Work-a-thon 2011!

Posted by on March 25, 2011

Since we signed the contract on our house yesterday I instituted an immediate work-a-thon to get my customer work out of the way (so that I could then move on to the next stress)!! I think I did 8 shirts today and 6 – 8 yesterday. I’m down to 12 or 13 I think and hope to get them all done in the next day or two. We will then focus on WHERE IN THE HAY ARE WE MOVING? So, next week we will either have a house we will hopefully move in to when we close on April 22 (out of here by April 25), or we may do the apartment scene (for as few months as possible) until we can find something. We really don’t want to do that, but don’t want to just buy something out of panic! We have a house in mind we want to buy, but the owners are house shopping this weekend one last time and we will find out Sunday if they are going to sell to us. My house was cleaned today so I got kinda sad and wondered if we were doing the right thing! I know we are, but still get a little seller’s remorse!! My kids are running around like crazy right now (at 8:42 pm) so I KNOW we’re doing the right thing. Sometimes my house gets very very very small!!

Here is a shirt I did today, and THE HOOP GOT ME!! It happens once in a blue moon where the hoop is just too tight, and when it snapped in place I was questioning whether or not I made a hole. I went ahead with the shirt and sure enough, when I unhooped… HOLE! Luckily my customer just happened to be going to Target today and she was able to bring me another one to do while she waited. It happens! 🙁 On the new one I also put the name underneath and it showed up better, so it all worked out! These are the Cherokee girl toddler tees from Target and they are really cute! BTW I tried to fabric glue the hole to give to my customer so her daughter could at least wear it in the back yard, but somehow got HNBL on the back of the shirt, so it ended up in the trash!

Just a closeup of the AC Butterfly I did to match a bubblegum pink skort. My customer brought me all kinds of cute cotton plain (probably inexpensive) skorts to match. I need to go get some for Mallory because the “outfits” all turned out so cute with the applique tees! I believe they came from Walmart, Target and Kohls.

Here is the AC Tiara Frog which is going with a hot pink skort.

Here are all the tees (with matching skorts) I did for Madeline! AC Flower in the middle!

And here are all the tees I did for Lucy! AC Tiara, Simple Bunny and Mermaid! My customer mentioned hot pink hair for the mermaid and I wasn’t so sure about it, but I love how it turned out with the dot fabric! Who says mermaids are blond or brunette!

Lastly I did these tanks to match the Kohl’s skorts. The left one is light pink and I used the zig zag double circle; petal patch on the right. I get asked a lot what the petal patch font is and it is from Embroidery Arts ~ Empire. It’s a little more expensive than some websites, but it is one of my go-to fonts. It stitches perfectly every time! The sun was shining a little too bright!

Check out Whimsical Fabrics on Facebook ~ they have an Etsy store and have some really cute Riley Blake fabrics. You can convo them for smaller amounts (less than 1 yard)! I love the Riley Blake Quite Contrary fabrics, and there is also a CUTE Sugar & Spice green & pink striped fabric that I’ve never seen. They are trying to reach 1,000 fans so if you “like” them, tell them AC sent you! It’s a tight race between me and Applique Alley as to who can send the most fans! 🙂

I’m working on my Linens & Boxwoods post. I got the pictures we took Monday and they are fabulous! Here is a sneak peak of one…

You may be wondering why we had a photo shoot of us drinking coffee? I will explain when I post! L&B is also doing a post on me and Applique Cafe, so I will link that one in too! It’ll all make more sense! 😉 Until then you can wonder!! The fabulous pictures were taken by Grace. She is a miracle worker! She is honestly fabulous and so artistic!!

Tomorrow is a new day! Amie & I are meeting for coffee in the morning and we are also looking at 2 houses (me & Jeff, that is) after school. Have a great weekend and be on the lookout for my next post!

Filed Under: Applique Cafe, Design, Fabric, Family | Tagged: Tagged With:

Farm Living and Fabric

Posted by on March 19, 2011

It was Spring Break this past week. The boys did Art Camp Mon-Wed then we headed to “the farm” to visit my parents for a few days. My kids are in heaven on the farm! I think they would live outside (sleep too) if we lived down there. This was my grandparent’s farm and my parents built a house there in like 1992. It’s peaceful and beautiful with wide open spaces, cows, horses, fishing and lots of relaxing! Lots of mooing too! Oh, and don’t forget armadillo catching, bike and golf cart riding. Every boys dream and Mallory loved it too!

Here is my mom, aka “Granmommy”. Granmommy always has a full supply of snacks, drinks, tic tacs and cough drops.

