Rheeta’s Visit ~Sweat Shop or Working Vacation?

Aunt Rheeta has fallen in love with my Brother Quattro.

What a fabulous time we have had with my dear Aunt Rheeta.  She and her little apricot poodle, Molly, visited us here in Florida to escape the bitter Indiana winter and do a little sewing.  As it happened, she did more than a little.  In fact, my sewing room was like a sweat shop.  She accomplished so much!  Having an in-house sewing buddy was such fun.

We worked together, with most of the design arrangement done by me and most of the sewing done by her.    She is no newcomer to machine embroidery, only new to my Brother Quattro which she loved.

Rheeta has several major projects under her belt, including a spectacular embroidered linen communion cloth for her church, an exquisitely embroidered Bible cover and more.

Her primary goal was to finish high school graduation gifts for her granddaughter Alexa, a rising freshman at Texas A & M.  Rheeta’s first project was the requisite college fleece throw in school colors.

Edges are finished with a 3-thread wide serge.  We didn’t worry about the wrinkles as the blanket was soon be packed tightly into her over packed suitcase for the trip home to Indiana.

The embroidery is Applique Market’s College Double Applique Alphabet.  As you can see, Rheeta used only the outline.  I love this versatile collection which comes with letters in

Since her acceptance letter,  Alexa has dressed her 4 lb. dog in a tiny, maroon, Texas  A & M shirt.  Certainly, she will be pleased with this fleece blanket.

Rheeta’s granddaughter is, indeed, Princess of Quite a Lot of Laundry!

The next project was a denim laundry bag for this lovely, ladylike  young lady who is, indeed, Princess of Quite a Lot of Laundry.  But she is not at all like this spoiled miss.

I enjoyed working up this design, beginning with the Princess of Quite a Lot  from Mary Engelbreit’s Studio Bernina collection.  To that design was added the text  “of Laundry,” Alexa’s monogram and a crown embellished with heat fix crystals.  The monogram font is Embroitique’s Beanie Alphabet.

So now she is all set to graduate high school and move on to the next chapter in her life.

Then, loving grandmother that she is, Rheeta did not want little sister Adriana to be left out so a similar one was made  from a heavy pink  twill.

Since she was a little girl, Adriana has had a playful look of mischief in her eyes.  Placing her princess crown slightly askew just seemed appropriate for her impish personality.

Adriana’s monogram with its crown at a rakish tilt

With her granddaughters’ projects completed, Rheeta made a set of dish towels for her daughter’s new home.  The redwork recipe designs are from Embroidery Library’s Spread the Love collection, but filled fruit designs have been added from various other sites.  The towels are my favorites from All About Blanks.  I keep a hefty supply on hand, washed and ironed, ready for embroidery.

Finally, she was ready to make something for herself.  A beautiful set of 8 embroidered coasters was finished and packed before we thought about getting a photo.  After that a monogrammed tote bag was on the agenda.

The monogram is Embroitique’s Fancy Monogram 1, the frame is Planet Applique’s Kaleigh, minus the applique.

That was hard!  My Rebecca had given Rheeta one of her bargain totes. Rheeta wanted to monogram her bag, which presented a multitude of challenges for embroidery.  The tote cannot be taken apart so it must be hooped inside out, basted to sticky stabilizer and stitched in what amounts to a cave. Also, the bag is lined and the layers will shift without significant basting.

The Brother Quattro has a bright light over the needle as well as another over the bed.  That was a tremendous help.

Can you see how hard it is to change threads?   A single color design was chosen,  though the basting was done in the color of the bag so that any lingering or trapped  basting stitches would show.

It would have been nice to drop the design a little lower, but it was too hard to work that much deeper into the bag cave.

So this is what Rheeta did on her “vacation.”  Though she enjoyed the gorgeous  weather,  she worked hard!  But we were regularly fortified with glasses of fresh squeezed Florida gold from our trees.

Aunt Rheeta is making the 14 hour drive home now, taking with her all of these finished projects, bags of fresh picked oranges from our grove and all of our love.