Paquiao

Tomorrow night is the big night. Ok, not a big boxing fan here, but I know that there is this fight with Paquiao tomorrow. One of my friends at work is a big fan, and asked me to do a special piece of embroidery for him. He drew the face of Pacquiao, and he had me digitize and embroider it on a couple of sweatshirts. One like the above, with Paquiao's signature.

And this one with Paquiao's signature larger on the hood. I wasn't sure how it would actually turn out, but I really liked it a lot. When you have the white background with darker thread, it doesn't look as good as having it on a dark background.




And here's a picture of Andre wearing the sweatshirt. It really does look very cool. If I were a Pacquiao fan, I might have to have one too. LOL

Lady Eagles Softball Embroidered logo

I can't believe I haven't posted since February. I think you need to blame those darn Angry Birds. LOL Ok, Angry Birds, Words with friends, Boggle, oh, and of course Farmville and Cityville. Darn those Facebook/Ipod apps. Can you say Time Suckers?? LOL Well, that plus with working full-time, life's been pretty busy.

I was in a creative funk. I get so tired after work that I really haven't been very creative, choosing to play games instead. But thankfully my niece Alex has gotten me out of that funk. :)

She asked me to do the embroidery on the American High School Softball's Varsity team's warm-up jackets. Alex never asks for anything, so of course, if she asks, I'm doing to do whatever I can to do what she has requested. Cause she's my Alex! :)

So we started with a photo of the American High School logo (which coincidentally looks like the Philedelphia Eagles logo), and redrew it, then digitized it on the computer.

This is what the logo looks like digitized above. I always like taking a screenshot of the logo just to show everyone what it is going to look like. Then I'll stitch out a sample. Below is the actual logo stitched on a jacket.

I think it looks really good. I did find out that stabilizers really do matter. The stabilizer from JoAnn's worked out a lot better than the WalMart stabilizer. So guess who has to stock up on stabilizer while it's still on sale. LOL



This is one of the jackets. On this style of jacket, there is a net lining and a zipper that is on the inside. I still have a problem understanding why you'd need a zipper. There's no pocket there, and it doesn't unzip the lining from the jacket. So now when I do the names, I'll have to unzip the zipper, then baste the lining to the jacket so it won't move while stitching.

It's always a challenge to hoop different items. I hope that the girls will like them. :)

Happy 3 day weekend!

I'm so glad it's a three day weekend, but kinda bummed that I caught the office cold. So I've spent all today sleeping and recouping. I'm thinking tomorrow will be the same. But at least I don't have to miss a day of work.

Life's been kinda busy lately. I haven't done a whole lot of anything. I did get my sister's blankets done for an event she had last weekend.
They came out pretty well. And after I had already done all of them an idea popped into my head. So I'll have to work on the idea. ;)

My cousin is now selling Avon, if you're interested check out her website lots of cool stuff. :)

Was going to sit down and get some embroidery done this weekend, but I think I'll try and do stuff next weekend.

Will keep you posted as to the new things I do. :)

New Car! New Embroidery!

I have finally found my new car! Who would have thought that car shopping would take so much time and be so tiring!! It's so way different than it used to be. I love the fact that you can go on the internet and find who has what make and model.

A few times we were a bit too late, and the car had already been sold. We found that used Subaru Foresters are very hard to find. And when you do find them, and if they are in good condition, they get snapped up pretty quickly.

So when we found this one, we snapped it up as well. And I love my Forester!


It is red like my truck. And it drives really well. I am totally in love with it! And so is Phil. He even offered to take me to JoAnn's today when I needed to go. LOL


And now that my car shopping is over, it's back to work on embroidery. I have 33 blankets to do for my sister. Yep, you read right, 33. Here is what it looks like digitized. Pretty simple. I'll take a photo of the finished project once I'm done. :)

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! It's been a long time between posts. I hope you all are having a great new year. I've been keeping busy with work lately, and spent the last part of December making gifts for Christmas.

For our Company Christmas party we went to Golden Gate Fields. OMG, this was so much fun! Since I'm one of the new employees, I got to go down to the track and watch one race, then we had our photo taken with the winning jockey, Russell Baze. It's funny cause I had no idea that Russell Baze has the most career victories ever.

Here's the photo of all of us. I think it's so cool that we got to take a photo with him. :)


Here is a photo of my lunch buddies from work at Golden Gate Fields. Andre, Chetan, and German.


This is one of the projects I worked on for Christmas. Blankets. :) My friend Lois had me embroider a few for her for Christmas. So I spent the latter part of December making a few for some friends along with some shirts and jackets. It was an embroidered Christmas! LOL

And I'm so sad that my New Year started off with a bang, literally. I got into an accident, which pretty much totaled my truck. My truck has been everywhere with me. We went on a biking trip to Oregon, many trips to visit my sister in So Cal and trips to Tahoe. Just everywhere! I think it was the world's way of making me get a new vehicle, since my truck and I have traveled together everywhere since 1989. RIP old friend.

