Saturday, March 31

Easter is coming



Easter is around the corner. This is a basket got for Micaela last year. I embroidered the liner and added ribbons for ties to dress it up a bit.

Monday, March 26

Covers for cans


I use spray adhesive and starch pretty regularly in my sewing room and my cans are always out. The other day I had a crazy idea to cover them. At first I was going to modpodge them but then realized I would have to do that every time I got a new can. So instead I decided to make covers that I could remove easily.
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This is what I came up with.
These are quilted and fasten with velcro in the back. I really like the tiny pompom fringe on the edge. The black & white sewing machine fabric is Brittish from Makower UK - The Henley Studio . The frame with text is appliqued on. Now they have little outfits and match my room perfectly-- crazy I know! Thanks for stopping by!

Monday, March 19

Texas Wildflowers

Micaela spent the week of Spring Break with my parents in South Texas. This weekend we drove "half way" to pick her up. The traffic traveling across central Texas (from San Antonio to Dallas) was tremendous so, we detoured north up some rural hwys for several hours to avoid stop and go traffic on the interstate. In the end, we didn't save any time but it was one of the most enjoyable drives we've ever had home. The wildflowers and bluebonnets painted incredible scenes for us, a couple of times we pulled over to take a few snapshots of Micaela. This snapshot was one of my favorite.

That's not her usual travel attire, we had that red dress in the suitcase by chance because she went to a fancy party with my parents. Hope you had a great spring break, thanks for stopping by!

Saturday, March 17

Cover for Janome 300e!

I finally made a cover for my second embroidery machine, the Janome 300e and I love how it turned out.
Red scissor fabric is from Moda's Half Moon Modern collection, got it at HIQ. The Ruler fabric is from My Mind's Eye, got it at HIQ. The Black & White button fabric used on the M is Brittish from Makower UK, the Henley Studio--got it online. And the black & white striped fabric is from Butterfly Swirl by Jackie Shapiro for Windham Fabrics, got it at QA. I love my two local quilt stores Happiness is Quilting & Quilt Asylum.
I actually had another idea in mind for the M monogram but in the end ended up doing applique using my Cricut Expression and the Designer's Calendar cartridge to cut out the M out of fabric with Therm O Web. My original idea was to make the M with buttons but after sewing on about 30 buttons to the cover I did not like how the buttons weighed down the cover so I ripped-- I mean gently removed them and started over with an appliqued M which I then satin stitched with my DC5100.




Wednesday, March 14

Word Napkins

My sister in law asked me to embroider some napkins with a list of her favorite words. I think they turned out pretty cute.
Thanks for stopping by!

Tuesday, March 13

Towel Wrap

Micaela gets invited to a couple of birthday parties a month and I always looking new ideas for gifts. Since I am beginning my third year of embroidering just about every gift we give, quite a few of her friends have received the "standard" beach towel and blanket. The other day I stumbled across a tutorial for making bath wraps... bingo-- our 2012 girl gift! I thought this would be handy at home and for the pool during the summer.
So here it is! A towel wrap! I suspect I will be doing a bunch of these this year. The first one was her friend Carly. I added a heart peace sign to make it a little more girly since all the girls are heavy into peace signs & hearts these days. She loved it!
Thanks for stopping by!

Sunday, March 11

Dallas Arboretum

We visited the Dallas Arboretum during Dallas Blooms this weekend and it was lovely. Here are a couple of my favorite photos taken by my husband.

Saturday, March 10

Texas Daffodil Show

If you follow my blog you know I have developed a new facination with daffodils. Well, this weekend was the Texas Daffodil Show at the Dallas Arboretum. This was my first "show" as an "exhibitor" and it was great fun. Three flowers from our garden here at home placed and so did another friends. Here are pictures of our flowers with our ribbons.
This photo below received honorable mention in the Photography Contest- Special Effects category. This effect is called HDR-ish and I did it using Picnik.com.
Here is the original photo from above.
One of Micaela's Special Effects photos received a blue ribbon and was a judge favorite as "Great Abstract".
The Texas Daffodil Show was alot of fun and I hope to do it again next year!

Monday, March 5

Margie Apron

Made this Garden Apron for one of Troy's Aunt's we visited over the weekend. Hopefully this will come in handy during spring gardening.

Saturday, March 3

Spring blooms

The Paperwhite Zitas are in full bloom. You can tell our grass is still totally brown.
My hyacinth are coming along nicely... so excited.
Thanks for stopping by.