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….