Irish Pumpkin Festival

Our parish holds an annual Irish Pumpkin Festival each year about this time. My daughter and I have always contributed a basket for the raffle or silent auction. She makes a zig zag fabric basket and I embroider several dishtowels to include in it. She didn't see my towels when she made her basket...she just knew a general idea of the colors that would be in the towels...but when she brought the basket over for me to assemble it, everything just coordinated perfectly! The designs on two of my towels are from Sonia Showalter Designs, available here.

Yoga Skirt

Patty Young from ModKid has her Yoga Skirt Tutorial on this blog today. I made this one in about an hour, including the cutting out and finishing. Very quick. It is for a 2 year old, so I may end up cutting a few inches off the bottom and re-hemming it. I have another one cut out for the 3 year old. And I may have to make one for myself as well! That waistband has to be very comfy.

The fabric in this skirt is Andalucia (Flora) by Patty Young for michael miller fabrics.

GOING "GREENER"

In an effort to be more eco-friendly, I am making cloth dinner napkins for my family and for my daughters and their families.These are a nice generous finished size of 20" x 20", made from 100% cotton fabric. The patterns is "Sunflowers" - designs by Leere for Clothworks. I have used this multicolored print, as well as one that is mostly just various greens, making 2 napkins from each print. The tag is Stampin Up Kraft paper, cut with a frame die from Papertrey Ink, and stamped with Kitchen Classics stamp from Crafty Secrets.

Some bloggers suggest that it makes sense for each family member to have his/her own unique napkin ring...so that the napkin may be placed into that ring after the meal, for use at the next meal, until such time that it needs to be laundered. That is a great idea, which would further save on the time and effort required to launder the napkins. Most of the time, they should be good for several meals.

Here is another napkin idea. I used 100% cotton napkins from Kohl's, and embroidered a little mixing bowl design onto them.

Pretty Raspberries

This is one of Sonia Showalter's designs. She has a whole raspberry alphabet that is being released a letter at a time, along with corner accents and other raspberry designs. These sure add elegance to table linens, towels, etc.

Easter Towels

I made Easter towels using a bunny design from Strawberry Stitch Co. The guys got celery green rabbits, and the girls got soft pink rabbits. These were stitched on cream Microfiber Waffle Weave Towels. I think everyone was happy with their gift!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Here are some of the gifts all ready to give. I like to make my daughters a dishtowel for most every holiday, as you probably know if you read this blog. These were towels from Kohl's, and I added an embroidered heart and the name. I love Valentine's Day.

Here is one of the towels, with the accompanying card. The card base is kraft cardstock, with some Hero Arts cupcake images, and a sentiment by Studio G. Some rhinestone bling finishes it off.





And here is another version. Normally I embroider on plain microfiber towels, but Kohls usually has such cute towels for Halloween, Valentine's Day and Easter, that I purchase the towels from there, and add some embroidery.

Have a Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

Leopard

This design stitched up very striking! The leopard has a very realistic look to him when you see this towel in person. The towel was a gift to my daughter in Kansas. She displayed it in a powder room on the main floor, which added a nice decorative accent. The design is a stock design that I purchased from Strawberry Stitch. It has almost 46,000 stitches in it.


Here is a closeup view.