Appliqued Shirts

Wow, I didn't realize it has been so long since I posted. Well, no time like the present! It is the middle of August here in south Georgia and it was 91 degrees outside today! Let's just say it was hot and muggy. My grandson had a birthday party this past Saturday and my daughter wanted me to applique shirts to give for the present. She found a great deal on shirts and told me it was a construction theme birthday. After looking through my MANY designs, I realized I didn't have any construction designs. So off to my favorite online designers I went. Planet Applique has great designs and I found two there that I liked. The third design is a Bible verse design from Applique Corner . They have great designs for the Christian Faith. Here is a finished picture of all three shirts. Please excuse the quality of the picture, it was taken in terrible lighting.

Even though, I stayed up to 1:00am stitching the appliques, I think it was worth it. They turned out great!

On a lighter note, what do you do when you find a flaw in a towel and it is too late to send it back to the manufacturer? Why, monogram it for my grandson, of course! Isn't this frog character hooded towel adorable with his name on it?

My grandson loves the character hood and the little triangle pockets for this hands. Really, the towel in way cuter than in the picture. You can find other adorable hooded towels at The Polka Dot Store

Heirloom Easter Sewing

Welcome, it has been awhile since I've posted. Spring has been crazy busy! We celebrated Easter with family in Auburn, Alabama. Church, great food, and good company made for a perfect day. My grandson who is two loved finding hidden Easter eggs.

Several months before Easter, I planned and started working on two special outfits. The first outfit was for my grandson and I decided to make a cute sailor outfit. With fabric I had on hand and a pattern by Children's Corner called Michael I began my adventure. Since Max is only 2 1/2 years old, the colors pale blue and white seemed like  good choices. White royal twill was used for the shirt and blue satin ribbon was used to trim the collar. I started out trying to use bias tape and wasn't happy with the look so I switched to ribbon. The Michael pattern is a very easy to sew pattern and I have made countless outfits with it. The shorts have front pleats and an elastic back and were made out of blue pique. Mother of Pearl buttons were used to close the back of the shirt and a blue pique tie accented the front of the shirt. My daughter completed the outfit with knee high white socks and navy/white saddle oxford shoes. Adorable!

The second adventure was an adventure in heirloom sewing. If you have read previous posts, you know this type of sewing is one of my passions. Last summer a friend of mine became a grandmother to a beautiful little girl and we started planning her 2014 Easter outfit. Can I just say "Fun"! The little girl's mother decided on pink fabric and ecru lace. I used Child's Wedding Ring Dress by Chery Williams as a guide to make the dress.

Pink Swiss Bearissima Batiste by Bear Threads, LTD was the perfect choice for the fabric. Several different widths and styles of Bow Lace were used on the dress. I'm not sure where the lace was purchased. Here is a picture of the materials I selected for the dress.

The scallops on the collar and dress were attached accented with machine hemstitching and lace attached to it. I have an old hemstitch machine made in 1946 that is used to stitch the hemstitching. This is the only stitch this machine makes! Two needles and two bobbins are used to make the perfect stitch. Here is a picture of my machine.

Any hoo, here is the finished product and a picture of the precious little girl wearing the dress.

Entredeux beading, ribbon, and lace edge finished the sleeve edge. The outfit was completed with a double-faced satin pink hair bow.

Best of all,  a picture of the dress being worn by a precious little girl on Easter.

I had so much fun making these two outfits, I am sure I will be sewing on something new again soon.

Heirloom Sewing Inspiration

For some reason this time of year I get the "itch" to do some heirloom sewing. As you know if you've read my profile, I have been doing Heirloom Sewing by hand and machine for over 25 years. Yes, that makes me old but only in the way I look. LOL. Any way, I have a board on my personal Pinterest page called "Heirloom Sewing". As you can guess, I post beautiful pictures of garments that I love! I'm also noticing a trend. People are using ecru lace on their garments more and more instead of white lace. Both are beautiful but trends come and go. Below are some examples of pins from my board.

Note: These are not my pictures.

I think I'll make a daygown out of blue fabric and ecru lace. Next, I have to design how I want the daygown. I'll keep you posted on the fun! 

Daily Deals Sale Page

Recently, I started a "Daily Deals" tab in the menu. In all honestly, I planned to keep it frequently updated. Hasn't happened! Today it has been uploaded with all new items. This weekend we are featuring a fantastic sale on Flannel Swaddling Blankets by Swaddle Designs. Here are a few pics of some of the great blankets for sale:

Morning Sky Elephants and Chickies Swaddling Blanket

Bright Pink Dots Organic Blanket

Kiwi Paisleys Blanket

All the blankets measure 44" x 44" making them perfect for swaddling your precious little one. They also make great nursing covers for moms and great sun covers for baby carriers. I'm sure you can think of a lot more uses for these fabulous blankets! They are a great gift to have on hand for a baby shower, christmas, or any occasion.

