Red Wings T-Shirt quilt

This gorgeous t-shirt throw used to be my brother-in-law's collection of Detroit Red Wings Hockey t-shirts. I hope he is going to love it! He gave me the big bag full of t-shirts this last spring and told me to "do what you do as soon as you can stand long enough to work on it" to make it into a quilt.

Now that I am standing for longer periods of time - up to an hour or so - and as long as I take frequent breaks to elevate my leg, I am able to work on projects like this. As a little side note - the edges on this quilt are NOT that wavy. I should have taken more time to straighten out the quilt before I took the picture. :-)


I also got a chance to give my little granddaughter the Molly Mine purse that I made with my embroidery machine. It was truly a big hit. She never put it down all day. She even took it with her to the Detroit Tiger baseball game that night. The gate person asked to look through MY bag when we entered the stadium. When he asked her if he could look at her bag, so responded, "no thank you".

And, her mother tells me that she slept with it as well as bringing it down with her in the morning. That makes it all worth while!

Baby Lock Ellisimo machine embroidery

I decided it was time to really learn to use the machine embroidery function of my Baby Lock Ellisimo. So, I decided to start on the little girl's purse by Molly Mine designs. This purse is absolutely darling and I am sure that I will need to make more than one for the little granddaughters in my family. I am finding out that the Ellisimo not only sews like a dream but embroiders like a dream too. The functions and the buttons on the machine are not that much different from my old Brother ULT. I was not prepared though for exactly how MUCH embroidery this little purse entails. This is my 4th straight day of embroidery and I am approximately 1/2 done. I'm having a really fun time and the purse(s) will go to little girls who will love them, so I am going to call it a "labor of love".

My Mom tells of the time that my Aunt Marg made Barbie doll clothes (bridal gowns included) for my sisters and me. When my Mom suggested to Aunt Marg that she make Barbie clothes and sell them, Aunt Marg told her that there wasn't anyone that would pay what the clothes were worth. They were a "labor of love".

I have NO PLAN or intention to make these purses to sell. They are a copyright design by Molly Mine and I believe that making them to sell is a violation of her copyright. That being said - if I were to pay myself $1.00 per hour, I would need to sell this little purse for approximately $80.00 Hmmmm - not to many Mom's out there willing to pay $80 for a toddlers purse. :-)

It's kind of like the first baby bib I made with my very first embroidery machine. I proudly showed it to my Mister who responded, "nice - a $500 baby bib". Crafty people need to remember that we do these things and enjoy the process as the end result is not always cost effective. Unfortunately, non-crafty people see things made and think they should be able to pay someone "a few bucks" to whip one out for them. I'm glad I'm one of the crafty people and I try very hard to enjoy the process of the things I make.