Bye Bye Spring Break!

Posted by on March 21, 2011

Spring Break is over. Back to reality. Back to school. Back to getting up before 8:00… I’m sad to report that Mallory seems to be dropping her nap. Her naps lately consist of play-time and dragging all of her toys out all over her room. She’ll stay in there for a good hour, sometimes longer. Then you’ll hear a little “knock” at her door. This is her way of asking if she can come out! Nap-time is my work-time, so I’m none too thrilled about this! Every few days she WILL lay down and take a nap, so I will hold on to those days for now!

This is a new Applique Cafe dog design that will be listed this week (at 50% off I might add). Someone suggested on Facebook that we name this Dog, so I asked my fans and the majority voted for “Stitch“. Embroidery, sewing, thread, applique, STITCH – get it? So Stitch it is, and Stitch just got his own category on the website! I have tons of ideas for Stitch so we’ll see what else he can do! For now Stitch is heading to the beach…

I just changed out my needles on my machine. Wow so much dust accumulates! I use Schmetz Embroidery needles (75/11) and I get them from www.sewingmachine.com. I hear of people talking about using this type needle for this type fabric and that type needle for another. I have 6 needles to change, so all I use are 75/11 Embroidery needles. I mostly do towels, tshirts, etc (no canvas or burlap or anything) so hopefully this is all I need!

Are you feeling the randomness of this blog? Napless Mallory and the boys are outside in the back yard so I’m just throwing this post together while I listen to her fuss and whine about her capri sun being gone and G not sharing the football with her (UGH!). Saturday Jeff did pine straw with a little bit of assistance from myself (I cut the twine) and the kids. I said that it looked like a pine straw truck exploded in our back yard! It looks GREAT! I really love our back yard! It’s big and FENCED IN (re: kids) and nice and flat! I just hope some nice family will come along (soon) and like my back yard as much as I do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Selling a house is a good lesson in contentment, envy and again, contentment! I do love my house, but I have my list of things I want to do at my next house:

  • have an organized SEWING ROOM
  • organize my fabric
  • cook more
  • invite friends over more
  • set better “work” hours

etc etc etc… I keep thinking “when we move I’ll do this(fill in the blank). Sigh…….

I did this shirt yesterday for one of Mallory’s classmates. This is a design I got off of Etsy and G had this same B-day shirt last year. This is one of my favorite b-day designs (and it’s NOT AC!)

I also did another shirt yesterday based on the below. I used the same “colors” but not the same design. This KK shirt retails for $34 I think (+$$ for adding the name, + shipping I assume).

How is my version? This is the Applique Cafe Shark and I got the solid turquoise fabric from Joann. The font is MWP Serif Block (I decreased the font density to 75 instead of 100 b/c it was too thick). I like how it turned out! Oh, I also stopped the machine and changed the thread color so that the eye & gills would be a different color. As is, they stitch all in 1 step as the same color. My shark isn’t near as scary but I think he’s cute!

So this morning I had a photo shoot (really!!) with my friend Amie (see Linen & Boxwoods). You might have noticed the L&B ad button and blog on my blog list. I will be doing a post about her blog hopefully this week! Grace (of Grace Photography Studio) met us and really took pictures of us having coffee, which is what we do! It was HILARIOUS! I’m about the least photogenic person I know and I can’t wait to see what she got! She also took a few shots of just me for my bio (about me). I am thrilled that she agreed to do this for us/me as she is a genius photographer! Stay tuned for that post!

We will be listing FIVE new designs this week (maybe by tomorrow) and all will be 50% off: canoe, giraffe, beach dog, popsicle trio and a flower (all can be previewed at www.facebook.com/appliquecafe). Back to work….

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

My favorite thread colors!

Posted by on March 11, 2011

Here is a birthday gift I did for one of G’s friends. Might as well utilize my talents! This is a beach towel from Target ($6.99) and a little pool toy to go along with it (because let’s face it, a 5 year old is NOT going to get too excited about a monogrammed beach towel). These are great little beach towels and I love the orange on the lime & white stripes!

Happy Spring to me! A week or so ago I asked Jeff to vacuum our nasty den rug. He then asked me when the last time I used our vacuum cleaner was. I couldn’t remember, so I gave it a whirl. I could barely push it! Our poor poor cleaning lady!! She’s been schlepping that thing around for who knows how long and you could seriously barely push it! So, I took a poll on Facebook and most recommended Oreck or Dyson in the realm of vacuum cleaners. We have an Oreck store near my house (2 doors down from Tips, our fave mexican restaurant) so we ended up with the Oreck. Who knew a new vacuum cleaner could be so exciting? Oreck’s selling point is that they are SIMPLE and lightweight! Sold!! Jeff asked me last night if I was going to store it in our garage like we did the other old vacuum. I thought Browder’s bed might be a better choice based on what we paid for it! But, it’ll be well worth it and should last forever!

