Saturday, May 24, 2008

As promised - some pics for the UK Co-op!

I know I am very late with the pictures, lol! I have been sewing, sewing, sewing, then have fallen asleep 4 times this week while putting Holden to bed between 8 - 9:00! Without further ado, here are some of the diapers that are finished. I hope to have all the embroidery work done this weekend, I am about to drop my kiddos off at a friend's house for their very first play date without mama, so I can get some more work done :)


Jackie's DreamScapes:




Dee's Follow the Leader:




Helen's Tri-Tone:




Jackie's Tri-tones:







Heleanna's Tri-tone:






Progress update:

Hanna's diapers are finished, I just need to topstitch them all

Jackie's diapers are finished

Sarah's diapers are finished

Kate's DreamScapes are finished

Dee's diaper's are finished

Lisa's wipes are done, diapers are finished

Heleanna's Tri-Tone is finished (and it is really lilac, not blue!), Asian DreamScape is embroidered, waiting to be sewn. Fairyland is dyed, waiting for me to finish all the other embroideries so I can give it some special attention, lol!

Bethan's diapes are finished

Jamling's (sorry, I don't have your first name here!) DreamScape is embroidered, yours are next to be sewn

Helen's Tri-Tone is finished, DreamScape is embroidered

Melanie's - everything is cut and yours are on the embroidery machine today

Karen's diapers should be embroidered tomorrow. I made the toddler LWI blue diaper, finished it, then remembered it was supposed to be embroidered - oops! So I am redying fabric for that in the AM

Natalie's diapers are ready to be sewn

Gozozale's (sorry, I don't have your first name here either!) fitted is finished, DreamScape should be embroidered tomorrow

Steph's - I am dying in the AM and will embroider tomorrow night



So, if all goes well and I do finish my embroideries this weekend, then I should still be in line with mailing about a week from Monday - yippee!!

Thursday, May 22, 2008

I have a new love!

I picked up my new embroidery machine today. It has so many more bells and whistles than the old "Cranky" machine. Yes, we named my original embroidery machine "Cranky". Trust me, it is a very fitting name! I am working on the lion pride for the safari DreamScape right now. I am excited to be getting back to this order. I have some pictures to take and post of some of the finished diapers, but I have a few more almost finished so I am going to wait to post pictures until the ones on my table are finished as well. Look for more pictures this weekend!

What I've been up to this week



My daughter's best friend had her 7th birthday yesterday. I have been making her birthday cakes for a few years now. This year, she had a princess themed party, complete with a princess castle bounce house, so I made her a princess castle birthday cake. per her request, the top tier is chocolate chip and the bottom tier is vanilla. Light pink frosting on the cakes, darker pink flowers and turrets (pink is her favorite color). The towers/turrets are sugar cones, iced with pink frosting and rolled in pink sugar. I love making cakes, but I don't do it very often, because it is so time consuming.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

An end to my embroidery blues?

I finally purchased a new embroidery machine tonight! I am very excited, and just a little apprehensive. The only store in the state that services the brand of machine that I have (and the new one as well) has apparently just closed. The rumor is that they are moving, but I can't get anyone by email or on the phone to confirm. Hopefully it will not need service every 6 weeks like this last one did *fingers crossed*!!

I am hoping it ships quickly and arrives by the middle of next week so I can get back into embroidering the co-op order. I am dying to get back to embroidering the front of this water hole diaper!!

In the meantime, I am working on some other orders. Here is a custom of 7 rainbow bamboo velour fitteds, all smalls and mediums


Saturday, May 10, 2008

Water hole

This is the last set of embroideries I was able to get out of my machine today. I really like the way this one turned out. It is a safari inspired DreamScape for the UK coop order. The mama wanted something in a safari theme that included an elephant, so here is "The Water Hole".



The water hole is free form stitched on my regular sewing machine. Around the water hole are 3 elephants, a giraffe and a gazelle. This is the back of this particular DreamScape. The front has the infamous 1 hour rock so far, and will have a pride of lions and a rhino on it once I get my new machine.

Embroidery blues

I am ready to throw my embroidery machine out the window. We are on the third floor and I suspect it would make a rather satisfying crash when it hits the ground. I have had this machine for less than 2 years and it has been in for service 5 times (the first time being 2 weeks after it got here) and I have replaced parts on it myself an additional 3 times. When it is not in for service, it will work beautifully for a while, then just not. Like today, I have embroidered about a dozen designs since Thursday night, all perfectly. This afternoon I was embroidering a rock, which should have taken 4 minutes. I had to open the machine up 32 times on the first color, which ended up taking over an hour to stitch out. I had decided to replace the machine yesterday, then didn't because it was working so beautifully. Figures. By the time it stopped working today, the dealer was closed. Hopefully I can get in tomorrow and replace this machine. It will be a happy mother's day present to myself!

The first embroidery

I love Fairy Claire - this is one of my favorite designs. This is the first embroidery off the machine for the co-op.

Want to see what 4 hours of dyeing looks like?

I am currently working on a coop order for a UK cloth nappy board. This will be the biggest order I have ever done, so I wanted to document it.

Here's my time line so far: Order was finalized on April 27th. I started cutting the oc that week. Bamboo didn't show up until May 6th. Dyed May 7th. Started embroidering May 8th.

So, you want to see what 4 hours of dyeing looks like??




That's almost all of it - I have a few pieces that didn't come out like I wanted them, and I will be redying those this weekend.

A new blog!

I have finally joined the masses in blogging ;) I have had one set up since 2004, I just never used it because I couldn't figure it all out. This one is very user friendly though - I think I may actually use this one!