Too Cute to Spook

UPDATE: Picture of Alastair in his Halloween bat shirt added.

There are so many darling Halloween designs for machine embroidery that I had a hard time picking out just a few for my grandchildren.  Since these shirts can be worn for such a short time, I didn’t put a lot of work into them.  But the embroidery is so well designed that are plenty cute for this short season of tackiness.

Laurel’s shirt started with a Too Cute to Spook design from one of my favorite sites, Planet Applique’.   Before I started the embroidery, it was announced that the homeschool Halloween party would be outdoors.  Laurel’s  Lucy of Narnia  costume is a dress with a long skirt, which wouldn’t  be suitable for a good time on the playground.  So her mother said for this event Laurel would wear all black and sport cat ears on her head.   Consequently, I removed the cute pumpkin from the design but left the text and stars.

Editing software is invaluable.  With BuzzEdit 2, I customized the design by  inserting the cat and moon design from Babylock’s  Happy Halloween collection. It is a heavily shaded, embroidered moon,  with nearly 40,000 stitches–far too many for a thin knit shirt to support.   For that reason, a candy corn fabric was applique’d in place of the embroidered moon.

I was really tickled with the design I used for Robert’s shirt, though it is very poorly executed.  Amy, whose several darling outfits have been featured on this blog, recommended Applique Corner to me and it is an absolutely fabulous site!  This gal has done some extremely creative designs, using ribbons and other materials.  The mummy design on Robert’s shirt uses strips cut from an old white tee shirt.

But you really should read the directions carefully when you are trying something quite new.  The strips are laid in place,  held down with water soluble stabilizer and then secured in place with an outline stitch.  You then trim away the strips EXCEPT FOR TWO OR THREE, according to the designer.  Then a satin stitch is worked around the mummy.  I overlooked the part about two or three.

This little mummy looked more like a rag mop when I was done.  After reading the directions, I trimmed most of the strips, but the edges hang out over the satin stitching and still I left too many hanging.  As I was reaching for another black tee shirt to re-do the shirt, I did a mental head whack to remind myself that this a kid’s fun shirt, for cryin’ out loud!  So it is raggedy.  Robert loves it.

Our little guy is usually laughing and grinning.  Though he is relatively cooperative about having his picture taken, he always looks very serious.    So I am including this photo with his regular smile, though it does not show the shirt detail as well as the previous  one.

UPDATE:  This picture of Alastair in his bat shirt just came in from Rebecca.  He had been delighted to put bat window clings on the mirror in the dining room.  So bats seemed to be just what he would enjoy.    Have you stitched anything for Halloween?  I’d love to see a photo or hear about it.

What's that pucker on the moon?