Bye Bye Spring Break!

Posted by on March 21, 2011

Spring Break is over. Back to reality. Back to school. Back to getting up before 8:00… I’m sad to report that Mallory seems to be dropping her nap. Her naps lately consist of play-time and dragging all of her toys out all over her room. She’ll stay in there for a good hour, sometimes longer. Then you’ll hear a little “knock” at her door. This is her way of asking if she can come out! Nap-time is my work-time, so I’m none too thrilled about this! Every few days she WILL lay down and take a nap, so I will hold on to those days for now!

This is a new Applique Cafe dog design that will be listed this week (at 50% off I might add). Someone suggested on Facebook that we name this Dog, so I asked my fans and the majority voted for “Stitch“. Embroidery, sewing, thread, applique, STITCH – get it? So Stitch it is, and Stitch just got his own category on the website! I have tons of ideas for Stitch so we’ll see what else he can do! For now Stitch is heading to the beach…

I just changed out my needles on my machine. Wow so much dust accumulates! I use Schmetz Embroidery needles (75/11) and I get them from www.sewingmachine.com. I hear of people talking about using this type needle for this type fabric and that type needle for another. I have 6 needles to change, so all I use are 75/11 Embroidery needles. I mostly do towels, tshirts, etc (no canvas or burlap or anything) so hopefully this is all I need!

Are you feeling the randomness of this blog? Napless Mallory and the boys are outside in the back yard so I’m just throwing this post together while I listen to her fuss and whine about her capri sun being gone and G not sharing the football with her (UGH!). Saturday Jeff did pine straw with a little bit of assistance from myself (I cut the twine) and the kids. I said that it looked like a pine straw truck exploded in our back yard! It looks GREAT! I really love our back yard! It’s big and FENCED IN (re: kids) and nice and flat! I just hope some nice family will come along (soon) and like my back yard as much as I do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Selling a house is a good lesson in contentment, envy and again, contentment! I do love my house, but I have my list of things I want to do at my next house:

  • have an organized SEWING ROOM
  • organize my fabric
  • cook more
  • invite friends over more
  • set better “work” hours

etc etc etc… I keep thinking “when we move I’ll do this(fill in the blank). Sigh…….

I did this shirt yesterday for one of Mallory’s classmates. This is a design I got off of Etsy and G had this same B-day shirt last year. This is one of my favorite b-day designs (and it’s NOT AC!)

I also did another shirt yesterday based on the below. I used the same “colors” but not the same design. This KK shirt retails for $34 I think (+$$ for adding the name, + shipping I assume).

How is my version? This is the Applique Cafe Shark and I got the solid turquoise fabric from Joann. The font is MWP Serif Block (I decreased the font density to 75 instead of 100 b/c it was too thick). I like how it turned out! Oh, I also stopped the machine and changed the thread color so that the eye & gills would be a different color. As is, they stitch all in 1 step as the same color. My shark isn’t near as scary but I think he’s cute!

So this morning I had a photo shoot (really!!) with my friend Amie (see Linen & Boxwoods). You might have noticed the L&B ad button and blog on my blog list. I will be doing a post about her blog hopefully this week! Grace (of Grace Photography Studio) met us and really took pictures of us having coffee, which is what we do! It was HILARIOUS! I’m about the least photogenic person I know and I can’t wait to see what she got! She also took a few shots of just me for my bio (about me). I am thrilled that she agreed to do this for us/me as she is a genius photographer! Stay tuned for that post!

We will be listing FIVE new designs this week (maybe by tomorrow) and all will be 50% off: canoe, giraffe, beach dog, popsicle trio and a flower (all can be previewed at www.facebook.com/appliquecafe). Back to work….

Filed Under: Applique Cafe, Design, Family, Products | Tagged: Tagged With: ,

Farm Living and Fabric

Posted by on March 19, 2011

It was Spring Break this past week. The boys did Art Camp Mon-Wed then we headed to “the farm” to visit my parents for a few days. My kids are in heaven on the farm! I think they would live outside (sleep too) if we lived down there. This was my grandparent’s farm and my parents built a house there in like 1992. It’s peaceful and beautiful with wide open spaces, cows, horses, fishing and lots of relaxing! Lots of mooing too! Oh, and don’t forget armadillo catching, bike and golf cart riding. Every boys dream and Mallory loved it too!

Here is my mom, aka “Granmommy”. Granmommy always has a full supply of snacks, drinks, tic tacs and cough drops.