Growing Kitties

It's been awhile since I've posted photos of the kittens outside. I didn't realize till I looked at old photos of the kittens, that they've grown so much. They've all been fixed by the Homeless Cat Network and they have their shots. I'm so glad, cause for years the kitten population was just crazy in my folk's backyard. I'm so glad that at least now, their yard is under control. We couldn't have possibly paid for getting all the feral cats fixed. So, a great big THANK YOU goes out to them!!

This is one of my favorites. We call him Runty cause he was the runt of the litter. Not anymore, he's growing up so much. I just love his personality. He's always following us around the yard. I swear it's like we have little dogs. LOL

Playing with my embroidery software

So I was playing with my embroidery software. I'm finding out more things, oh like I can choose more colors of thread. LOL I had no idea that I could click on a pull-down menu and get all the different thread colors. Yep, should have figured that one out a year ago. LOL,

Had to do a Giants logo. I really want to do the scripty one, but this one will do for now. ;)
This one is for a soccer team, the Millionarios. Or Millionaros. I'm bad at spelling.
And the cowboys. Not a fan here, but I know someone who is...
And Pacquiao. A friend of mine drew this up, it looks really cool!

Anyway, plan on doing some more designs this week. none of this is for sale. Just practicing. :)

What I do for my sister...

So, my sister, who is a really big Giants fan, wanted World Series shirts. She lives in Dodger-land, so of course, they're not going to carry any Giants World Series Gear. LOL
So, the day after the World Series, we were sent to Sports Authority to get her a shirt.

This is what we saw when we entered Sports Authority...

Yes, it was a line from the front of the store to the back of the store. But do you think this was the line to pay for your shirts???

WRONG!

It was the line to pick out your shirts. Yep, we all are waiting to see what they have so we can BUY them. LOL Reminds me of the old Day on the Greens, where you wait and wait for a shirt to say, "I was there" LOL.
I know people thought I was nuts to sit in the line for a shirt. But heck, how often do the Giants win the World Series?? Of course I got a shirt, my other sister got a shirt, my mom, my aunt, and even my sister's bf got a hat. LOL Good thing we sat in line too, cause there wasn't much left by the next day.

I don't remember the lines being this long for even the 49ers winning the Super Bowl.

Go Giants!

Tonight the Giants won!! I'm so very excited. Although I'm more of an A's fan than a Giants fan, I totally jumped on that Giants bandwagon. LOL

Yesterday, my sister dragged me to AT&T Park so she could take photos of the park. It was kind of nice being there with not a ton of people around.

Here I am in front of McCovey Cove. I just think it's so pretty to have a ballpark on the water. Makes you want to rent a kayak and catch some home runs! LOL

Congratulations to the Giants!!

Getting back into it

It's been awhile since I've had the time to do much creating. Mainly because I've been working. And we've had a few big jobs that we have been working overtime on, so much of my free time has been spent just trying to relax. And of course to farm, farmville is too darn addicting. Just gotta farm farm farm. LOL

A friend of mine at work wanted a couple of designs embroidered. He's in our art department, so he actually helped me out to draw out these designs. It was a big help for him to actually draw it first so that step was eliminated! :) Then all I had to do was to digitize it.



The top design is for the league and the bottom one here is for the team:

I just now have to stitch them out.

I have one more bicycle design that I'll post after I stitch it out tomorrow. It's been so long since I've actually done anything on the machine. I'm so glad that I have the time to get back into it now. :)

Wands

I just learned that one of my friends makes these really cool wands. I had no idea he loved Harry Potter as much as I do (Ok, he might love it a little more than me if that is possible).

Here are a couple of the wands that he makes. I just think they are too cool. I really do think I need to have one. :)

His shop on etsy is lighthill01. I just love all the hand carving and detail that goes into his wands. And the finishes. :) Awesome job Matt!!

Note: I think Matthew has closed his wand shop at the moment, but I can forward messages along to him if you are interested in a wand...

Romalo's Cannoli & Spumoni Factory

Labor Day weekend, I went to Monterey with my friend Debi and her daughter Alex, and my Ashley. While we were there, we stopped into this little sandwich shop and had some lunch and dessert. Debi had a cannoli. It was this rolled pastry stuffed with something that looked like whipped cream. I've never had a cannoli before, so when she offered a bite, I tried it. And man, I'm hooked! :)
So when we got home, I thought I'd google Cannolis to see what would pop up. And Romolo's Cannoli and Spumoni factory popped up. Hmm, a cannoli factory?? Phil, of course, has had cannoli's. And when I showed him their website, he starts to describe cannolis to me in detail. So of course we had to go to Romolo's to check it out.

