Stitching with Elli

Recently I had a very dear friend get married. I was giving her some awesome kitchen knives as a wedding gift that I had bought months before so I knew exactly what I would be giving her. Fast forward to the week before the wedding….oh yeah I need to wrap these or something. So I go looking for a gift back, ACK! why are these little paper bags so expensive! I’m not buying one of those! I decided to embroider a tote bag instead. Maybe she can use it again as opposed to a gift bag that she can only use again if someone she knows is getting married. (Sorry for the awful picture, I was sure I had remembered to take a picture of the bag but it was the only one I could find) My friend is a coffee lover so I got to use one of my cute coffee designs that personally I never use because I don’t like coffee 😀

But then the bag seemed so empty with just the knives in the bottom..I decided the “thing to do” was to make apron! That would go along with the kitchen theme and fill up the bag nicely. I wasn’t sure my friend was a “apron kind of person” but then she had never been a homemaker before so maybe she would like a apron. This was all decided the day before I left to drive across 4 states to go to the wedding! Saturday I picked the design and fabric…cut out the pieces and did the embroidery…sunday afternoon/evening I sewed it all together.

This is the pattern I used  (option A)

The Embroidery for the top….(from Embroidery library )

I picked the design because it wasn’t a “kitchen-ish” theme or a newly wed theme…but I thought the country style fit my friends personality. I loved the saying. What better time to think about counting your blessings and praising God for all he has done then while preparing meals for your family. The pattern had lovely deep pockets that I wanted to stitch something on, but I couldn’t find anything that coordinated with the design on top. But I experimented with my embroidery software and came up with this….

Look familiar? 😀 It is part of the main design. I deleted everything but the flowers.  Then inverted it to fit on the curve of the pocket. Well actually I deleted everything but the flowers and center banner. It wouldn’t let me take that out because it was the same thread change as the petals of the flowers. The curve fit beautifully with the pockets. I didn’t want to stitch it too close to the edge for seam allowance….but I think it turned out great!

Finished apron!

I was very pleased with how it came out. It was actually a home decor fabric I got at a resale shop…but it is very sturdy. So I hope she will be able to get lots and lots of use out of it. Now I want one too!!