That kind of sums up Fall for our family.  Most people who live up north are pulling out coats and warm socks while decorating with lovely autumnal colors.  In Florida there is no Fall…it is October 1 and it was almost 90 degrees here today and there is no real relief in sight.  I always joke that the leaves on our trees don’t fall off until the new ones push the old ones off in the Spring.  And…in a college town Fall really means college football!

So, when it came time for me to take down my Summer wreath and put up a “Fall” one…my thoughts immediately when to doing a “House Divided” themed wreath.  You see, while I live near the University of Florida and am married to a Gator, I am a (proud) alumna of the University of Georgia.  And for those of you not from the South, ours is not a very friendly rivalry.  The last Saturday in October things get a little intense.

But, we make it work…our love conquers all.

I’ve been eyeing those ribbon wreaths on Pinterest and was waiting for a good idea for using one and this ended up being perfect.

I got 1.5 inch grosgrain ribbon in red, black,orange and blue.  I cut them all into roughly 10 inch lengths and finished the ends with little tails. And then I started tying…and tying…and tying.  Then I went back to the store and got more ribbon and tied some more.  Seriously…there is just about 100 feet of ribbon on this thing.

For the hanger, I painted our school initials and glued them to a white 1.5 grosgrain ribbon.

And now we can show off where our (divided) loyalties lie.

And, of course, I had to make my girls their “gameday dresses” this year.  This year I used the Oliver+S popover dress pattern.

For the Georgia dresses I put simple white piping at the yoke to give it some visual interest.

On the Florida dresses I used ricrac…doesn’t it look like little teeth?

I also used my embroidery machine to add the team logos to the band at the hem.  (I think I used the wrong kind of stabilizer, so just ignore the puckering there.)

The best thing about the Oliver+S pattern is that it is kind of adjustable because of the shoulder ties.  As long as the girls don’t grow sideways too much they should be able to wear these dresses again next year.  Bonus!

Also, I wanted to share my new trick with you all…I had a couple rubber stamps made with my logo.  So, now I can use fabric ink to stamp my logo onto little tags or the backs of garments.  I can even now include the size of the garment.  So fun!

Happy Fall to everyone!  And Go Dawgs!

Okay, ladies (or gents) that do machine embroidery, I need your help…what kind of stabilizer do you guys use for embroidery?