Various tips – Sewing Scoupe

Charming Gifts For Any Holiday or Special Occasion

Here are some ideas for you to make quick holiday, hostess gifts, birthday gifts or cherished Christmas gifts for family and friends to use every year.

I said I would start adding You Tube videos that I thought my subscribers would like. Here’s the first one and it comes from our friends at http://www.emblibrary.com …I love these cute and fun napkins that can be made with cotton or washable linen fabric, and you can make them for any occasion. If you are an embroiderer, put a cute embroidery design that fits whatever holiday you choose, or a fun any occasion design that you can use year round. Not an embroiderer? How about an applique’ design. They call them Christmas Tree napkins, because of the fold, but with a non holiday fabric or embroidery design, they would just look charming on your table. Let’s face it, nothing says elegance like a cloth napkin.

How about a simple monogram on napkins you purchase at stores like Tuesday Morning? They are elegant and can be used year round.

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Kitchen dish towels machine embroidered with a pretty design, make a great useful gift. Make them fancy by putting on a bottom trim of fabric, rick rack or ribbon. Pot holders are always another useful gift. Why not make them to match your kitchen towel, and you have a lovely Holiday, house warming or party gift. Better than a bottle of wine. Better yet, wrap the towel around the wine and tie with a pretty bow. Sounds good to me.

Place mats are always fun sewing project. Four can be made with a yard of top fabric and a yard of complimentary back fabric. Sandwich them with Annie’s Soft n Stable, add a decorative binding, and you have a one of a kind gift. Are you a quilter? Make a patchwork top and you have something really special. Before putting the binding on, quilt it with cross hatching (or in the ditch) and you have a very professional looking gift. Again make matching pot holders to finish it off.

Have a golfer in your family or circle of friends? How about a golf towel with a cute black-golf-bag-1 embroidered design on it and maybe even a name or monogram. You can purchase quality golf towels from All About Blanks or Discount Embroidery Blanks. They have beautiful velour tops with terry back for wiping hands or golf clubs. Towels also come ready with grommet and hook to attach to golf bag and they have a wonderful variety of colors.

2-ivory-fingertip-christmas-towels Don’t forget bath room towel sets. Fingertip towels with a pretty machine embroidered design or monogram are great for a powder room. Bath towel sets with an elegant monogram is always a nice Christmas present house warming or wedding shower gift.

Don’t forget to machine embroider T-Shirts, Sweat shirts, and jackets to dress up your own clothes or for someone else. Kids love T-shirts embroidered by Grandma (or Grandpa) Be sure to put Sulky Tender Touch or Floriani Dream Weave on back of design to cover stitches so the threads inside the shirt don’t touch the skin.

These are just an idea of quick gifts that will be appreciated. If you only sew, then besides place mats, how about fabric bowls, rope bowls or wall hangings.

Ok. Now that I’ve inspired you, lets get sewing. I welcome comments or questions and would love to have you “follow” my blog, so please click the follow button, fill in your email, and you will receive a notice each time I publish a new blog. Don’t worry, no emails are ever sold.

PS. All kitchen towels, golf towels, and finger tip towels can be purchased at All About Blanks, or Discount Embroidery blanks. See Creative Links.

Until the next time….. happy sewing!

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Free is Fun Again!

Whenever I teach an embroidery class my students ask where did you get that design and most times, if I give them a design, it’s because I got that design for free. Every body likes to get things free. In the quilting and embroidery world there are a lot of companies who every month, give you a free quilting pattern or free embroidery designs. My last “Free is Fun” blog talked about some of the free embroidery designs you can get. Well here are a few more.

Check out Hatched in Africa. This is a wonderful company in South Africa that has “All Sorts of Embroidery” as well as projects and supplies. You can download your designs and you will get a free design with each purchase. Secrets of Embroidery has 60 different designers. Each one has their own unique style and you can go crazy trying to decide what you want. You can download some of their free designs to try out the company. Be careful, you will get hooked and want to try more. I told you about Zundt Designs in my last Free is Fun blog. I said their designs are beautiful and stitch out well. Try their FSL – “free standing lace” bowls with Floriani metallic thread. Lovely! Their designs are a little pricey but whatever your buy, you will make often, which makes it worth the price.

Almost all the companies have free designs and some give you free designs every month like Embroidery Library. They also have a special Christmas Club. As you buy designs, you get points towards free designs. Like your very own Christmas present of embroidery designs.

Anita Goodesigns have exquisite designs. Up until now, you could only purchase their designs from a store like ours, Expert Sewing Center, but now you can purchase designs direct. Register with them and you will get word each week about a $5 or $10 “mini pack” that you can download immediately.

Embroidery Garden has a lot of “In The Hoop” projects that are always fun to do.

Embroidery Panda has sooo many designs that they sell for twenty five cents. Can’t beat that price!

