Claire

Recently I was asked to take some plain bibs and make them cute for little Claire. I did a mix of monograms and names...and had fun with it. So, here you go...(oh and by the way, some of these are really poor quality pictures, my apologies)

My little birdie is back again. It's been a while since I've used her, but I love her every single time. I did this in the same lavender seersucker and avocado green that I used on Addyson's birthday dress. I'm loving those colors together right now.
She asked specifically for one bib to be in red. I went back and forth with what to do on this one, then settled on just stitching and not adding a fabric for the applique. I knew she wanted it to match a few things specifically and was afraid some of the other colors in the fabrics might throw that off. I like the monogram in the frame just stitched out.

This picture is by far the worst, but it's the best I got....2 shades of pink.

It's been a big month for bibs...more to come soon.

New Cute Tee

A friend asked me to make a little tee for her niece's birthday. All she asked for was not white, cute, and use either her name, a little C, or her monogram. Gosh I love orders like that!

And here's a close-up. I love that fabric...it's part of the new-ish Summer Song line from Riley Blake, which I'm a huge fan of.
She's ordered 2 more shirts...when I've finished them, I'll get pics for you to see.
Sorry I've had short posts lately....I've just been trying to get you caught up on all I've been doing lately and didn't want just one gigantic post.

Addyson

Addyson just turned 3! Last June, when she turned 2, I made my first-ever birthday shirt for her. And, oh my, it was just not very good. But, I've come a long way since then. This year Addyson was having a princess-themed party...so I decided to take her birthday shirt to the next level. I made her a birthday dress.

Here's a close-up. I put a crown on the 3...for a little princess flair! The bottom is a purple and white seersucker...and I loved the pop of the green against it all.
We had the honor of hosting Addyson's birthday party at our house, thanks to our pretty good-sized backyard. Of course, it started pouring down rain right before the party was supposed to start. But, after not too awful long, it slacked off and we had a great time. We loved having everyone here...and just love little Addy. Here she is in her dress surrounded by some of the princesses that made an appearance at the party.
Unfortunately Belle has a little glare going on!

Bibs, Bibs, Bibs

I got a big order from one of my regular customers, and I had so much fun with it. I had very few limitations with this order. There were 6 bibs total, 5 of them for boys and 1 girl. I had all their names but one...and color choices for the girl. So, here's what I came up, something different for everyone.
Charles got 2, so we'll start with him. First is a little steamboat.
Next is a new font I got from Lynnie Pinnie. I'm calling it my sky-writer...and I think it's pretty cute. What do you think? You'll see it again soon on another post.
Joel got another new font I got from Lynnie Pinnie...it's a cute caterpillar with a letter in each dot. I like this font, but I'll start using more plain or solid color fabrics for the spots, as it is such a small applique, it can easily distract from the letters in the name. Either way I still like it.

Knox...what a cute name! Like I said, I don't anything about this babies or moms...so I was just picking things. I figured if your name is Knox, then tractors have to be ok, right? Honestly, there's no rational there...but I still think it's cute. (The way that part of the bib is folded under it looks off-center, but I promise...it's not). :)

Now for sweet Savannah. I was told that Savannah wants pink, brown, and ivory. So, I gave them pink, brown, and ivory. I love this frame...I plan to use it a lot. Cute, no?

My last little boy doesn't have a name yet. The only thing I was told is that his mom is a pilot for UPS...so I took that and ran with it. It's brown corduroy...and I did my best to recreate the UPS symbol. Not too shabby. Actually, I really love this bib...it might be my favorite from the group.

So there's my bib order. Likes? Dislikes?

Penguins

One of my favorite things to make are baby gift sets. Recently a girl who I grew up with moved to Huntersville, near Charlotte...so it's only a couple hours away from us. She asked me to make a baby gift set for a friend of hers having a baby in August. Baby doesn't have a name yet, but she really wanted penguins. So here you have it.
This baby gift set includes a bib, onesie, and burp cloth.

And here it is packaged together.

I hope she likes it.

I'm Back!

I'm sorry it's been so long, but I'm back...and I've got so much to catch you up on. I'll have a lot coming your way over the next few days.

Since the World Cup is going on, I thought we could start with Love Africa. Recently our church sent a group to Kijabe, Kenya for a mission trip. They asked me to design and stitch a patch to go on everyone's backpacks. There was a logo for Love Africa, so I designed the patch to be pretty similar. This is what I came up with...

I had to make a bunch of these. This is part of one box...plus a few backpacks wanted some other patches sewn on too.

They had really cool Mountain Hardware backpacks. Now we want some like them too. :)

Lately...

I apologize that I have not blogged for so long. Life has been quite interesting lately, to say the least. I have written a couple of posts, that I have not posted yet, and I may not ever. But just putting the words on a page has been helpful for me. I have been making many projects, but didn't take pictures, so I don't have much to share on that front. For now, I will simply share our story. The past few weeks have been full of emotion for us...joy and anticipation, sorrow and grief.

Among our greatest desires in the world, is that we get the incredible privilege of having children and becoming a family of more than just two. For many months John and I have been trying to make this a reality. But, for many months this has not been possible. Then, finally, one day after months of negative tests and completed cycles..we got a second line. We got a positive test. Then, the next day and again the next. All positive, all saying, yes you made a baby. Oh, what joy! Of all the months that I thought it wasn't possible, for reasons I'll leave out of this post, we made a baby. We had always agreed to wait before sharing our news with friends and family, just to be safe. So, this was our secret...our baby.

But then, as surprisingly as this joy came into our lives, it was gone.

Last Friday morning I started bleeding. I immediately called the doctor. My doctor was out of the office and the nurse was unsure of exactly what to do, since there was nothing we knew of to cause the bleeding. When she talked to another doctor in the practice, it was decided that because this was a significant amount of bleeding, not just spotting, that I needed to come in for an emergency ultrasound. They squeezed me in for an afternoon appointment. For the majority of the day, I was hopeful. I read countless stories online of people who have bleeding, but deliver perfectly healthy babies. I still chose hope.

Finally, after a whirlwind of a day, I got in for the ultrasound, and there it was.

Nothing.

My quiet, empty, aching womb.

Not even a little dot on the monitor. Now, because I have never gone through this process and the ultrasound tech did her very best to try to assuage any of my fears. I still chose hope. They did a couple of tests...then the doctor came in to speak to me. She said that between the blank ultrasound and tests, that I had miscarried the baby. Our baby was gone. Hope was crushed. Desire was left unfulfilled. Dreams that would never become reality. All our longings and joy that one day we would get to hold this baby were washed away. Fortunately the emptiness found in the ultrasound also meant that I did not need to have anything else done in order to 'clean-up' after the miscarriage. She said that my body was doing that itself. Also, because a miscarriage puts quite a bit of strain on the uterus, she advised us to not try to conceive for two months. It would be best for my uterus to rest and heal.

We had incredible joy...then incredible pain. And for now we grieve the loss of our baby. What can you do?
You can pray that one day the Lord will bless us with a precious baby. That one day He will grant us the desire of our hearts. And that we would be faithful to Him with that gift.
You can pray that God will comfort us during our time of grief. And that above all else, that God would be glorified through our loss. Ultimately that is what we want, for God to receive glory in our joy and in our pain.