Christmas Pajamas

Last night I put the finishing stitches on the pajamas I made for Suzy. I'm pretty pleased with them, even if lack of time and skill made them not quite how I pictured. Then, I carefully laid them out on cute backgrounds and took pictures for this post. My computer ate those pictures! So what you see her are the pics I quickly took with the last battery juice of my camera. Not nearly as cute, but at least you can see what I'm talking about!


This is the Bonne Nuit Chickadee. Isn't it cute? I love it! I had fully intended to embroider "Chickadee" under the little birdie, but time got the best of me. If you don't speak French, "bonne nuit" means goodnight - "nuit" sounds like "nwee," so it's a rhyme! Here's a close up of the little chickadee:

Still, it wasn't quite what I designed:

I don't usually embroider, so I had no idea how to get my design transfered onto the fabric. So I came up with the supposedly great idea of simply writing the words out on paper, pinning the paper onto the fabric, then stitching over the paper. In theory, I would then gently tear the paper away, revealing the lovely words. In theory. However, though it might have worked with tissue paper, it does not on printer paper! I couldn't tear it out without damaging the stitches. I had to WET it, scrape as much of the gummed paper off as I could, and dry it, hoping the dryer lint grabber would do the rest. I still had to pull micro bits of paper out from under stitches with tweezers. Do any of you embroiders know how to transfer a design?

Here's the next pajama set:

Again, the pictures aren't great, but it gives you a rough idea. I really like the print on this flannel. It's actually a DKNY pillow case I got on clearance from a design store for $1! I was so excited. It was just enough to make the pants, and the 5 bunny appliques it took before I got one right. Curse you Wonder-Under iron-on adhesive! I had learned my lesson with the chickadee, so I very lightly penciled in the words "Fais dodo" on this and then stitched over it. "Fais dodo" means "Go night-night," roughly.

Isn't he the cutest? Excuse the water stain. This was taken after Suzy tried them on and then wiped chocolate on them. So I frantically tried to clean them with a wash cloth. I realized after I started making this that "fais dodo" and "bunny" don't have the same charm as "bonne nuit" and "chickadee." So I have named him Pedro. Fais dodo, Pedro! I like the French and Mexican aspects of it. If I ever have nieces and nephews from my sister, who has started her own Frenchish/Mexican family, I imagine there will be many a blanket and onsie embroidered with little Fais Dodo Pedro. But even Pedro was not quite what I planned:

I think this is maybe the cutest thing I've ever drawn. But it's hard to transfer that to fabric!


Here's my sweeite pie in her new Jammies: