I Will Be Prepared...

I have been a little excited about attempting embroidery with quilting using Clover and Violet's quiltalong. Plus I have two small children who think they are going to spend the summer in front of the TV and the computer. So we got a little head start on embroidery yesterday. First I had them draw pictures of whatever they wanted.

Thing 1 (DD) drew a girl (head only), I drew my kids, and Thing 2 (DS) drew a monster truck. Look hard. It'll come to you. Maybe.

Anyway, our next step was to transfer it from the paper to the fabric. I just bought two yards of Kona White just to have because I seem to run out (imagine that!) so we used a little of that and a Marker Be Gone pen. I had them place the picture under the fabric where they wanted it and pin it together. Then we traced. Well, I traced. Thing 1 did hers but Thing 2 couldn't sit still so we sent him outside to rid himself of excess energy.

Now, here's where it gets interesting. I had a lot of embroidery hoops. I used to cross-stitch so I had several sizes. My MIL gave me some a few months ago as well. And where are said hoops? Um, well, I gave them away to the quilting guild for our Christmas raffle. Not a good move. I just had no idea at the time that I would use them again. I hadn't picked on up in YEARS so I figured it was safe to get rid of them. Obviously not. I had to go buy one to do the quiltalong, and that is the one you see in the picture.

One thing I've never been able to part with from my earlier years of cross-stitching; thread. I have a little bit. Well, maybe a lotta bit.

Yeah, okay, a lotta bit. But that means I don't have to buy more and I have my choice of what I want to use, right? Don't look at the white legs. Too much time in the craft room, not enough in the sun.
Thing 1 has been working on hers so I may take hers out, and quickly do mine so you have a finished project to see. My plan is to quilt around the pictures, maybe in hexie form. Ooh, wouldn't that be cute? To let the picture be the center and hex around block like Lee around it? How cute! I told them we'd make pillows for their beds. Here's her progress thus far. I thought she was doing pretty well.

I'll have to hit my little sister up with this activity. She has two scary artists for children. Her youngest is the same age as Thing 2 (we were pregnant at the same time). Last year we were at a little festival and they had places set up for the kids to do crafts. One was a drawing table. So the unsuspecting adults manning the table gave us supplies. I just remember one of the ladies staring at what my niece was drawing and finally being able to utter, "How old is she?" We said, "Four" to her complete shock. I think they could make some cool embroidery pictures.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that Thing 1 was the photographer for this lovely posting! I had to delete about 25 other pictures from my camera but I finally found these.

I will update on this as we finish. Happy summer projects!