A Very Sassy Christmas Gift...

Hey Ya'll,

Bobby here from Cricut Couple.  Well, some of you have probably heard now that the Sassy Design Team and Bug Bytes Design Team members had a Secret Santa.  Well, I was so excited to find out that I was Secret Santa for Miss Sassy Herself!  I sent a couple of goodies that were store bought, but I had so much fun making her special gift.  This entire project was made using my Singer Futura SEQS-6700.  I am in LOVE with this machine!  Here is the finished project!

 To start, I wanted to do something very personal.  Well, Sheila has this adorable character on her blog!  I sort of asked for permission without asking for permission and asked if she would send me the picture file from her blog.  This is what she sent.

I opened up the picture file with Adobe CS5 and the used the pen tool to cut out everything from the background so that I just had the character left.  I put it on a bright green background so that it would work better with the embroidery software.  The SEQS-6700 comes with Auto Punch software that lets you create a stitch file from just about anything.  Here is the screen from the machine software once it stitches the graphic.  Obviously the colors are all off, but I did that intentionally so that it would be easier to see the differences when I had to switch out the threads.  I just took a piece of black fabric and hooped it and started it off.

 Here you can see a close up of Miss Sassy in Stitches!  Hee! Hee!  I then found this fun font on the computer and used Hyper Font that also comes with the machine and stitched it out in the same colors.  I then went thought and did a bunch of free motion stippling for the quilting.

 I brought this in close so you could see the differences in stitch colors with the quilting.

 I put it all together into a personalized tote bag!  Look Mom!  No Pattern!  I have made several tote bags in the past, but since this started with the embroidery piece, I kind of had to go it on my own to put everything else together.  In our fabric stash, we had this beautiful paisley fabric that has the same colors as the Sassy Blog colors.  I mixed it with a little red and some more black to put it all together.

 I used a pre-quilted black fabric for the inside.  I also made some inside pockets on the lining to help with organizing everything.  I know that Sheila works very long days and sometimes gets little craft breaks here and there, so I thought it would be very useful.

 This is the front of the finished bag!  It's all complete and ready to go to Alabama!  My favorite thing about this is that if it gets dirty, just throw it in the washing machine!  I hope that it lasts for years and years!

 Well, the minute Sheila received it, she had to call me and tell me about it.  I was so thrilled with her reaction as she really does love it!  I think the picture with Sheila's beautiful smile here pretty much says it all!

So... Merry Christmas my friend Miss Sassy Lady!  I am so glad you love it and thank you for being such a great friend!

Today is my last regular design team day as Sassy Dude.  I'm not really going anywhere, but with life twisting and turning lately and missing my November commitment, I asked Sheila if I could take some time off from the regular schedule.  She graciously agreed.  I will still be Sassy Dude and Still popping in from time to time as a guest designer, but I just feel terrible when I miss my commitment dates.  So... we will just leave you in suspense on when you see a Sassy Dude design.  Hee! Hee!  I want to thank everyone on the Sassy Design Team and especially Sheila for everything!  I hope to get things to calm down a bit around here and to get back to a regular schedule soon.