Mandy's morning tea

                                                             

There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.               ~ Henry James    The Portrait of a Lady

 I can honestly say that my New Zealand girls are truly enjoying their morning and afternoon teas.  Everyone stops what they are doing, and takes time to sit down and enjoy a bite to eat.  I know that they often have tea for their morning tea, but the afternoon tea is usually a light snack;  I have just facetimed with them and they were having pita chips and hummus, with water to drink.  Issa often drinks Chammomile tea while we are chatting.

Mandy wanted a tea cozy, and I saw this pattern and thought it was the cutest thing.  I will give the details of the pattern on my next post, because this little cozy needs to be fixed!  I was very careful as I marked the pink bottom of the cupcake to embroider...Mandy's Morning Tea.  It was just right, nice and straight.  That is until I atttached the top of the cupcake, I wasn't watching to keep the bottom even.  I didn't even notice until I took the photograph.  

Tomorrow I will pull the cozy through its lining, rip out the bottom seam, trim the cozy so it is even with the lettering, and reattach the lining to the body of the cozy.

Thats my plan!                          

First Day of Kindergarten

 Education is not filling a pail but the lighting of a fire.
                      ~William Butler Yeats






     This little girl is so ready for her first day of Kindergarten.  She needed a towel for rest time, with her name on it of course.  
     The  project started out easy enough.   I went to Five Star Fonts,  purchased the Sassy applique font,  and brought it into my software.  I wanted the name large across the top of the towel, so I used my mega hoop. I did this towel like I have done so many others, hooping only my stabilizer and very carefully centering the towel on top with 505.  The machine stitched out  the placement and tack down straight stitches.  So far so good.  I removed the hoop and trimmed up the letters, and this is where everything fell apart.
     As I put the hoop back on for it to satin stitch around the letters, the satin stitch was a good half inch below my underlay; a result of shifting when I cut out my letters.  Oh No!  The only way to salvage my project was to go to my sewing side of the machine and manually  zigzag around each letter...the old fashioned way.  Not at all neat or even, but the letters are on there!
     My only consolation is the fact that Kindergarteners only nap until December.

Nite Nite Jonah

Fatigue is the best pillow. ~Benjamen Franklin

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This pillow is for sweet little Jonah, who lives in Birmingham.  His
room is decorated in primary colors, and we had a blue dish towel at the store,  so I thought this was an easy way to do a quick gift.

   I fiinally bought the Designer Plus version of the Artista software! This is my first project, and I love how easy the lettering was to do.  I am not sure of the font that I used,  I think it may be London, but I just typed in his name and enlarged it.  I changed both the fill stitch  and the underlay to a step stitch, since I enlarged the name a good bit.  Then it was as simple as going to the icons on the left, clicking on the Outline Tool, and choosing a triple straight stitch.  There is a box to check for Outline Holes, and I had to go back and check that because the inside of the O and A did not get the outline on my first attempt.

Jonah's little sister, Julie, gets the next pillow.  I hope to finish it soon!

1949 was a very good year

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 It is time, gentle friends, to tell you why there are no new sewing projects on my blog.  It is time to come clean.  I have had either a sink full of dirty dishes, or my beds were unmade.  My only dress is in the dry cleaners.  I cannot find my French Chalk, and my hair is a total wreck.  My husband is here all the time, so at least I do not have to constantly worry that he will come home.  When I get neatly put together, and find a lipstick and powder, perhaps I will get back to my Bernina where I belong.

Everyone who's ever taken a shower has an idea.  It's the person who gets out of the shower, dries off, and does something about it who makes a difference. ~ Nolan Bushnell

                                                                                          

           I bought this shower curtain off the sale shelf at Restoration Hardware.  It has been hanging in my bathroom for quite some time, and I stared at the large expanse of unembellished cotton every morning and thought..."I really should put a monogram on that."

So I finally did it.  I used the Empire font from Embroidery Arts.  I used the measuring tool and could see that especially when I enlarged the letters,  the B was a good bit smaller.  So I enlarged it in the software and sent it to the computer.  The fun part was using the Bernina 830 to do the stitching.  Even with that fast machine, it took 95 minutes to stitch out.  I used 2 layers of Stitch and Tear;  I hooped one with the curtain and then slid the other layer under the hoop.

And if I don't get the chance to sew soon,  I will have to change my blog to Bibi Embroiders rather than Bibi Sews.  There just are NOT enough hours in the day.

 And I think I'll put a notepad and pen in my bathroom for all of those fabulous ideas that I am obviously forgetting.

Bibi Doesn't Quilt

Those who sleep under a quilt, sleep under a blanket of love. ~ Author Unknown

Happybirthdayidea.com

                                    If there is a sweeter gift for a precious one year old granddaughter, I honestly can't think of it.  Little sweet cheeks lives several states away, and grandma lives here in the sunny south.  This beautiful quilt was not entrusted to the baggage handlers on the airlines, but carefully flew to its destination safely in grandmas lap. 

