Here Comes Peter Cottontail, Hopping Down the Bunny Trail...

...Hippity,  Hoppity Easter's on its way!

I had quite a few little things to do this year for Easter, and lo and behold I even got to do a couple of personal items.

Let me just stop and consider for a moment how it feels to actually have accomplished projects for a particular holiday well in advance of said holiday:

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Wow.  That's a nice feeling!

Anyway - so with Easter Sunday coming tomorrow, I wanted to share with you all the cute little bunny things I had a hand in creating this year.

First up are a couple of things I did for the grandkids of the woman who took my place at my old job when I left to have my daughter.  I am used to working on plain old t-shirts, so working on anything "nicer" was a little nerve wracking, to say the least!  But everything turned out great, I think!

These feature the most popular design for me this year, which was the Bunny Alphabet by Planet Applique.  It was just so versitile; it didn't just have to be placed dead center in a t-shirt, as evidenced here.

How precious is this this little Bunny B?  And I never ever would have thought to place it on the skirt of the dress near the hem; it's a great way to get around having a shirt with an emblem already embroidered on (if you don't know if your design can cover it) or if you want it to show.  It's also great to consider if you have a shirt with a stain you'd like to cover that doesn't happen to be right in the center!

We can't forget big brother's shirt!

   

I know these two made quite the pair with the Bunny outfits for the Easter rounds this year!

One of my friends, Kristi, has a daughter who is 3 months to the day younger than my own daughter.  Since her birthday was just two weeks out from Easter this year, Kristi decided to hold an egg hunt in a local park for the party.  It was awesome and the "2" bunny was perfect for the birthday girl's celebration shirt!  And it really shows how you could use this for more than just Easter - birthdays at a petting zoo?  Bunny letter shirts for the guests and a Bunny number shirt for the birthday partier!

And of course, Lilah had to have one, too.  I sometimes feel like that old saying about how the Cobbler's kids have no shoes...I'll be working on things to sell or for gifts and Lilah will say, "Is that MY shirt, Mommy?" and I hate be constantly telling her "Not this one, honey!" 

So I tried to make up for it a little bit by making her an Easter dress this year.  I scored this fabric - the paisley and the purple - at Wal-Mart for just $2.00 a yard, which makes the materials for this dress, including the zipper and the pattern (which I had gotten for $0.99 at Hobby Lobby), that I had to purchase right about $5.00 or so.  The pattern  - McCall's 6269 - was fairly simple, though I would recommend writing down your plans if you plan to do combinations of the views shown on any given pattern.  I had meant for the front to be simply a cumberbund style sash and got confused while I was cutting and ended up with a sash in front and a sash in back because the front bow wouldn't tie prettily.  That was annoying.

But I'd say it all worked out in the end!

So Happy Easter to all you folks who celebrate it!  I'm looking forward to the new projects Spring-time brings!

T-Shirt Weather

I love living in the South because you never know what season it's going to be unless it's August.  In August, you are assured it is summer because it is always 9 billion degrees outside.  But outside of August, the weather can go from sunny and 79 one day - like yesterday - to drizzly and 55 - like today.  But it is technically spring and so I can TECHNICALLY talk about it being t-shirt weather and I will do that because I have a LOT of t-shirts to share!

First I want to show you a trio of shirts I did for my friend Whitney's girls and niece.  She requested something summery and I immediately had in mind this great little flip-flop applique.

 

For three little girls who spend a lot of time at the beach, I think these are perfect.

 

 

And Whitney was kind enough to grab one of these cute little tops for Lilah so that I could make her a summery appliqued top, too!  Although the flip flops turned out amazing, I had just gotten a new applique the night before and couldn't resist the opportunity to try it out, and I have to say I am pretty pleased with the results!

This very traditional looking monogram is so cute in applique - I imagine it would be perfect on a baby's bag or done smaller on a burp cloth.  Or how about wrapping a bride's shower gift in a bag that has her new married monogram already appliqued on it?  Great idea for a honeymoon shower, for sure!

Whitney's daughters scored a couple more t's, but these were just straight on monogram jobs.  This one I had to create myself, because I didn't have a pattern and Whitney wanted it to match a shirt her niece has.  Every time I see it, I can't help but think of Dotted Swiss.  I know it doesn't look a thing like Dotted Swiss, but I immediately click to a sense memory of feeling those little knobby bunches of fabric on a dress I wore as a kid.  To this day, I can't pass by a piece of Dotted Swiss fabric without running my fingers across it like a Braille text.

 

This little piece of precious is a onesie for baby sis, to replace one I gifted her when she was born and has already grown out of.  The previous onesie featured a very traditional, script monogram, so for this one I kind of wanted to do something a little more fun and modern.  This font is called "Sparkly," and I just love it.  It's a little "wacky 60's sitcom" to me, and since I feel like my life is a bit of a wacky sitcom most days, expect to see me find an excuse for it on other things soon.

This is far from all the T's I've been working on lately.  As a matter of fact, I have some VERY special T-shirts to which I want to devote an entire post - I just have to find all my pictures first!