Pillowcases for Gabriel

 

Birthday, New Year's Day, Valentines Day

     For the grandkids' first birthdays I make them a set of pillowcases, to celebrate special days.  Shortly after they are born, I start searching in my stash to see what I have.  Then I hit up different quilt stores to buy the rest of the fabrics.  This year I could not find anything for New Year's Day or Thanksgiving.  I went online to Spoonflower to get fabric printed.  The quality of the fabric and printing were good but I was very disappointed that it had very wide white margins that necessitated making a smaller pillowcase.  

Mardi Gras, St Patrick's Day, Easter

     After I get all the fabrics cut, I then spend time at the computer using my MasterWorks software to create the embroidery files with the name.  I usually use the same font or idea for the each holiday from grandchild to grandchild.  For the Mardi Gras pillowcase, I have used the Cajun font and for the Valentine pillowcase, I tried to match the font in the embroidery design.

Summer, Baseball, Fourth of July

     I then embroider the name on the end piece in the upper left hand quadrant, centering it within the seam allowances.  Then using the 'hotdog' method I stitch it all together.  I use a french seam for the final part so there are no raw edges anywhere.  

Back to School, Football & Halloween

     I have a lot of fun choosing the fabrics and putting these together.  I hope that these will be something they use for years to come.

Thanksgiving and Christmas

 

      For directions on how I made these see my blog here.