heirloom sewn Swiss batiste dress. But the next time I make her a garment, I think he will get some Florida Gator pajamas, just to keep things even-steven.

Thanks for the inspiration, Judy!

Joyous Easter 2010

Alastair does not want to sit!

UPDATE:  Alastair just looks so serious and even unhappy in the photos from this wonderful day.  So I have decided to include this picture.  I managed to capture one of his happiest moments in this blurry photo.  While we were getting dinner on the table, he discovered that the easily opened old oak wash stand in the kitchen housed a box of garbage bags with unlimited fun potential.

Alastair, anticipating a LOT of garbage after Easter dinner.

He was allowed to enjoy himself but was never left unsupervised with the potentially dangerous bags. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alastair has places to go and eggs to hunt.

What a lovely, joyous celebration we had today!  We are so grateful that both of our children and their families live near enough that we can be together for holidays and often just to be together.

When Ryan’s family arrived, Robert was perfectly happy to swap out his huge shirt for this one, version 2, which is more fitted than version 1 but still too large.    Continue reading

Big Boy Easter Duds Done (ver. 1)

The shorts and a shirt are done for Robert Charles. This is the third and final (almost) coordinated Easter outfits for my three grandchildren.  The yellow baby cord shorts match the bubble made for his cousin Alastair and the shirt has a hatchling duck which appears to be approximately  the same age as the ducklings in the handloom used on his sister’s and cousin’s outfits.

Giving some thought to Robert’s obsession with Super Heroes at age “faw an a haf,” I thought perhaps a waterfowl with a little more maturity was in order. OESD’s Dreams of Childhood collection has a spunky ducky dunking, with feet and tail in the air, head apparently underwater. I thought that would appeal to his age-appropriate compunction to giggle and point out every “butt” he sees, from the dog to the cherub garden statuary. But this more juvenile design would still maintain the Spirit of Spring theme projected by the infantile ducklings. Continue reading

Day Grandchildren’s Easter Duds

 

Update:  In discussion with Judy, I was reminded that Jackson’s shorts were actually made from a man’s shirt.  After searching high and low for fabric to coordinate with the mint green dresses, Judy finally found a very pricey shirt that would do.  She whacked that shirt up for shorts which had to be lined, due to the light weight of the shirting.

I’ve always said that heirloom sewing is very expensive, either in terms of time or money.  Judy paid both ways for these beautifully coordinated Easter outfits!  She says she just did what a grandmother had to do.************************

A few years ago, Judy Day made these three beautiful, coordinated outfits for her grandchildren.  The girl cousins are the same age and Big Brother Jackson is the oldest of the three.

The mint Imperial batiste bishop dresses seem to project the essence of Spring. Ribbons woven through the smocking add shimmer, making the dresses even more classically elegant.  Tucks add another special detail to the skirts.

The sleeves are trimmed with tatting made by Judy’s grandmother–that would be the girls’ great-great grandmother.  What a special treasure for these girls!  Continue reading

Welcoming Guest Towel

  “We dare not trust our wit for making our house pleasant to our friend, so we buy ice cream. ” Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Blue paper has been placed behind the towel so the fil tire' would show up in the scan. The towel is white.

Or make pretty guest towels, like this one.  Ralph is so on target as he observed  that we all want to go the extra mile to make our house pleasant for guests.  To that end, most readers and the writer of this blog  usually go the shorter and more pleasant mile to our sewing machines rather than driving to the grocery store to please our  guests.

The linen towel in the photo was lovely even before the addition of machine embroidery.  Threaded with silk ribbon, two rows of hemstitching border a row of classic padded satin stitch dots.   It was pristine.

Further embellished with Suzanne Sawko’s design, it is lovelier still.  The  hand-look fil tire’ oval is stitched  with a wing needle and 80 wt. Madeira Cotona thread.  The oval is surrounded by greenery and pinwheel roses hovering over an entredeux vine with more  flowers.  Strands of the same green thread are woven through the entredeux stitches afterlazy daisy flowerettes have sprung from the vine.

These two designs, the fil tire’ wreath and the entredeux vine, are part of the Fil Tire’ and Fancywork Combinations embroidery design collection done by Suzanne Sawko and me.

I have taught this project in Huntsville, AL, at Martha Pullen’s School of Art Fashion as well as in Myrtle Beach, SC, San Juan, Puerto Rico and various other locations.  Without exception, as students examine the sample before class, their first comment is an incredulous query about the apparent bullion rose at the center of the vine.  Was this done on the embroidery machine?   The answer is both yes and no. Continue reading

“Sewing Nana” Challenges

In the eyes of the world, and especially those of your children, if you can sew, you can sew ANYTHING! So asking for a set of baby earmuffs to muffle the sound in a small airplane is pretty much the same as asking for an embroidered tee shirt. I guess that’s how my darling son thought of it.

He and his wife were flying to their North Carolina log cabin in his Piper Comanche twin engine plane. Headsets are worn by the pilot and the passengers to drown out the very loud engine sounds as well as to allow conversation between passengers and pilot. Laurel was just 3 months old so the adult headsets would fit her about as well as Abraham Lincoln’s stovepipe hat. And yet, it seemed  she should have something to muffle the noise.

No problem! Her Nana can sew! Knowing that I would want to protect Laurel’s hearing and keep her as comfortable as possible, my son asked me to whip up some soundproofing earmuffs for her. Continue reading