Asphalt Angel - Leather Embroidery

For those of you that know me you know that I have two sides: the side of me that can hide away in the sewing room for days at a time working on a crafty little adventure and the other side that likes to put on her boots and leathers and have an adventure on the back of my 2009 Tri-Glide (formerly a 2001 LowRider). There aren't many opportunities for the two sides to converge, but I recently discovered a great design site (Urban Threads) that gave me the inspiration to make a little something for the bike adventures.

Total Cost: $50.00 vest, design, thread and stabilizer (obviously that doesn't include the trike!) Not bad since similarly priced vests run upwards of $200.

Total Time: 4 hours (phew - that was a long stitchout) I wanted to take it very slow as I knew there wasn't any opportunity to yank stitches without leaving a noticeable boo boo.

What I Learned:

- Don't be afraid of leather - just take it easy and keep a watchful eye. At every change in sound in the machine I would stop the embroidery and check for nests, whether the bobbin needed filling, etc. It added lots of time but I am happy to report that there was not a single errant stitch

- I used a design that was just around 5x9" and had 77,000 stitches originally. I removed some of the color variations that overlayed the design to reduce density and am very happy that I did. I don't know that I could have added another thing on top of this design. As it was I broke 6 needles getting through all of the layers

- Spend lots of time getting the hooping exactly right as a design that isn't oriented properly will just look silly on the back of a garment

- I used 3 layers of stabilizer: 1 sticky, 1 medium weight cut away and then a fusible web that I could fuse to the lining (I couldn't remove the lining as I already had patches attached). I could have done with just two, but wanted to play it safe.

Retirement Hats

My husband has always been such a supporter of my crafty nature. He doesn't blink an eye when I bring home another yard of fabric to add to the bins and bins that I already have. So, when he asks me to make something...I feel I must do it. In this case I had purchased the hat hoop (A $150 accessory for the Viking machines) and had only used it once with not much luck. I'd also stashed a bunch of hats so I had everything I need to make a quick retirement gift for some friends who planned to retire to the seas in their sail boat.

Total Cost: about $15 - I purchased a pack of peace sign designs and have added in the cost of the hats

Total Time: 2 hours for both hats including 90 minutes of re-work due to a nest (see below)

What I Learned:

-Don't be stingy with the sticky stabilizer - it will save your life and be well worth the cost

- I am the worst at starting the machine and walking away - with the hat hoop and hats you just can't do that. It is very easy for the hat to shift or become un-hooped. There are seams and other things that get in the way of a smooth embroidery. I left my machine to grab a drink and ended up spending more than 90 minutes trying to salvage the hat because the needle got stuck in a seam and created a huge nest underneath. Believe me I really needed a drink after that!

- My most important lesson was don't be afraid...just do it!

I enjoyed the hats so much that I went on to do 40 more for a friend who wanted to give them for Christmas presents.

I am proud of myself - in just a few short months I have mastered (1) the ruffling foot, (2) YIKES! Digitizing, and (3) the hat hoop! I am making a solemn pledge to never again buy something only to let it languish because I am too afraid to use it.

Fall Towels

More ruffles - they were so much fun the first time. Minya Nouvelle is the font used for the "C" which was super simple and fast yet turned out pretty nicely.

Christmas 2009 - Little Angels

Since I've had a few good months of plugging through all of those "things" I've been wanting to do, but haven't had enough time or confidence to try; I decided to add a project I'd been storing up and never done. These in the hoop angels were a free project and design from Viking. I did the project with one of my wonderful creative friends Terri. We spent an afternoon buying supplies, modifying the design and working through the instructions. Once we got one done we were off and running. I ended up making 25 little angels to give as Christmas presents this year.

Total Cost: $1-2/ea. The biggest cost was in the buttons for feet and the lace for the edge. Both of which could probably be found for cheaper but I was "in the mood" so didn't worry.

Total Time: 15-20 minutes each. I made my little darlings like an assembly line. First all the fronts, then all the backs, then all the hair, etc.

What I Learned:
- If I'd had more time I would have used that darn ruffle foot and substituted a small ruffle for the lace (lace is expensive)
- I also could have sub'ed out a different button or bead for the foot but I was stuck on making mine just the way the instructions were layed out
- The assembly line approach was much more fun than making one from start to finish and then starting over. This way I got all my hair done at one time, I never had to change feet and I learned as I went
- Instructions, Smuctions...either I didn't understand these instructions or they just weren't ordered well, but doing one angel from start to finish gave me the opportunity to work it all out and look for places where I could save time before I began making 25 of them

Scary Ruffles

I wanted to learn to make ruffles, but darn it, it was October so I had to make "scary" ruffles. I did these fun little tea towels with some free designs and ruffles made with my ruffle foot.

