Christmas Sani-Sacks

I finished the first of the Sani-Sacks. I made the medium size as my first sample that I made a while ago was the small and looking at various stores in four states, I never found any sanitizer in a container small enough to fit in the small version.

One of the therapists chose UT fabrics and actually asked for the UT bag, but I said it was spoken for and unfortunately I don't have any more of that fabric. If I have time between now and Monday to finish all the Sani-Sacks and make another bag in this fabric, then I will make her a UT bag also. I made a mistake on this sack but if she wants this one, I will give it to her with her gifts. Each therapist is getting one of the bags, 3 nylon scrubbies that I crocheted during the drive out west that I made in early November, and a tote on a hook (possibly with sanitizer in it, depending on cost).

Here is the tote, sans snap.

Some embroidery projects

Last week, I pretty much spent the week doing some embroidery on pre-made sweatsuits. Q's grandmother has been admitted to an assistive living center and her son that is primarily taking care of her is color blind. My MIL decided that it would be a good idea for me to dress up some sweatsuits with embroidery and then he could use the embroidery to match the colors. I learned a few things in the process of embroidering the sweat suits. One is that sweatshirts are a completely different animal from other types of clothing. Another is that using fleece for applique is a pain in the butt. Here are the finished items.

The fleece for the outer heart didn't press down the same with the embroidery stitches.

I'm surprised at how much I ended up liking these faux cross stitch butterflies.

Squeezing a large embroidery pattern on a small pair of sweat pants became to much for me and I decided to end it when the main colors were done.

I have used this rose pattern before and will definitely use it again. It is one that came with the sewing machine.

I decided to change the colors from the top to the bottom because you couldn't tell there were two reds. I changed it to much though I think. Overall, this embroidery pattern is extremely poorly designed and I likely won't be using it or any of the others that came with it again.

Here is a link to my facebook business page where I have posted pictures of the Linus donation quilts for the Bastrop fire victims, if anyone is interested.

My First Embroidery Applique

I did my first embroidery applique. I bought my sewing/embroidery machine as my graduation from college present about a decade ago. I used this machine like mad, but never used the applique abilities. It just never appealed to me. I've been reading Cole's Corner and Creations blog and she has completely inspired me by the beautiful appliqued projects she makes for the little ones in her life.

I started with a dress that my MIL just made for the nerdlet which she stained on her second or third wearing (in the first two weeks).

Then I downloaded a freebie from GG Designs Embroidery.

I love how it came out and now want to applique on everything in the girls' closet.

In other news, I went garage sale shopping today. I found this really cool website that allows you to plot a number of different garage sales and it will print out the directions to each from one to the next. It lets you choose from about 50 cities, and since Austin and San Antonio are choices, I think I'll be using it again. I don't go very often, but when I do, I think this will make it less hit and miss. We also hit ones that weren't on my list that we found on the way.

My mom and I had a blast, though we didn't buy much. I did find a mini trampoline with a bar that will be great for Chloe's therapy in learning how to jump, which I read about in one of the book on Ds I read (I think one of the Woodbine ones, but I'm not positive). My mom said I was wrong because I bargained $10 off of it, but my original intention wasn't to bargain but to explain why I wasn't going to buy it. I feel a little guilty but have been rationalizing by saying they didn't have to come down off the price. It's in great condition and they claimed it had never been used.

Disney Embroidery Revisted

I know that all my 9 readers are waiting in anticipation to see what I did with the upside down embroidery. My first thought and one suggested often was to use the embroidery as a patch and sew it to another shirt, but my neither of my SILs are the type to want to use something imperfect and since the particular embroidery takes 1 1/2 hours to embroider, I didn't want it to not be worn. My next thought was to turn it into a pillowcase for one of the girl's travel pillows, but then I would likely end up making two more so that they would all have one. I finally decided to tailor the shirt to fit the nerdlet and fashion it a little. First I cut the top of the front of the shirt to fit the nerdlet and have a slight yoke.

Then I cut off the embroidery from the top so that I could turn it around.

Then I gathered the top to fit the yoke and sewed the bottom back on. Then I cut the back to fit the nerdlet there and sewed the front to back.

The nerdlet was unwilling to pose for pictures, but she let me put it on her to check the fit and it's just about right, especially for play or sleep, if I can ever get her to not want to wear a dress.

Just to prove that I can actually place them correctly here are the embroidered tops for my niece and nephew that will be finished after I check the sizing, since both are quite thin.

Disney Embroidery

All of Q's relatives are going to Disney World soon. I decided to make embroidered Disney t-shirts for my youngest nephew and niece. Notice anything wrong with this pic?

Apparently, I am not only directionally challenged by not knowing my right from left close to the close of my fourth decade, and by getting lost going just about anywhere, but also when it comes to up and down. Ah well, time to go buy another t-shirt.