Sew Spoiled

My sister just moved into her beautiful dream home and asked for me to monogram some towels for her. These are the finished product. I am so glad that everything turned out so well. I love the ladder made from repurposed wood and the grey floors. It is fun to help someone get the finished result that they were looking for. Sure, the towels would have looked great without the monogram but the design puts it over the top. I found the design letter here, at Great Notions Design . Sometimes choosing a letter monogram can be daunting with all of the choices you have. As you probably already noticed I did not hoop the towel, only the interfacing. I used a baste stitch first to hold the interfacing, towel and water soluble topper together. I know most people do not do it this way but I really believe it is the best way to embroider. Best wishes and tons of Stitches!

I have been on the look out for a wallet that can hold my iPhone. I love to carry a large bag but it is a hassle to carry it all of the time, I want a small wallet that can hold my cards and phone. I just found the Sawyer Wristlet  at SewForLess.com . They are priced under $12 and make great gifts. I did find out the hard way that it is easier to embroider the wristlet after you open the wallet up. Here is a short video of my machine at work. Also the monogram or embroidery needs to be small but this is a small accessory so it looks fine. Wow, it fits my phone with a phone case on it! Woohoo!

I love embroidery! You would think that it would get old being able to monogram anything to my hearts content. You might think all of my clothes, pillows, towels, etc. are monogrammed. I monogram mostly for others. Today is a selfish sewing day and I am going to monogram this t-shirt. It is a cute shirt that has a message on the back but no lapel design, so I am going to monogram the front. I have these dots that help with the placement of the design. They are called target stickers  I received them in the Perfect Placement Kit  I received for Christmas as a gift. Honestly, at first I thought I would never use the kit at all but it has been an extremely helpful tool! The kit comes with... 11 Perfect Placement templates for linens 4 Perfect Placement plastic templates for wearables 30 Target Stickers a CD tutorial guide I have found that when embroidering a knit shirt you need to use heavier stabilizer. I used Pellon 808 or 809. There are probably better choices ...

Tod ay we are sharing an embroidery file of Smile Love Laugh. It is alined to the center of your hoop. You can use this design up to 3 times in the same hoop for 3 key fobs. It measures (9/16)"X 6 (7/8)" so it can fit inside a 5"X7" hoop.  Step by step instructions for the key fob is here .  Available in the following formats:   PES,   EXP ,  DST ,  HUS ,  JEF,   VIP,  VP3,  XXX.  Sometimes it is the simplest message that mean the most. These key fobs are a great gift to family and friends. Please let me know if you are able to use this fun embroidery design!

I recently embroidered this duffle bag and hat for my niece who is attending college this year. I hope she can use it to come home and visit. At first I had no idea how I would fit this large bag under my machine but I found a way and I wanted to share this will you! First, you can find this type of duffle here at Sew for Less  for only $12.99!! They have fifteen different colors and they are made from recycled materials. In order to get the bag under my machine, I flipped it inside out and placed the bag over the embroidery machine like the picture above. Centering the design was a little tricky and since the bag was turned to the side, I had to also turn the design. It worked out beautifully.  Embrilliance Essentials is the program I am using on my Mac computer to merge and set my designs up for my embroidery machine. I love Embrilliance!! It is only $149 which is very cheap for a program that will allow you to do so much. I highly recommend it. If you click on th...

I love my embroidery machine, it is a Brother PE 770  and it is perfect for all of my projects. In the picture below, I am monogramming a Longchamp style bag. With the new Essentials software , it is simple to save my personal monogram as a embroidery file with basting stitch. Once the embroidery machine is loaded with the correct stitch file from Embrillance, Essentials, I line everything up and set it to work.  This bag is made from nylon and it's texture is silky smooth. This is not a real Longchamp bag, I just can't swing a $150-$200 bag on a teacher budget but it is very nice.  For instance, we were caught in the rain at church, I mean torrential downpour , and this bag is waterproof. I wiped the water right off and it was like the rain never happened. I looked like a drowned rat but my bag looked great!  As you can see my machine stitched this up for me in a matter of minutes. I used a polyester thread that had the same silky shine to it. These bags ...

These casserole carriers are so cute but how do you embroider the handle, if you only have single needle machine and the handle on the carrier doesn't open up? Most of these carriers have a single handle that is stitched to the zipper seam. I am going to show you how easy it is to embroider the handle even if you have a single needle machine.  You can find carriers like this one at Carolina Pottery, Ross, Tuesday Mornings or Home Goods. To find them online go to Sew For Less , All About Blanks  (These carriers are easier to embroider on b/c the handles detach.) and the Coral Coast  (She sells the blanks too). I found this one on sell because the white was marked up. (Which a mixture of peroxide and dawn took care of.) Originally marked $12.99, it was a red ticket item so we got it for 1/2 off, $6.50. Step 1: Open up the zipper seam that has one side of the handle inclosed in, it is topstitched and there is binding holding all of the layers of fabric together so ...

Embrillance If you are looking for embroidery software that will resize, adjust and combine designs together. Look no further! Embrillance Essentials does all of that and more. For the first time, I was able to use my Mac to create embroidery designs for my Brother PE-770 embroidery machine. The PC I was using in the past was so old that I was afraid it might not even turn on at all. Embroidery was the only reason I kept the old PC. Now I am confident that my Embrillance Essential software will work on my much faster Mac machine. Maybe I can get rid of the old PC machine for good. If you are a PC user you can download the PC version. Organizing I use Dropbox to organize all of my embroidery files. This is a great and easy way to save all of your embroidery files. Not to mention all the time you will save searching for files. You can also access them anywhere. When you open a design file in Embrillance you can view it first and then open it in the program. I love how...

Here is a quick tutorial on how to make an appliqué with your embroidery machine. It is a great skill to have. As you see here you can use your appliqué on anything; baby blankets, totes, towels and monogrammed gifts. Materials you will need: 1- scrap piece of appliqué fabric 1- main fabric or for  Customizable Acrylics  use Embroidery Paper!! Thread the color of the appliqué fabric Adhesive spray Interfacing Embroidery machine Hoop Embroidery appliqué design Embroidery scissors Step 1: Place the interfacing into the hoop and spray the surface. Step 2: Put the project or main fabric or paper on the sprayed interfacing over the hoop. Step 3: Put the hoop into place on your embroidery machine and allow the appliqué to trace the design over the main fabric. It is showing you where to place the scrap fabric for your appliqué. Step 4: Smooth out the scrap piece of fabric over the project fabric. The embroidery machine will trace the design aga...