Kathy did the blocks on her 830, so they did not take quite as long to stitch out as they would have on any of the other Berninas.  Her choice of fabrics is beautiful, and the colors are perfect girly colors.  Kathy does many, many quilts and I am amazed at the speed with which they are finished.  This one she quilted on the Crown Jewel and it was fun to watch her control the arm in gentle swirls on her quilt.  She uses Warm and White batting, and for an extra soft backing, she has a fun and bright and extra cuddly minkey.

She appliqued Happy Birthday Avery across the top, and the birth date across the bottom of the quilt.  For an extra girly touch, she scalloped the edge of the quilt and bound it.  And if you look carefully, you can see a bumblebee appliqued in the lower right; Avery's birthday party had a bumblebee theme!

I can picture Avery watching Saturday morning cartoons wrapped up in Grandma's quilt, snuggled in her room with it as a teen, and taking it off to college someday. 

Happy, happy birthday, sweet little girl!

Ribbons for her hair

                                  

                              Each day comes bearing its own gifts. Untie the ribbons. ~ Ruth Ann Schabacke  

Mae Mae wanted some new ribbons.  Her school colors are navy blue and burgundy, and she wanted  ribbons with her name on them.  I used one inch navy ribbon and the Tinkertoy font.  it is difficult to embroider grosgrain ribbon because it just wants to wave after it is stitched. 

I used the measuring feature on the Artista software for the first time and couldn't believe how helpful it was.  I brought my letters in one at a time, then hit control D to duplicate them.  I knew my ribbon was one inch wide, so I hit the m key and left clicked, then moved the cursor slowly to the other side of the M and clicked, Lo and Behold, the M was 31.2 mm, so I knew it was not going to fit on the ribbon.  I changed the size until I got under 25.0 mm and I got my name large enough to read.  I had saved the little heart  to add to her name and I was ready to send it to the machine.

I have found, that when stitching on grosgrain ribbon, the right stabilizer is essential.  Or is should say stabilizers;  I used aquamesh stabilizer, hooped it, then sprayed it with 505 and laid both ends of the ribbon in the hoop, side by side.  I slid an extra layer of aquamesh under the hoop, and a layer of solvy on top of the ribbon.  I was ready to stitch away.  After pressing the ribbons on the wrong side, into a terry cloth towel, I was pleased with the results.

I was able to hold my ipad up to the computer as I was Face Timing this evening, and Mae Mae approved.  I can't wait to get a picture of the ribbons bouncing along beside a curly brown pony tail!

Christmas in July

People don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy.

                      ~Anton Chekhov

 

     We are having Christmas in July at the store, and everyone was asked to make some samples.  So I looked in my stash to see what was there, and found these two little aprons left over from Issa's birthday party.  I found them at Michael's last spring.

 
 

After thinking about it, I decided to check with Mandy and see if she needed Christmas gifts for any little friends in New Zealand.  While I am on a roll I will check with my Birmingham sweeties, too, because I have a couple more aprons left.  The little gingerbread girl design came from Planet Applique;  the font is Sugar and Spice.  I used chenille rickrack around the binding.  One apron is trimmed in dark pink, the other in red.  It is difficult to see the little black eyes on the brown corduroy;  I should have used a golden brown.

 Now wouldn't it be nice to keep my momentum going and make some more Christmas gifts?  It is not in my nature to plan ahead so far,  so we shall see if it is indeed Christmas in July in the little Sewing Closet upstairs!

Splish, Splash

A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

     I hope this towel will make Linda smile as she dries off after her showers on these hot summer days.  I used the Marleigh font from Embroitique.  If I downloaded the directions, I couldn't find them, so I had to kind of feel my way around as I stitched it out. 
      It is a raggy font, so I used two layers of fabric for the applique, a soft pink flannel underneath and the darker pink polka dot on top.  On the first run through of stitching, it did a straight stitch.  I laid down my fabrics, and on the second run through, it did a very tight straight stitch. I then cut it out along the straight stitch, leaving about an eighth of an inch around the sraight stitchiing.  The last stitch out was a pretty stitch, not a zig zag, but almost a small feather stitch.  Then I  I took my springloaded snips that I used for rag quilting and clipped the letter around, being careful not to go through the straight stitching.  Finally I ran the side of my scissors along the edge to rag it.

Ready for the 4th?

You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness.  You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.  ~Erma Bombeck

   I haven't had much time lately to sew,  but Kathy's grandchildren will be eating hot dogs and ice cream in style this year.  I don't know how I let this holiday sneak up on me, but here it is almost the Fourth, and I have nary a red, white, or blue project  that is mine to show you.

   The All American Boy and All American Girl shirts are Kathy's designs, done with her Artista Designer Software.  It is a little difficult to see in the photograph but she has fireworks accenting the lettering in silver and gold. metallic thread.  She found the red, white and blue skirt which will be perfect on Miss Avery.

.     I am not sure where Avery's ruffled 4th of July t-shirt design came  from, but I do know that Kathy added  my first and the date. Avery will look just precious as she picnics this year.

    

Kathy's daughters-in-law got these cute towels in the mail this week for their kitchens.  The designs are from Embroitique and she jazzed them up with ribbon and rick rack.

     Maybe if I start now I can be ready for fall?