It's a Sunday, late afternoon, and there wasn't a line at all. Since we were Romolo cannolis virgins, the owner greets us and begins to show us what all our options are with the cannolis. Do we want plain shells, which is good if we're going to eat in right away. Or we could have chocolate lined ones, which will keep the shells crispy. And once filled, we had more options. Did we want chocolate chips, pistachios, or a cherry?


We ended up with half a dozen. 4 with chocolate, 2 without. Don't they look so yummy??

And he hand makes the ice cream there. OMG, it was the yummiest ice cream ever!! So very creamy. I know I have to go back to try the other flavors!!

After we were there for like a minute, the place started to fill up with customers, we lucked out getting there first! :) Will have to go back again to try other things, the tiramisu looks so yummy!!

It's already September!

I can't believe how fast the summer has passed. Didn't the kids just get out of school just a little while ago?? I guess when you are back to work, the days fly by that much more faster.

I've been going to movies more this summer, although I didn't see all the ones I wanted to go see before they left the theatre. It is way convenient having a movie theatre just blocks away from home. I keep telling my folks, "Why didn't they build a theater there when we were kids? Would have been way more convenient to walk there then to have to get rides all the time." LOL

I haven't been as creative as I used to, mainly because when you work all week, when you come home you just want to crash or to spend time with everyone. But with Christmas coming up, I'd better get cracking!

The outside kittens have grown up a lot:

The runt kitty (pictured at the bottom) has grown a lot. We thought he would stay kitten sized. He's much smaller than the others, but he's grown a ton!

This is my kitten, bitey. I call him Bitey or Cujo cause he always bites me before he gets comfortable. I've become a cat chew toy/kitty bed. He loves to sit with me after dinner. I swear he's one of those kitties you could pose for sleeping pictures, and he doesn't care. :)

This is a new kitten that showed up the other day. He was crying and crying all day. His mom was just so tired of feeding kittens that she pretty much abandoned him. But the other kittens have adopted him, let him stay around and sleep with them. So he's not so needy anymore. Which is so great! I don't like crying kittens cause you can't tell them everything will be ok. Ok, you could tell them, but heck, they don't understand you. LOL

Other than that, I've started reading the five hundred kingdoms series by Mercedes Lackey. I really love them! I thought it was funny that they're labeled as romance novels. I still think of them in the sci-fi/fantasy genre. I have always loved reading fairy tales and mythology. At first I wasn't sure if I'd like them, but OMG, they are so addicting to read! I just love it how they incorporate all the different fairy tales in the books, and especially explaining how a fairy godmother becomes a fairy godmother. I'll let you all read them to decide if you like them or not. I know they are going to be a re-read for me too!!

Monterey Bay

Yesterday we spent the day in Monterey. I've been wanting to go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium for awhile now, so I decided to take Ashley, Debi, and Alex with me. It's was my kind of day in Monterey, not too warm, nice and foggy. It was awesome! Here are some photos from the aquarium:
They have a Seahorse exhibit going on right now, and i just love that seahorse. It looks so neat.

Debi was cracking up at me after I took these photos, cause they came out so cool. My comment was, "It is almost like swimming there in the ocean". She thought that was too funny. :)

Had to take my photo of Dory. I just love Dory!! :)

Here's Ashley.

And this seal was sitting on a rock outside the restaurant we had dinner at that night. It was so cool to see him swimming in the bay. It was really fun walking around the wharf, especially cause every restaurant there wants you to sample their clam chowder cause they want to reel you into their restaurant for dinner. We had some really good chowder, one that the owner called "The best Chowder on the Wharf" really wasn't. LOL You can't make that claim if you don't back it up, buddy.

All in all, it was such a nice day. We got to see the aquarium, did some shopping, and had some eats. Two thumbs up!

I can't believe it's July!

Can you believe that it's July already? Where did this month go? I'm just amazed that life is whizzing by so quickly.

So many things happening in life, it's just been crazy. And catching a cold hasn't made life slow down any. My dad had a cold, so of course we all caught it. LOL In his words, "I like to share". Just wish he wouldn't have shared his cold. ;)

The kittens are growing bigger and bigger. and they're a ton of fun. they like to follow us everywhere. I have to take updated pictures of them soon. One hasn't grown much though, we call him Runt, Hobbit, Frodo, and Speedy Gonzalez. Speedy cause he can run up the stairs so quickly cause he wants to come inside the house.

We have Cujo 2. I always have one kitten that just loves to attack me, and he lives up to his Cujo name. The only thing is that he likes to attack everyone else too. LOL But then, when he sleeps, he sleeps really hard. I always wondered how they got the kitties in sleeping photos to do such cute things. Now I know. He can sleep so hard that you could dress him up and he wouldn't care. ;)

I haven't been very creative lately. I think that having my stuff still in boxes, and having not much free time has curbed my desire to create things. I think I'll have to go to a class soon to remedy that, just what class to take is the question.