Priceless entertainment = a cooler of ice! Mallory & G spent I-don’t-know-how-much-time playing with the ice. They filled up the back of the tricycle, transported ice from one cup to the next, fed the dog ice and basically had ice all over the driveway. Luckily it just melts!

Mallory went through THIS cooler of ice on Thursday AND Friday. We may have to install an ice machine in our next house.

Did I mention fishing? Browder caught all the fish (and somehow I got no pics of him?) but G had to kiss this one before we threw him back. All yuck factor must go out the window on the farm. There’s no need in fighting it.

More priceless entertainment = crickets.

Again, not yuck! He can wash his hands and take a bath! He can wash his hands and take a bath! He can wash his hands and take a bath! Oh, yes, that is what I kept telling myself…

Lastly this is my parents precious lab Keystone! If we HAD to have another dog, I’d take him! He’s a big ole lazy sweet dog and my kids adore him! He & Sissy bonded over ice.

A trip to the farm means a trip to Singer Sewing Center (Enterprise, AL)! I “ran in” Thursday when we went to town and left with these! Loving the colors!! The top left is not really orange, but more of a coral color. So pretty!!!! I like coral for spring. Love the zig zag stripe too and the floral fabrics – all GREAT (and different) colors!

Because you can never have too many polka dots…. I used the Michael Miller zig zag stripe in green for a new Applique Cafe Snake design so I picked up this hot pink too. A pink snake sure would be cute! I was going to TRY to drive over to TJ’s Fabrics in Opp but couldn’t make it happen with our farm schedule.

The weather is beautiful here ~ mid to high 80’s I believe. House news: we had someone look for a 2nd time last week. Evidently they are military, living in an apartment, are going to “do something” soon and our house is #1. We’ve heard that a few times before so we’re not getting our hopes up. Nonetheless, I think I’m cutting off customer orders for a while. My current count is: 40. We have a trip or two coming up so my goal is to have all that done by the time we leave. I will reassess the situation in a month or so after our vacation and depending on the house. I have SO LITTLE TIME lately and would hate to have stacks of clothes waiting to applique, sell our house and have to return them! Email me with any questions ~ rosemarygulledge@gmail.com!

Filed Under: Fabric, Family | Tagged:

Girls only!

Posted by on March 7, 2011

This past weekend I went on a (very long awaited) girl’s trip to Charleston, SC. We’ve been talking about this trip for YEARS, and this year we finally made it happen! It was SO. MUCH. FUN!! 7 of us rode 8+ hours there and back in a Suburban together. No radio the whole way there ~ just a lot of talking and a whole lotta’ laughing! A couple of the girls were my Phi Mu pledge sisters in 1993 and the others I have known since college as well and we had a BLAST! I found a cute condo on VRBO in Folly Beach and this was our back porch view.

Here are “the girls”!! One of the 8 lives in Charleston, so we actually visited there to see her and this was after brunch at her house before we headed downtown to go shopping!

Of course we visited the Markets downtown. I didn’t buy a basket ($$$) but I did sneak a picture of this sweet lady making one. Before we hit the market we hit a HUGE Forever 21 store that just opened in an old Saks building in January. It was PACKED and we were in HEAVEN!!

This was a shot going across the bridge heading downtown.

Here is where the Market starts on Meeting Street and it was fun to walk through!

I took like 75 pictures but mostly of us girls. We ate at Fleet Landing Friday night and Taco Boy (Folly Beach) Saturday night. Both were EXCELLENT! If there were a Taco Boy in Montgomery we’d be in trouble! It was so fun and so yummy! We made a vow to do this girls trip from now on once a year, so in 2012 we will reunite!

I got home at exactly 4:30 last night, said HI to my family, showered and we headed to church for a 5:30 service. Church again tonight, church dinner tomorrow night and church again Wednesday night followed by Bunko Thursday night. It is our Missions Conference this week so busy busy busy! Jeff did work on a few new AC designs while I was gone, but I haven’t seen them yet. Back to REALITY….

Other exciting news ~ there will be another “event” (meet & greet) in June at TJ’s Fabric. Teresa has invited me to come down for the day and hang out. It will be on a Saturday (date TBA) and she is currently coordinating my visit with her fabric reps. Evidently the fabric reps will be sending some really cool pieces made with their fabrics for everyone to see (and get ideas from). She mentioned bags, pillows and other things being on display for all of you “sewers”. I’m not sure if the items will be for sale or just display; she is working out those details with the reps. I will keep you posted! I might be visiting my parents next week so if I get a chance I may ride over to TJ’s and take some pictures and get more info!

Filed Under: Fabric, Family, Misc | Tagged:
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