Embroidered Gifts

We had a birthday party to go to today for Carolina, the daughter of some friends from Ryan's work. She just turned 5 and likes very girlie stuff. I decided to use the awesome embroidery machine my husband got me to make some stuff.

I appliqued some pink corduroy with a princess silhouette, then made a purse with it. I added some silver beads I had to make a necklace and sparkly crown. The purse is a free pattern from a craft blog. I also appliqued a T-shirt I picked up from AC Moore with a little princess applique, using the same fabric for the dress that I used on the purse. Both appliques and the font were from my favorite embroidery site, PlanetApplique. I think they turned out great!






I'm still pretty slow with the embroidery set up, so these projects took me longer than I hope they will in the future. Knowing the right way to stabilize a design and dealing with different fabrics can be tricky. More-so than with regular sewing, in my opinion. The purse could be a quick sew if I tried it again. There is a little button band you can add to it, and I will use it when I make this purse for myself, I'm sure, but I didn't think it was the right touch for a little girl.

Ridiculous!

So, when us girls were all together, we got a little ridiculous. I wouldn't want it any other way.

To start, because my mom bought the fabric and I was sewing, Shawna had all the free clothes she could think of! Here are the fabrics she picked out:

I got a few things for Danielle at that time, and picked up a bunch of flannel for a great price on a subsequent trip. Danielle's fabrics:

I picked up some stuff for myself:


THEN, when I was at my mom's during our return trip layover, she mentioned that she had a bunch of clothes that didn't fit her. Here is what she gave me to wear:

And here are clothes that will be used for their material (this was a GREAT source of knits, especially because they're thicker than what you can find in the fabric store, and making things for babies/toddlers doesn't take much fabric anyways):

Shawna and Matt gave us a bunch of clothes the twins have outgrown, because they're awesome:


And, finally, here's what it all looks like together:

Ridiculous, isn't it?!?

Side note: Just wanted to add that in the past 2.5 months or so I have made 6 pairs of pjs, two pairs of shorts, a dress and a jumper for Danielle, 2 pairs of pants for my mom, 2 shirts and busy books for the twins, a dress for myself, a skirt for myself and caught up on two years worth of mending. So the fabric will get used, even if my mom does think I sew slow... :)

Visit to Texas

Danielle and I got back a few days ago from a vacation to see Grandma, Aunt Shawna and the twins. I drove to Florida with Danielle, then we rode with Grandma to Texas. Danielle did really well during the first leg, but she was pretty antsy by the second day of driving. On the return trip, we stayed for a full day in Florida and she had an easier time with the drive. She missed the ferry on the way there:

but managed to stay awake to see it on the way home. She seemed to really like it. I worked on teaching her how to say "buoy" (which is completely useless for a toddler who doesn't live near the water, I know), but she had a little trouble with that one.
She loved playing with her cousins and picked up a few extra sounds. She sort of says "hi" and "night night" now. That's pretty neat. She is at the 90-95th percentile for height, so she was almost as tall as Morgan and Taylor, and several people confused them for triplets. Here are some pictures of the girls (and one of Aunt Shawna with 2 of the 3):




It was great to see everyone, but 4 days with 3 toddlers and 4 days in a car with just one can be rough! I am still recovering from the trip:) I hope we get many more family visits as the girls grow up though.