Maude and the Super Long Post

Hey there stitchy peeps! I have a lot to share with you today, and I am so excited!

Last time I posted, I mentioned that I had to stitch a birthday shirt for my baby, who celebrated his first birthday recently. I made a shirt for my four-year-old's birthday last month, so it only seemed fair to make one for the baby, too. Unfortunately, I spaced it until the day before his birthday, so I was pressed for time. But I already had the shirt and the pattern, so no biggie. All I needed to do was trace the pattern with my Sulky, iron it to the shirt (which, by the way, was an adorable little white ribbed tank I'd found for a mere dollar...perfect for summertime and my budget!), and stitch stitch stitch! The pattern I selected was a cute, simple one that I knew I could complete in a short amount of time.

Here, take a look, you'll see what I mean:


This adorable little party owl is from Pimp Stitch, a cool new online embroidery company who recently celebrated their grand opening. Be sure to check out their blog for this sweet owl and other cool freebies.

So, anywho...

Sigh. I hate to tell you this, but that picture up there is as good as it gets. There is no shirt, no adorable completed stitchy piece to show you. Because things went wrong. Very very wrong. You know what happens when you try to stitch on a ribbed tank without any stabilizer?

Bad things. Very bad things. *shudder*

The whole thing was a bust. The shirt was super stretchy and pretty much impossible to stitch on, even though I had it secured in my trusty & beloved Q-snaps. The whole darn thing ended up in the trash.

The trash? you might be thinking. Why not just rip out what you did and try again with stabilizer?

Well...

When I was poking around at my stitches, trying to undo them, I may have ripped a teensy little hole in the shirt. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I was angry, tired, frustrated, and ripping out those stitches rather furiously. Whoopsies.

Anywho, enough about that. I will make a shirt for the baby soon, I promise. But in the meantime, I have more to share with you! I am so pleased and excited to announce that (drum roll please) Bathroom Stitching is complete!!!

Ta-da!!!


Oh my gosh, you guys, I am sooooooo in love with her! I colored her in a bit with colored pencils, 'cause the fabric was oh-so-very white and made her look a bit pale and ghost-like. I had originally tried to add some stripes to the dress, but that didn't pan out. I love this version, stitched by a fellow Flickr-ite. Very cool, don'tcha think? I am LOVING that dress. :)

Anywho, the pencils I used are meant for memory books, so they are acid-free, lightfast, archival quality, fade proof, and waterproof, so they shouldn't ruin the fabby over time.

I debated on whether I should make her shoes aqua to match her purse, or brown to tie the piece into my new bathroom decor. I obviously chose the brown, though I think it looks like black in the pic. Oh well. Anywho, here's a pic of Maude (oh, by the way, did I tell you I named her?) against the shower curtain.

This is pre-ironing, so please don't mind the wrinkles.


Here she is again:


And again:


And again:


Now I have to frame her and hang her on the wall. I found a frame today that I think will work, so keep your fingers crossed for me.

I also plan to frame & hang this page from my current wall calendar:


I think these two lovely ladies will make quite a stunning pair in my bathroom, don't you? :-D

Ok, I'm almost done with this super long post, I promise! There's just one more thing I wanna share with you today. One of my fav-o-rite embroidery blogs is Feeling Stitchy. If you love embroidery and haven't checked this blog out, you need to. It is jam-packed with great tutorials, links, info, pics, interviews and articles, all related to--of course--stitching! This blog is one of my daily reads, so I was thrilled to find that one of my pics made it into a post! Tee hee! (My humble little pic is #8, "vitamin parade", which you've seen featured here on my blog.)

Whew! I think that about does it for today!

Happy Stitching, everyone. :)