If you can’t afford to immediately buy “everything you love” then these free designs are a great way to build your stock of patterns and designs, try out their company and find they suit your style. Naturally, I will always buy a design or two along with my free designs.

Many of these companies will have video tutorials to answer a lot of your questions. In the future, I will add some that I think you might like.

Not an embroiderer? Quilters have just as many free things on line. Nancy’s Notions isn’t just a store to buy supplies, it also has a section where your can download free projects and quilting blocks. Check it out.

Another of my favorite sites is QuiltersCache.com . They have traditional and new style quilt blocks in all sizes, complete with instructions, etc that you can download for free.

There are so many resources of free “stuff” if you just take the time to search them out. I will have more for you in the future. It’s a great incentive for you to check my blog often to see who else I can tell you about. 🙂 I will only talk about the companies that I personally love and I know are honorable and reputable to do business with. These are companies I have purchased from for many years. To get many of these “freebies” you need to register with the website, then you will get emails for when they have sales, or you can just sign in to see what they have new.

TIP: Make sure you use the proper needle for your embroidery project. Most projects you will use a 75-11 embroidery needle. If you are working on denim or thick fabric projects, you may want to try a 90-14 embroidery needle. If using Metallic thread, use a needle rated for metallic thread. The eye is a little larger to allow the thread to travel through the eye a little cooler. Please read my blog that tells you about the various needles and when to use them. The proper size needle really can make a difference in the quality of your project.

Check all the Creative Links on the right to go direct to the various websites I talk about.

Please click the follow button and sign up to follow my blog. You will get an email each time I publish something new. Check out my past blogs and I’d appreciate it if you would pass on my link to your sewing, quilting and embroidery friends.

Until next time …. happy sewing!

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Tips & Tricks #1

This blog is going to be a mix of tips from various sources and things I’ve discovered in my years of sewing. I will be doing this periodically so as not to overwhelm you with too much information.

The one thing I found to be true is, work with the best tools you can if you want a quality product in the end. Your project will only be as good as your weakest product in your project.

One stabilizer does not fit all situations!!! Check out my blog on how to use stabilizers for the best outcome of machine embroidery.

The old adage … Measure twice (or 3 times to be sure) and cut once. It also helps to read the instructions over before your start your project. (:-)

If you want to make a quilt that will be an heirloom to hand down, be sure to use good quality cotton fabric from a quilt store locally or online. Don’t go for cheap fabric, as it won’t last. Use cheaper fabric for projects that will be considered “disposable” in time.

Check your tension and make sure that your threads are sewing evenly through your fabric. Especially when quilting through two layers of fabric and batting. You may need to loosen the tension or tighten it depending on your machine and thread. Make a sample sandwich and test on that before starting on the real quilt.

Always use good quality threads for any sewing project but particularly for quilting and embroidery. Again, you are only as good as your weakest link. Don’t let that weak link be thread that shreds or breaks all the time. I personally like Aurafil for sewing and piecing and King Tut by Superior threads, or Sulky 30w for machine quilting.

Don’t forget to start with a new Quilting needle, preferably 90/14, when you start machine quilting a new quilt. The same goes for embroidery, a new embroidery needle will make the project go smoother.

If your thread keeps shredding or breaking, try this; Change your needle, re-thread the top thread and reset your bobbin. Most times this will take care of the problem. If it doesn’t, clean out your machine. Another thing you can do is take a cotton ball and rub it against the bobbin case, throat plate or even the needle to see if there is a burr that could cause breakage or shredding.

I am constantly saying to my students, they spend thousands of dollars on these beautiful new sewing/embroidery machines that do everything imaginable, then scrimp on supplies. Good machines need good thread, needles and fabric to run efficiently.

Periodically, I’ll be giving you more blogs with tips. If you have a neat tip I can pass on, I’m sure my readers would enjoy hearing it. One reader commented on the blog about metallic thread. She said she uses Floriani metallic and has no trouble with breakage. Nice tip!

Until next time, Happy Sewing!

Be sure to check out past blogs to see some interesting articles about sewing, embroidery and quilting.

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To Hoop or Not To Hoop, That is the Question?

Hooping can be a mystery to a lot of “newbie” embroiderers and for some old timers who maybe don’t know some of the new techniques. It all really depends on what you are getting ready to embroider. The consensus is that hooping your product is always the best way to have a design turn out with little or no puckering. Sometimes you can’t.

Decisions are made depending on whether the product will get what they call Hoop Burn. (a ring left from the hoop crushing the nap down)

If you are going to embroider a flat or waffle kitchen towel hooping is your best bet. You can use a tearaway stabilizer with 505 spray or Floriani Perfect Stick. For a Red-work style design using Floriani Wet n Gone Tacky wash away type works nicely. Continue reading “To Hoop or Not To Hoop, That is the Question?”