I’ve talked a lot about quilting and embroidery on quilting, but I want to take a break and talk about embroidery old and new. Embroidery today is a far cry from what it used to be. In the “olden days” embroidery was done by hand. It was and still is beautiful but took a lot of patience and was time consuming. . If it was machine embroidered on clothing or linens, it was done on a commercial machine and was expensive to buy. You were also limited by whatever designs they sewed on the item.
Today there is a whole new world out there for the home sewer. I for one, am excited to see the way the industry has turned and what we as home sewers can now accomplish. You can buy a combination sewing/embroidery machine that will make designs from sizes 4″ x 4″ up to 9.5″ x 14″. Many of these machines have beautiful built in designs. There are also 
some amazing companies that digitize some gorgeous designs. You can shop on line for designs, videos and instructions from EmbLibrary. Also Anita Goodesign has design disks you can purchase that have designs for every situation. Check out Dakota Designs, Smartneedle Embroidery for cute and funky designs, supplies, etc. If you are into the funky and goth style, check out Urban Designs. Anything you want you can find online or in a quilt/ sewing machine store that sells embroidery designs like we do at Expert Sewing Center. I have links to a couple of the sites mentioned and I hope to add more as time goes 
on. I love decorating kitchen tea towels and adding a border or ruffle. Monogrammed towel sets make beautiful gifts for weddings, Christmas or a special house warming. Embroider tone on tone designs on table lines to pretty up a plain table cloth. Put monograms on table napkins or put a pretty design on a table runner or place mats. The places you can put designs are endless. If you purchased these items in a high end store, they would be expensive. If you do itself, you have the creative expression and the satisfaction of doing it yourself. Also, it’s very hard to find for sale kitchen towels with specialized designs like Celtic knots or maybe a special recipe of your Grandmother’s cookies. If you have never done machine embroidery before try it. It is so much fun and you may get hooked like I did.
TIP: Keep your water soluble stabilizer in a zip lock bag so it doesn’t dry out before you use it up.
*PLEASE SCROLL DOWN TO SEE MY OTHER BLOG POSTS. THANK YOU!
Sewing Scoupe 