A Soccer Mom Kind-a Thing...

So my son is in soccer, this will be his 3rd season. I don't really have him in the sport because he is good at it or because I think he will continue to do soccer when he gets older. I really have him in it for 3 reasons: 1. To learn what it is like to be a part of a team and all about teamwork. 2. To learn how to be a good winner and a good loser and finally 3. To get out of the house and the TV, into the fresh air and running around like kids should.

Anyways on to the project!! 

While at  a game last season I saw a little boy carrying this bag:

So I shopped around the Internet and found it. here: personalcreations.com

 Now while they are selling for a pretty reasonable price I wanted to make the bag myself to make the exterior out of a thick canvas and line the bag with soccer ball print. Also I thought that appliqueing the soccer balls on the sides would be a neat project with my new machine!

 Here is the finished product:

I think it turned out good. there are a few things I would do differently but it is just a bag that my 7 year old will drag through the mud, leave in locker rooms and use as a pillow on the sidelines of games- so I think it will be just fine. I am going to do another bag for my friend's son who plays baseball- I can hopefully change the things I don't like and make it a lot faster next time around!  I think I will do a tutorial for it if anyone is interested?

I am now the proud owner of.... AN EMBROIDERY MACHINE!

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it! My old sewing machine was old, real old. But the advances made in sewing technology is astonishing to me. I know most of y'all reading this have sewing machines built in this century and probably will get a laugh out of the fact that I didn't know a sewing machine could cut it's own thread, thread the needle, have an option to stop the machine with the needle up or down, sew on a button, make a blind hem stitch, have 7 different button hole styles.... I could go on and on because I really love this machine. Well, it is an embroidery machine and came with 70 designs, none of which I like, so I started with applique first (until I can figure out how to download new embroidery designs to the machine).
So my first applique project was this owl sweatshirt for J-Bird:

And my next, note I did figure out how to attached the embroidery arm, hoop, and foot to embroidery a name =), a personalize T-shirt. ohhh, I am having so much fun!

Piggie and Gerald Birthday

So if you don't know who Piggie and Gerald are then you must not have an elementary age kid in your house (and if you do and don't know who they are you need to go to the library!!) The Piggie and Elephant Books by Mo Willems are my son's absolute favorite. He has read every book about 30 times each. I hear him in his room at night giggling and I know he is reading about Gerald and Piggie's shenanigans.

So when I am faced with a theme for my 7 year olds' birthday party my first thought was Piggie and Gerald. So I will continue to add to this post as I create more and more for his party in 2 weeks, right now I finished a couple applique tee shirts with his favorite characters. I just did a simple applique- using felt so it won't fray and I didn't have to zig-zag stich making the outline intrusive to the desgin.





I also designed a comic book style invitation for the party.

More to come!!