Total cost: $2 including the cost of the towels

Time: 15-30 minutes per towel including making the ruffle

What I learned:
- Cut the ruffle fabric 2 1/2 times the length of the item you want to attach it to. If you aren't sure how tight your ruffle will be - cut long and adjust at the end.

- You can change the tightness of the ruffle on the ruffle foot and re-ruffle the same fabric a number of times until it is as tight, and the length, that you want.

- Attach the ruffle right sides together so that the seem is automatically hidden.

In the Hoop Gift Tags

I made this sweet little gift tag for a friend thinking that she could use it as a book mark (we share a love of books).

Total Cost: $0.50 (free if you consider that I used all scrap)

Total Time: 45 minutes

What I Learned:

- These are very cute but they just didn't work as an accessory to a gift - they took way too long to make and were pretty cumbersome to cut, etc.

Foster Dog Shirts

My friends at the Foster Dog Chronicles wanted some shirts with their logo on it. I decided to go for it as it would give me an opportunity to learn to digitize with my 4D software.

Total Time: Digitize - 8 hours (due to a steep learning curve), Embroidery - 1 hour

Total Cost: nothing (shirts provided by the Foster Dog Chronicles)

What I learned:
- If you are going to digitize from a photo it absolutely must be high res
- I didn't have it, but would have liked to have some high end photo editing software to capture some of the smaller nuances of the logo and clean them up so I could use them
- Some items are easier to recreate than to digitize. I spent hours and hours and hours on the font in the logo and then recreated it in less than an hour

June SGSG - Button Bracelets + SURPRISE

Our June SGSG was taught by our wonderfully creative Ronnie Lewison. We did jewelery this time so that we could leave the machines at home. She showed us a gorgeous button bracelet. While going through my stash of buttons I found these hand made ceramics that came from a shirt my Mother made for my Dad back in the days when we didn't have enough money to buy clothes. I can 't wait to share it with her.

The day ended with a wonderful surprise for my 36th birthday. When I arrived home from my sewing girls afternoon, my wonderful husband had about 50 friends, a band, a cake and a decorated house to surprise me. My first ever surprise party and I am so happy that my sewing girls got to be a part of it.

Doggie Bandanas

This project has a bit of a story behind how it came about. It started with buying my teenager daughter an iPhone for her 1th birthday. The iPhone came with a Facebook app and after seeing a few questionable photos I decided that I had better get up and running on Facebook so that I could keep track of just what was going on. I signed up and within 48 hours had reconnected with more than 40 friends from around the world. One of my favorite connections was from a high school friend that had recently started a dog rescue. After checking out the blog he requested help with making some doggie bandanas. It sounded like a fun project and after travelling most of the Spring away I really needed to get back into the sewing groove. The SGSG girls even graciously pitched in to help out. All in all we sent about 20 "Adopt Me" bandanas for the dogs to wear out and about.

Check out the doggies at http://www.thefosterdogchronicles.com/

Amado's First Birthday Party and a Handmade Gift

Amado attended pre-school this year and along with making friends, the birthday parties were out in force. Ryanne the birthday girl loved Princesses so I put that emboidery machine to work and made her a card, gift bag, and customized sweat-shirt. In total it took about 1 hour to make and about $5.

Embroidered Cards

I came home from India with all of these really incredible fabrics and edgings and also no idea what I wanted to do with them. I had lots of birthdays and baby showers coming up so I decided to put them to work as customized stationary. Check them out. I love it - they each took about 10 mins to make (per card) and cost less than $.10.

SGSG - Sewing Organizer

My lovely friends at the SGSG (Sewing Gals Sewcial Group) had a get-together this past Sunday and Sandra taught us how to make this cute and relatively easy (once you get the right foot on your machine) sewing organizer. I even got to teach myself how to free hand machine quilt in preparation. The vinyl took some getting used to and went much easier once I put my Teflon foot on my machine. Total cost for me was under $3 as I used left over fabric and batting. Time was about 2 hours from start to finish.

Christmas Presents

This year was all about planning ahead and starting early. I had so much fun decorating gift bags that I literally started in June and hand decorated about 60 Christmas gift bags. During a day of cleaning out my fabric stash (you know everyone has one) I came across this Christmas angel fabric. This angel is literally 10 years old. I have carried her from Washington to New York to Dallas (and I still have some left in storage). I remember purchasing her back when I really had to pinch pennies. I fretted over the price at the time (probably less than $10/yard), but felt better knowing that I could make so many different things with her. The first year I made wall hangings, another year cards and this year she is gift bags. This really is the yard of fabric that just keeps on giving. I also managed to sew just under 100 of my green re-usable shopping bags (more in an earlier post) to give away. It was a fun time.

