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Tuesday, December 20, 2022

Stocking for Sebastian

 

Finished

     I have done a couple of stockings this season.  The first one I had to take apart to do the stitching and I used a wash-away film topper to keep down the nap of the fur.  This client wanted blue to match the blue in the ornaments on the dog's antlers.

Under the hoop hooping

     I used my software to get the name and added a stitched box all around.  That would keep the layers of the stocking cuff together.  I then cut a window in some hooped stabilizer slightly larger than the box. I pinned the stocking underneath and then took it to the embroidery machine.

Stitching

     As you can see, the name looks upside down but that is based on how I hooped the stocking and placed it on the machine.  I did hold up the stocking during the stitching to make sure it didn't pull too much and loosen the stocking from the stabilizer.  


Wednesday, December 14, 2022

Christmas Jammies 2022

 

Embroidery detail

     Every year I make or embroider jammies for the grandkids.  This year I opted to sew them pajamas.  I had bought Christmas flannel last year at JoAnn Fabrics.  For the youngest I used Kwik Sew Sewing for Babies book.  I made a pair of flannel pants and a long sleeve t-shirt that I embroidered.  The design is from Designs by JuJu.

For GJB

     My goal is that these are from St Nick on the feast of Saint Nicholas on December 6.  I make sure their parents have them in time to give them on that day.  

For SEB

     When I was cutting everything out, I found I was short on fabric so I opted to make the only granddaughter's pajamas out of a different fabric.  I used various pajama patterns that I had in my stash.

For MTB

     It was fun playing around with the fabrics to make somewhat matching pajamas for them all.  I did have to do a bit of piecing to get the oldest one's top, adding a center back seam.

For Miss M

     I did have to buy some buttons for the boys' pajamas as I didn't have enough of the right sized ones in my stash.  

For Cltn

     On the pockets of the boys' pajamas I made sure to center one of the moose.  In the youngest one's embroidery, I used pieces of fabric from the other ones' pajamas to tie them all together.  

Pocket detail

     I don't know how much they still believe in Santa, but I did hear the middle grandchild told his mom that the pajamas smelled like grandma and grandpa Breen's house :-)

Wednesday, December 7, 2022

Another T-shirt Quilt

 

T-shirt quilt

     A neighbor wanted a t-shirt quilt for her son.  She let him choose the shirts.  She brought me a bag with twelve t-shirts.  Normally I would have made a 3 x 4 quilt from that number of t-shirts.   However two of the t-shirts had extra long designs and I didn't want to cut them if I didn't have to.  Several of the t-shirts also had good front and back designs so I opted to go with a 4 x 5 layout of t-shirts.

Final layout

      I first cut apart the t-shirts and played around with a layout.  Then I interfaced the backs of the t-shirt pieces with fusible interfacing and then cut out the squares with my 13" square ruler, except for the two long ones.  I then sewed the columns and then put them together.

Pinning to the backing

     I then laid the fleece out and placed the right side of the quilt top down and pinned all around.  I then trimmed the fleece and sewed around the edges with a 1/2" seam allowance, leaving an opening to turn. 

 

Pinning for stitching lines

      I turned it right side out and stitched close to the edge, closing the opening in the process.  Then, using straight pins, I pinned the intersections, making sure everything was nice and smooth.

Stitch in the ditch

     I then stitched in the ditch at all the intersections,  I did about 1 1/2" in all directions.  From the back it looks like small crosses.  This prevents the layers from shifting around too much.