The sale price is only listed on the Daily Deals page (not on the brand name or swaddling blankets pages). You MUST purchase off the Daily Deals page to get the sale price. Here is a link to the Daily Deals Page .

Prices are only good through this weekend until Sunday night at midnight.

Have a great weekend!

Childhood Cancer Awareness

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness month and The Polka Dot Store will donate 10% of our sales to American Cancer Society. As many of you may already know, my oldest child was diagnosed with T-cell ALL (leukemia) when he was 16 years old. I am happy to say he is a healthy happy 30 year old man now. He has a great job and owns is own home. So, as you can probably guess, Childhood Cancer Awareness is very "near and dear" to my heart. When my son was diagnosed and going through treatment, you didn't hear much about childhood cancer and I am so thankful people are finally aware of this very traumatic time for a child and his/her family. The survival rates have increased which is wonderful but the treatment itself is very hard on a child. Seeing what these precious children endure will really touch your heart but, their attitudes and bravery will amaze you. There are many organizations that help the patient and their families during treatment. I thought you might like to know about a few that were/are very special to me and my family.

The American Cancer Society paid for all our stays at the Ronald McDonald House on Houston Mill Road in Atlanta. We were always met with a compassionate smile when we arrived and they did everything possible to make our stay as comfortable as possible. Since my son was treated at Egleston Childrens Hospital, now know as Childrens Healthcare of Atlanta Egleston, this location was very close and convenient. I can't say enough about the loving care my son received from the staff of doctors, nurses, and support staff at Egleston. They were the best. Last year during this time The Polka Dot Store donated to Cure. Cure funds extensive research for childhood cancer. At the time of my son's illness, they also provided supper one night a week to the families and patients of children being treatment on the cancer floor in the hospital. The volunteers were warm and welcoming to families who were going through such a stressful and unsure time.

Another great cause is the Make-A-Wish Foundation. They granted my son's wish to travel to New York City to meet a celebrity chef and see a taping of his show. They sent the whole family and we were treated like royalty. It was an experience and memory we will never forget.

I am so proud that the town I live in acknowledges Childhood Cancer Awareness month. Each year they hold a gold ribbon fundraiser for childhood cancer research by selling gold bows that are attached to the benches and trees on our downtown streets.

This picture was found in a great article that can be found here. I went downtown myself and took several photos. They are below.

So, visit The Polka Dot Store knowing a portion of your purchase goes to a very worthy cause.

The Polka Dot Store - Where Blessings Happen Every Day!

Plush Sale

Happy weekend! 40% has been posted on select plush animals. They can be found on the here on the Sale page. See the pictures below for some of the great plush animals on sale.

Training Pants, Appliqued Gown, and Hens

On the weekends I try to put work aside and do some creative thinking. I've been wanting to do some more applique and decided to applique a name on a baby gown. The font is called Julia and I found it here .

So, what do you think?

My next project was one my daughter asked me to do. My grandson is about to turn two and is potty training. The disposable pull-ups are great but expensive. Plus, Max thinks he is a really big boy when he wears big boy underwear. Katy saw something somewhere - probably Pinterest- where a mom sewed a panel of PUL fabric over the center panel on the underwear. The PUL helps keep any accidents from getting on clothes, etc. PUL stands for polyester/polyurethane laminate. According to the Fabric.com,  polyurethane is laminated to a 70 denier interlock fabric. PUL has the following characteristics: washable, waterproof, breathable, stretches, hypoallergenic, made in the U.S.A., and is solvent laminated. 

I'll let you know if my daughter likes them and if they work well for her son.

Another ongoing project at our house is our chickens. We have one rooster, Ricky, and six hens. They are quite the characters. Last week the hens started laying eggs. We have gotten almost two dozen eggs so far. The picture below is some of the first eggs that were laid.

We have three varieties of hens so we have different size eggs. The chickens follow me everywhere! I was loading the car today and left the drivers door open. When I went to get in the car, this is what I found!

My life is definitely interesting! It's Monday and so time to get back to work. I hope all of you have a great week. Please stop in and do some shopping at The Polka Dot Store where "Blessings Happen Every Day".

New Baby and Sibling Gifts

Wow, I can't believe it has been almost a month since my last blog post. This week as I was catching up on orders, I started thinking about what my customers are ordering for gifts. When my youngest was born and someone would bring her a baby gift, my two toddlers would look anxiously to see if there was also a gift for them. I've noticed quite a few of my customers also send personalized backpacks to the sibling along with a gift for the baby. Here is a picture of one of the combinations ordered this week.

