good day sewing and sad night

I had a really good day sewing. I was finishing up taking the pictures and the phone rang. My sad night was a friend from Washinton state called, a mutual friend passed away. Turns out my friend had liver cancer and he passed away due to complications from a surgery. My husband and I worked with this friend for over 5 years. Then the phone kept ringing, because our friends were calling to see if we knew, as the word spread of Darrin's passing.

Okay, I can be sad, but this is about the sewing.

I envisioned embroidered ties. I was very worried about how they would turn out. So I bought a few cheap silk ties at Walmart. I clipped the stitching holding the back closed and spread out the tie. I had made a template for the hankies and thought it would work great of the ties. It did. The center white one, was the first and I decided that the embroidery was too low. The metallic silver thread was a bear. It kept tangling before it would go through the machine. I even used my thread guide. I had to hold the thread and stop and start over after I untangled the thread. No more metallic thread for me.

The next two, I aligned the tip of the tie at the bottom of my 4 x 4 hoop and pinned in the back flaps (sounds funny) sides. I like the Spokane WA lettering better. The Hubby wants me to make him a Bismarck ND tie, but he wants black thread on a black tie. He likes the monocromatic stuff best.

My next project was some wedding Hankies and some birthday presents. I started with a simple mongram. I used the template for the first one, stupid template. The template was also the basting stitch to hold the hankie in place. I had put the monogram upside down. So I just pinned the second Hankie to the hooped stablizer and skipped stitching the template.

How many Hankies make a good gift, 2 or 4. I can never decide. I liked the white on white. It takes yucky pictures, but I turned off the flash and on the overhead light in the living room.

It's been raining for 30 days and 30 nights here. So no outside pictures in daylight. Really every day it has rained.

The second group was a gift for my step-mother, Deb. One of the Hankies has a thread glob on the back, because the bobbin ran out of thread.

The Monogram is from Embroidery Arts, it is their Cutwork, but I liked it even without cutting.

The next set was for the wedding gift. I did a similar set for one of the nurses where the Hubby works.

I started with their Initial, then first names, Last name, and wedding date.

For this set I made four. One for the bride, maid of honor, the mother of the bride and the mother of the groom (mother-in-law).

Today is Nail day, which means I'm going out of the house to do my errands today. I need to run to Walmart and get more ties. Dry cleaners, post office etc. Maybe I'll have time to cut out my next two projects, this afternoon. Then tonight while I watch America's Got Talent, I'll stitch up the back of the ties, and fix buttons.