Back to School Goodies!

The school year started back on Monday for our grandchildren in North Carolina.  Sometimes I feel really guilty that we don't get to take part in these special events with them because we live so far away.  And jealous of their other grandparents who live right around the corner and do - LOL!!!

So I had been picking up a few little things here and there to send them a "We Care" package.  Then I saw this cute tutorial on The Pleated Poppy for a crayon rollup, and the "What If?" juices began to flow....

Photo courtesy of The Pleated Poppy

What if I made it a little larger for markers instead of crayons?  And, what if I put velcro on the end instead of the button and elastic?  And, what if I embroidered their names on them?  Oh yes!!!

Earlier this year I bought a second-hand Bernina Artista 180 with the embroidery module from a friend in our Guild.  

The machine description is hiding behind that cute pincushion :*)

I've been using the machine regularly for my piecing projects, but I had not had time to play around with the embroidery module.  And I had never done any embroidery before - so this was a little challenging and a lot intimidating!!!  But it was the perfect project to begin my machine embroidery adventure....

So I sat down one Saturday morning with the instructions in front of me, and by golly I did it!!!  Yes, it took me all day, and it was close to midnight when I finished up the projects - but I did it!!!  =^..^=

It was really kind of easy once I figured out how to do it - isn't that usually the truth?  LOL!!!

Both names, embroidered and ready to go into the project....whew!!!

I used a fun Adventure Heroes fabric for Adam's roll-up....can you see the Incredible Hulk peeking out through the markers?  Adam is really into Hulk right now :*)

The velcro part was a little fussy getting everything lined up, but it wasn't too bad and I like it much better than elastic and buttons....

I had a little more difficulty with Reaghan's name - the machine kept telling me there were too many letters and that I needed to either reduce the size or rotate the letters.  The problem with that was that everytime I tried to do one of those, it kept reverting back to Adam's name!  Of course, after much investigation and a few choice words, it was finally determined that the problem was "Operator Error" LOL!!!

I used this really cute "lined paper doodling" fabric with peace symbols on it for her inner fabric - the same fabric I used for her Chalkboard Wallhanging last year (see HERE) :*)

The kids were so excited to receive a package from Grandma & Grandpa, 

and they LOVED their marker roll-ups!  

Reaghan asked me "How'd you get our names on there?"  I just said, "It's magic, Honey!"  

And what was their favorite part of the gift?  That I had included the markers 

so they could sit down and play with them right away LOL!!!  

Kids are SO cute!!!

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

=^..^=