Cute isn't it? The hooded towel on the left is the Pink Alligator Everykid Towel by 3 Marthas and the backpack on the right is Dandy Pandy from Oak Patch Gifts. I would love to help you with your next gift purchase.

Summer Fun With Chalk Paint

If you have been on the website or on the Facebook Page, then you know I am probably not at home. In fact, I am at my daughter's house helping her sell her house, move, have surgery, help with her 22 month old (a.k.a. playing with my grandson), and recover all while going through a divorce. During all the hassles and getting sick after her surgery we still managed to have one day of FUN! A friend of ours, Jennifer, over at Twists of Life Unique Thrift, has been doing some fabulous work with chalk paint and repurposed furniture. Plus, she gives lessons! My daughter and I decided to take a lesson before things got really crazy with the move. We fell in love with it.

For some reason, it didn't occur to me to take before pictures of the pieces we worked on or an after picture of the piece I worked on. Jennifer “loaned” me an antique desk chair to work on and she had me paint it in Barnyard Red. The color was gorgeous and I fell in love with it. Here is a picture of the chair and base before it was distressed:

Isn't it a fabulous color?

My daughter inherited my bedroom set from when I was a little girl. She decided to take the night stand to work on. For those of you who are not as old as I am, this is a white french provincial bedroom set by Bassett. You will just have to imagine it in white since I neglected to take a before pic. Here is the back of the piece after two coats of paint:

The color is Burlap and the edges were distressed. Can I just say, “Distressing is fun!”. Here is a pic of the finished piece.

She did a great job! After she recovers from all that has been going on, she plans to paint the dresser, desk, head and foot board that go with the set. My mind has been working overtime on thinking about things I can use chalk paint on and distress. By the way, Jennifer sells the paint in her shop.

Not only is Twists of Life Unique Thrift a great thrift shop but they also do an auction every Wednesday night. On Wednesday mornings, Jennifer posts pictures of items being auctioned that night. Check out the Facebook page for Blue Chicken Auction! If you are in the Dallas, Georgia area, be sure to visit the store and her auctions. Thank you Jennifer for teaching us such a fun thing to do!

You can find Twists of Life Unique Thrift at 503 Memorial Dr., Dallas, GA. Check out her store Facebook Page here  and her auction Facebook Page here.

New Applique Designs

The world of applique designs has really exploded in the last year or so. There are tons of great new digitizers coming up with super cute designs and I can't wait to start stitching some out for you. I've recently purchased designs from Applique Cafe and Applique Corner  . I would love to know what you like about applique and what you would like to see them stitched on. I'm so excited about this and will post pictures when I get some of them stitched out. In the meantime, I'll post a picture of  "fred" bringing his new baby gossling to the bird feeder for the first time. Cute!

There are now over 500 Likes our Facebook Page so be on the look out for another give away soon! Have you shared our Facebook Page? Please like and share our page. The more "likes" we have, the larger the give away will be.
The Polka Dot Store Facebook Page

Have a great weekend!

Birthday Give Away on Facebook

Hi Everyone! I hope you are having a great Memorial Day weekend. We are busy around our house sprucing up for a bridal shower I am hosting next weekend. The Polka Dot Store is having a great Birthday Give Away this weekend on Facebook. It runs through Monday at midnight EST. Like, comment, and share the post for a chance to win a great bag of goodies!

The Polka Dot Store Facebook Page

Enter for a chance to win! Good luck and have a great weekend!

Long Time Since Last Post

Wow, where have the last few months gone? Life here in south Georgia has been crazy busy. Between family and working on the website, I feel like I've hardly had time to do anything else. That said, I want to show you  pictures of some things I have been able to squeeze in time monogram for friends and family. The first picture shows some of the very popular sun hats that are the craze right now.

A friend of mine is having a new grandbaby and they are not telling the name until after the little one arrives. I really wanted to try out a new design I purchased and this is how it turned out.

Another thing that is really popular right now are T-Shirt Pockets. I experimented on some t-shirts for myself and they turned out kind of cute!

The orange and white shirt pockets use Empire font. On the tan shirt pocket the Victor font was stitched on the pocket and Octagonal font was used on the coral shirt. Pretty good for my first attempts, don't you think?

Lastly, I needed new pillows for my sofa..........................I wanted things to look good for a meeting I was having at my house, so I made some out of burlap.

Well, that is what I have been up to lately. Now I need to get back to working on orders. New items have been added to the website so please go on over to The Polka Dot Store  and pick out something adorable!