How is your week going?

Well, yesterday I left work and found that someone was nice enough to leave a big dent in the side of my truck. Guess they thought that it didn't look right, so they would leave their mark on my truck. Wish they would have signed it too, so I would know who to charge the deductable to. LOL

Can you say SQUISH? I could be mad, but why? Man, they did a doosy on it. Glad that the door and the window weren't damaged. Cause then I couldn't drive it. I was joking around yesterday that the force wasn't with me. Cause May the 4th is my favorite holiday...International Star Wars day! But really it was. Cause one of my coworkers was involved in a hit and run. He was going through the intersection legally, and someone ran the red light right into his car. Of course the person who hit him tried to run away, but luckily they caught him. Thank goodness. So I really was lucky not to have been in my truck.

Well, so to brighten my day, I'll post a couple of kitten pics. This is a pic of mom and the kittens in the small box. they're a little squished, but cute.

Here are the kittens a few days later. They're eyes are starting to open. They're too darn cute. But sad to say, one of the kittens died last night. We think a predator got to it cause their cardboard box fell over one day, so we moved them to a new box, but it was a bit too accessible to other critters.

So, my dad moved the box and attached it to a shelf so it wouldn't fall down. He also put a lid on the box so that nothing could get to them. LOL So hopefully they'll be safe.

New Thread...

So I tried this new thread yesterday for embroidering. I've been using Rayon thread since I started. And I just found out that Polyester thread is supposed to be better for embroidering. It doesn't fade as quickly as Rayon will.

So, I thought I'd try some Poly thread. I had to do new jackets for FGSA, so I thought I'd try it on that. OMG, they're not kidding when they say it's better thread. Now I have to replace all my thread. I just LOVE it! it stitches out so nicely.

So now, I'll be spending a lot of ime at Eddie's Quilting Bee replacing all my thread. LOL

Day Three

Day three...kitten watch.

Today was day three for the kittens. When I peeked in the box earlier, they were climbing all over their mom. After she left the box to eat, I snuck a peek at how they are growing. OMG, they are too darn cute!!

I'll try to keep you posted on their growth every couple of days. :)

Flowers and kitties

So outside of the house my mom planted these beautiful iris'. Of course I love them cause they're purple. I just think they're so pretty!

And the lilacs are blooming too. I love the flowers, just can't be near the smell for too long.

And surprise surprise! The mama cat that is our "friendly" cat had 5 kittens yesterday. When my mom saw her earlier in the day, she was still chubby, and when I got home from work, she was skinny. So I went searching for her kittens.

She had them in this small cardboard box. LOL right now she just fits, but with 5 kittens, they'll outgrow the box pretty quickly. So I know that Phil will build them some kind of shelter cause he always does. And we'll go out and get her fixed as soon as she's done weaning. I'm just lucky that she likes us and lets us get close enough to her kittens.

Embroidery tips and tricks

So, two weekends ago I took a class with my friend Debi that was called Embroidery T-N-T, tips and tricks. And it was a fun class. It really was a big sales pitch for this uber awesome machine that we got to use from Bernina. We all thought it would be more geared towards tips and tricks, not lessons on how to use this new machine, and by the way, would you like to take one home?

Sure, if it wasn't for the $10,000+ price tag on it. LOL

Three of us shared one machine. So each of us got to do one project. Mine was this one, it was one of those cut out types. It was cool, I loved the font that was in the project. The next project was a reverse applique, and the last project was one on monograming.

I learned a bit about stabilizers, and would like to take another class on those. It made me want to do some more embroidering though. So I think I'll spend some time figuring out some designs to do.

Japanese Kit Kats

So, Phil and I were in the Japanese market the other day, and we saw that they carried Japanese Kit Kats. I've seen them on the internet for awhile now. They make a ton of different weird flavors. Like this bag was a bag of Sweet Potato Kit Kats. I thought, that's kinda weird. But Phil was all into trying them. So we bought them.

These are what the bars looked like. They were a white chocolate, with sweet potato powders in them. And what was great about these kit kats are that they have no fat. You read right, no fat! LOL

Phil says they were really good, so I think he wants to try the maple ones that we saw. They also make a bunch of different flavors, they have shoyu flavors, miso, and a ton of others too. Not sure I want to try the shoyu ones though.

Softball Logo

So, one of our local softball teams wanted a logo done for their coaches shirts. They gave me this picture to create the logo. So I redrew it in AutoCAD, and digitized it.

This is the final product. I liked how it turned out. Their school colors are purple and gold, so we did the girl in gold, the swoosh in white, and on a lovely purple shirt. We also put each of the coaches names on the shirts.

I have to figure out some more softball logos so I can do more things with it.