We're getting ready for our annual group trip with friends from our college days.  This is my 20th consecutive trip with these guys!  Twenty years ago, we were all single and no kids.  Time has passed and we've all grown in many ways.  Our group this year is 11 adults and 12 growing kids.    ☺

I wanted to embroider a little something for everyone this trip.  Thought a cooler bag would be handy at the beach, so I picked up these 12-Can Cooler bags at Five Below.

 My crafty daughter helped design the embroidery using Brother Embroidery Lettering Software.

I did go through a few embroidery needles as they would occasionally break during this stitching.  But, I was able to complete all of the bags. Each bag took about 45 minutes to stitch.

A Cooler for All!

close-up

While I was in embroidery-mode, I pulled out a large, plain, quilted blanket I picked up on clearance a while back.   I had wanted to personalize this for ourselves to use at the beach or wherever.  So we got that design done. My daughter helped design this one too.  We used the Brother software again to get the lettering in a circle-format.

I used a Badgemaster heavy-weight water-soluble stabilizer in the hoop for this project.  Did a basting stitch around the design first to hold the blanket to the stabilizer as well.




I'm ready for the beach!!  Now I just have to pack.  :-)
Happy Stitching!