Thanksgiving Day Napkins - The Tradition Continues

Carrying on the Cuellar T-Day napkin tradition I managed to create 17 embroidered napkins this year. I learned from last year and bought a little more expensive pre-made napking that held the embroidery much better. I also chose a design with only 4 color changes (down from 17 my first year). I got these done in about 2 days. Total Cost was $24 for napkins. The guests enjoy getting to take them home as a symbol of surviving Thanksgiving at the Cuellar's!

Twin Burp Rags

A friend of a friend had twin girls at 40 so I couldn't help getting into the twin spirit. More burp cloths. My learning here - I bought really cute fabric, but obviously it wasn't perfect for applique. It became pretty hard to make out the letters. That's ok though...that is the beauty of trying it out. I learn more with every project I complete.

Green Shopping Bags

We had a new grocery store open up here in Allen and they were giving away "green"/eco-friendly reusable shopping bags with their logo on them. I collected a couple and then thought, wouldn't these be great to embroider on. After an exhaustive internet search, I finally found a source to buy blank shopping bags at a reasonable price (less than $2 each). Initially, you could only buy this bright green, but now they come in green, black and blue. This was my first attempt at my customized green shopping bag.

Cost - $1.90/bag

Time - 10 minutes

Escadrille Markers

My oldest daughter Katrina is part of the largest high school marching band in the world - the Allen Eagle Escadrille. They need markers for their summer practices as they are learning all of their positions and movements. In the past she has used CD's that either never make it home or get destroyed. This time I wanted to make her something unique that was all hers. She had just cut off some old jeans into shorts so I salvaged the denim and used some scrap material for the applique. I used a free design from a coaster making class years ago. They turned out wonderfully.

Total Cost: $0
Total Time: 10 minutes each

Garden Apron

Embroidery Library http://www.emblibrary.com/ caught me in a particularly crafty mood. I got my girlfriends Terri and Ronnie to join me (and help me) make these cute little garden aprons. I ended up making 2 - 1 that went to my Mom and the other to my GrandMother in New York. They were a lot of fun and not bad for a novice seamstress.

Total Cost: $8 each

Time: 3-4 hours.

Gift Bag Embellishment

Our latest SGSG project was gift bag embellishment. This was a fun day, no one had to haul their machines and we shared all of our extra stickers, ribbon, paper. I took the opportunity to jump start my Christmas chores. My favorite was the "M" bag. I love all of the textures created by the embroidery, the paper and the burlap.

Total Cost - $1-$5/bag depending on embellishments

Total Time - 10mins-1 hour depending on the number of embellishments

Father's Day Card

I purchased this Wishblade Cutter earlier this year when I got excited about making cards. I haven't mastered it at all, but it is a fun addition to the craft room. Here is Manuel's Father's Day card.

Total Cost - $1.50 for paper and cardstock

Total Time ~45 minutes (probably because I am a beginner)

More Birthday Shirts

Our neighbor boy Alex turned 4 and loved fire trucks. I made this quick and easy shirt for him to wear to school on his special day. I buy the shirts at Wal-Mart when they are on sale for $3 or $4 and keep them handy.

Total Cost - $6.00 for shirt and design

Time - ~20 minutes

Birthday Shirts

My special boy deserved a special shirt for his birthday. Balloons were the theme. He woke up to 24 balloons floating around the house. Oh the look of absolute joy and enthusiasm on his face. It was a perfect 2nd birthday.

Applique Porch Sign

We had some new renters take over our Lynn Street house and they were a very sweet little family. I had picked up this frame at Joanne's for $5 and already had some white canvas and scrap fabric laying around. I wanted to practice my applique skills so I took the opportunity. The applique was fairly easy although I should have chosen a larger font. The hardest part was cutting and mounting the canvas so that it stayed straight in the frame - as you can see I never did get it quite right.

Total cost - $5

Time - ~45 minutes

Easter Cards

So I expanded my "paper embroidery" knowledge by making my Easter Cards this year. I purchased a trapunto design which I love because they look so intricate, but don't have any color changes. They are generally in a 4x4 block so they make an easy transition to card stock and they are quick and easy to embroider. Some of the designs can be dense so if you are going to embroider on paper, be careful. I loved the look of coloring in my paper version just to add a little pop to the design.

I made 8 cards for a:

Total Cost: $0.25 each including the design

Time: 10-15 minutes each

More Baby Stuff

There seems to be a rash of baby showers in the neighborhood, so I've done tons of little baby items. I love the burp rags and especially love the applique. It was the first time I had ever done applique. I love the look of it - they are my favorite by far.