And now to the embroidery part of this post. THREAD COLORS! Did you know that some stores sell ACTUAL thread charts (with real life thread samples)? I got the Isacord chart from www.sewingmachine.com (West Point store) when I was there in October. I got the Exquisite (formerly Poly-X) from www.kenssewingcenter.com (may not be listed on their site but call and see if they have any). They also sell (or give away?) printed thread charts, but ask for a REAL thread chart!

As you can see the samples are real pieces and the red * means they are available in 5000M spools (versus 1000M spools or the regular size spools). Again, Exquisite is the new name for Poly-X and the thread numbers are the same. The spool is still green; the only difference is the sticker on top is white now and says Exquisite.

My boys assisted me (on this windy day) of showing you the whole chart! The Isacord chart looks the same! I use and love both of these brands and highly recommend them! A lot of my 1000M spools are Poly-X and most of my 5000M spools are Isacord. Again, I love both!

Here are some of my favorite colors! The left is a celery green and I use it all the time! It DOES NOT come in the 5000M spool, so last time I reordered it I got 5 X 1000M spools. That’s how much I use it! I would call it a pea or celery green. The middle is that watermelon-y pink color – it goes great with the Riley Blake Quite Contrary fabrics. I also use the ES983 with the Quite Contrary green fabrics. The right is a good darker lime?? green.

These are all Isacord. Lime green (dark), turquoise and a butter yellow (not bright yellow).

Pinks are HARD! 2520 is a great HOT PINK, 2530 is a good BUBBLEGUM PINK, 2560 – a little lighter bubble gum pink and lastly, 2155 is a light pink but has some yellow in it. The middle 2 have some blue in them I would say. I use them all quite a bit! Again, all ISACORD below…

Lastly, more ISACORD. The left lime is my FAVORITE! Unfortunately it’s one of those that doesn’t come in a 5000M spool and I buy it locally at Kudzu Quilt (Bernina dealership/quilt shop). Middle – that great light turquoise/tealish color. We all know I love orange and this is the orange I used on the beach towel above.

We are now officially off for SPRING BREAK! We celebrated after school at Nancy’s Italian Ice. If you look at her website that is my oldest front & center. He ended his 7th birthday party at Nancy’s last May and we frequent there at least once a week. I go hang out there with the kids when my house shows and have been known to plug my phone in the wall and sit for a while. We love some Nancy’s!

I have one more shirt to do for the day so back to work… hope the thread post helps! I will touch on some other colors another day!

Filed Under: Misc, Products, Shopping, Supplies | Tagged: Tagged With: , ,

Miscellaneous Monday!

Posted by on February 28, 2011

Sinus update: the ENT put me on 10 days of antibiotics, a month of steroids (they taper off the last 10 days) and I’m weening myself off of decongestant nose spray one nostril at a time! Yes, people CAN get addicted to it. Not an addiction like ‘I have to have it’, but an addiction as in ‘I can’t breathe without it’ and if you use it enough, your sinuses and nose get addicted and never get better! 🙁 I can only use it on one side until the other side clears up, then I quit cold turkey! So far all is going well and I have only used the nose spray on my bad side last night – none today and none yesterday during the day! HOPEFULLY this will all work (both fingers crossed)!

Here is the sailboat patch (not listed yet). I took this photo inside because it’s late in the day and the sun wasn’t out at the time. I seriously need some type of photography light to take pictures inside! My lighting is HORRIBLE! The sun popped out for a second so I just took another picture and will try again tomorrow for a clear bright picture! Is there such a thing as this light I’m envisioning??

Here is my YIKES moment… this has become naptime in Mallory’s room. I guess playtime in her room (so I can get a little work done) is better than no room time? Sometimes she will crawl in her crib eventually and go to sleep (usually late so when it’s time to get up she is CRANKY!

Today I put her down around 1:30 and heard almost 2 hours of singing (on the above cat piano – thanks Granmommy) and playing. I finally heard her knocking at her own door and she was “let out” at about 3:15. No nap and cranky!!

Here is a shot of the trees in our neighborhood! No wonder we’re all having sinus trouble! They are pretty blooming! The boys think it looks like POPCORN!

Lastly, I cleaned out my bobbin case today and it was YUCKY! A lotta lint!! Sewingmachine.com has a great video on the proper way to oil your bobbin hook (and clean it). You can see the video here: http://www.sewingmachine.com/info/videos_prmaintenance.

That’s about all the randomness I have for today! Our Women’s Retreat was fabulous! I did 4 shirts today and the above sailboat sample. I have lots of work piling up to keep me busy for a few weeks.

House news: We did show it Saturday but nothing to report. We also found out from our realtor that only 5 houses have sold since September in Sturbridge. I don’t know if that is good or bad? There are lots of houses for sale….

Filed Under: Family, How To, Misc | Tagged: Tagged With:
« Previous Page
Next Page »