Priceless entertainment = a cooler of ice! Mallory & G spent I-don’t-know-how-much-time playing with the ice. They filled up the back of the tricycle, transported ice from one cup to the next, fed the dog ice and basically had ice all over the driveway. Luckily it just melts!

Mallory went through THIS cooler of ice on Thursday AND Friday. We may have to install an ice machine in our next house.

Did I mention fishing? Browder caught all the fish (and somehow I got no pics of him?) but G had to kiss this one before we threw him back. All yuck factor must go out the window on the farm. There’s no need in fighting it.

More priceless entertainment = crickets.

Again, not yuck! He can wash his hands and take a bath! He can wash his hands and take a bath! He can wash his hands and take a bath! Oh, yes, that is what I kept telling myself…

Lastly this is my parents precious lab Keystone! If we HAD to have another dog, I’d take him! He’s a big ole lazy sweet dog and my kids adore him! He & Sissy bonded over ice.

A trip to the farm means a trip to Singer Sewing Center (Enterprise, AL)! I “ran in” Thursday when we went to town and left with these! Loving the colors!! The top left is not really orange, but more of a coral color. So pretty!!!! I like coral for spring. Love the zig zag stripe too and the floral fabrics – all GREAT (and different) colors!

Because you can never have too many polka dots…. I used the Michael Miller zig zag stripe in green for a new Applique Cafe Snake design so I picked up this hot pink too. A pink snake sure would be cute! I was going to TRY to drive over to TJ’s Fabrics in Opp but couldn’t make it happen with our farm schedule.

The weather is beautiful here ~ mid to high 80’s I believe. House news: we had someone look for a 2nd time last week. Evidently they are military, living in an apartment, are going to “do something” soon and our house is #1. We’ve heard that a few times before so we’re not getting our hopes up. Nonetheless, I think I’m cutting off customer orders for a while. My current count is: 40. We have a trip or two coming up so my goal is to have all that done by the time we leave. I will reassess the situation in a month or so after our vacation and depending on the house. I have SO LITTLE TIME lately and would hate to have stacks of clothes waiting to applique, sell our house and have to return them! Email me with any questions ~ rosemarygulledge@gmail.com!

Filed Under: Fabric, Family | Tagged:

Wasted Fabric (insert sad face)

Posted by on March 9, 2011

I monogrammed these kitchen items this week and I thought they turned out neat! I can’t say that I’ve ever monogrammed an oven mitt before, but thanks to my fast frames I was able to add a little somthin-somthin to these otherwise khaki everyday pot holders (from Target)! I like the deep dark brown on the khaki – very Tuscan!

This week we had the pleasure of taking care of G’s class pet, Chester! I have to say it was actually fun keeping up with Chester and taking pictures of what we did. Jeff & I got a kick out of the fact that Chester spent the weekend in Mobile at Mardi Gras (with a classmate), then in this picture Monday night we are heading to church to our annual Missions Conference. From Mardi Gras to church is a little funny!? Eh? As you can see he is strapped in with “Bear”, another family animal. Seatbelt safety is key!

Chester learned about the upcoming mission trip to the Amazon!

Yesterday Chester went with us to take B to school, then to Chick Fil A and to see Dr. G for M’s 3 year checkup! Chester went back to school today but we got to journal about our time together. Mallory woke up a little sick today so I blame the CFA playground! Of course she could have gotten a bug at church, school, the Dr. office, Publix or any other number of places! She stayed home from school today and had a good nap and appears fine, but our morning was a little rough!

Now to the title of my post… am I the only one that totally wastes fabric every time I do an applique? BTW this is Riley Blake Quite Contrary fabric (love)! This is the AC Mermaid design.

So I trim around the “tail” of the mermaid and look at all the fabric I have left! Total waste of my favorite fabric! It has HNBL on it so I’m not sure if I can save it, but may keep it laying around in case I need it!

I’m working on some “work” today for the first time in about a week (other than the pot holders). I feel so distracted lately and it’s hard to get anything done! I spent the morning washing clothes and cleaning up the house. Plus, it was raining and storming so I was afraid to turn my machine on. Next week is Spring Break and the boys are in art camp 3 (half) days, so hopefully I can hunker down and get my work done! It has piled up on me and I have a couple more “jobs” coming in. That may be all I can do for a while. As it gets closer to the end of school the less time I will have! As I type this the phone just rang about another job. One more!! OK that may be it for a while! 🙂

Filed Under: Applique Cafe, Design, Family, Misc | Tagged:
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