Back in Business!

Today I was at Walmart and picked up a new Universal 32 in 1 card reader as well as an SD thumb drive. So it's a good feeling to be back in business with my pics. While I was there, I picked up some fall fabric and dowel rods for my wall hangings. The sewing department clerks LOVED my embroidered designs and the fabric I picked to go with them.

I did check out fall fabric online, but it was quite expensive and not to my liking. For some reason, two of the Walmarts I visit in my area always seem to have nice holiday cotton prints at a VERY reasonable price. The fabrics were around $4/yard. One of my local fabric stores (which sells mostly quilting cottons) has lovely fabric too, but I didn't feel like spending $9/yard!

So here are two of my stitched out designs with the fabric I plan to use for backing. I may mix and match them too.

The bad news for today is that it didn't rain! DH and I have to be in 3 places at once tonight for the kids, and it's so hectic. Some of the activities could still be cancelled, but waiting for the what if's just ruins my day.

On a side note, if you would like a nice cyber vacation, take a hop on over to Susan's blog. She was just in Seattle has several posts about it. Warning: don't visit if you're hungry ;) !

Time Flies!

Has it really been over a week since my last post??? I have a few minutes to breathe right now! I haven't been able to get any sewing done; however, in order to ease my stitch cravings, my embroidery machine has been smokin'. I'm making some Autumn wall hangings, a few for myself, and several to sell. Last year I bought some Fall embroidery designs with every intention of using them last year, but you know how life gets in the way.

Right now there about 8 stitchouts of 2 designs with plans to do a total of 16. I've been looking for Autumn-themed cotton fabric, but haven't found something that appeals to me as of yet. Once I find the right fabric, I'm going to use that as my backing along with some batting to give it more structure. They'll be the perfect-sized wall hangings for a small bathroom or as fillers on a wall.

I'll post the designs sometime this week. One of my children knocked my card reader off my computer desk and now it doesn't work! I'm not going to pay $35 at Staples when I can get the identical card reader at Walmart for $24. Problem is, I'm not going to make a special trip until I need to get other things so it will have to wait.

Hopefully, I can make a few Christmas wall hangings similar to my Autumn ones, but I'm going to wait until the designs go on sale. A Hanukah (sp?) design would be nice, too, for my Jewish friend, Carin.

That Stroke of Inspiration

It's coming to me.

Do you ever walk by your fabric stash and wait for the fabric to tell you what to do with it? That's what I've been doing. I still have some fabulous knits from PR Weekend 2006 and 2007 that I absolutely love and just yesterday I realized what I want to do with at least one of them. Yesterday there was a review on the CJ princess seamed/wrap top pattern at Patternreview and now I have a pretty good idea of what fabric to use with it. It was one of those "Aha!" moments. I have another idea of pairing of pattern and fabric but want to make sure the fabrics I'm planning on combining for it will work. I might have to post a pic of the two fabrics in daylight so you all can give me some input. My ability to coordinate fabrics is abysmal.

I have also been working on a very interesting wall hanging based on my son's art project which I posted a pic of a while back. It is coming along nicely and think it will make a nice artistic type of piece for my living room wall. Been taking pics of my progress with it and will try to post my continued efforts of it tonight with my Saturday night bowl of popcorn and wine cooler. I'm just one heck of an exciting chick, aren't I ;) ! Just loving those Saturday evening sewing blocks. That inner sewing geekness is evident again.

Right now I'm going to grab my coffee, a piece of banana bread, and enjoy some quiet time reading sewing blogs. First blog to read for today is Robin's blog. I have to check out her dress she was making for a wedding. I live my non-kid life vicariously through her :) . She's an amazingly talented woman with an equally amazing interesting life. I'm am going to try to make it a point to discuss other people's blogs in my posts for a while. There are some really great blogs out there, and I often find new ones by clicking on links in other sewer's blogs.

Sewing for the 4th of July

Note: I'm sorry about the darn paragraphs! I hate when blogger causes me problems and I can't create proper spacing between paragraphs. With all the div codes, you'd think I'd have tons of spaces but I don't. Anyway...

...About six weeks ago I started wall hangings. There was a sale at Embroidery Library/ on wall hanging designs so I bought several for various holidays. Two were for the 4th of July. For my non-American sewing enthusiasts, the 4th of July is a national holiday celebrating the 232 year of the USA, our country's birthday.

I haven't used my embroidery machine as much as I should be, so doing these were important to me. My embroidery skills should be much more proficient at this point having had this machine for about 2 years now. I pulled my linen out of my embroidery stash (fabric that was purchased in March for just this purpose) and got to work. Didn't have any pieces of stabilizer for my 5x7 hoop so I used pieces of heavyweight pellon sew-in interfacing on the first one (eagle). During the interim I was able to purchase Sulky Soft and Sheer for my 5x7 hoop and used that for the second one (bear). I adhered the linen to the pellon with KS2000 spray and hooped it. Got my designs going and ended up with what I posted last week, what looked like this:

Each design was done separately. Last year I bought a Janome Clothsetter for $55 from a PR Member but still haven't used it. I think it would have been perfect for joining the designs but with time at a premium, I took the easy route. My plan was to join the designs together with a horizontal seam which I did. Yesterday and today I worked on finishing them (you know, it's only July 7 now!) so I can at least hang them on my walls for at least one week before having to take them down.

I'm thinking these look fairly nice. I like the eagle one better than the bear one, just my preference. Here are the finished wall hangings:

Overall, I'm fairly satisfied with this project. I definitely would not classify myself as a home dec type of sewer, nor a quilter. However, I was very impressed with DebraH's wall hanging (Darn! I'd link to her review but can't get it right now) review at Patternreview so I decided to put my sewing skills to use and decorate my walls. I'm a terrible decorator so anything looks better than what is on my walls now.

The inside border are strips for each of the 4 edges cut to size. The outside border is a full piece of material with the red border/embroidery designs edgestitched right on top of it. The edges of the outer border are finished with a zigzag stitch, turned under and topstitched. Very simple really. Not terribly professional. But if anyone is looking at the backside of my wall hangings other than my sewing sister, they're just plain too nosy.

Here's the backside of each hanging:

Okay. Now here's the problem with my wall hangings. I'm hoping some of my embroidery-loving sewing buddies can help me out with this. Check out the pic below of my projects WITHOUT the flash! The problem is evident!!!

See how the "bear-ey" one is all mottled and the eagle one is much smoother? I attribute this to my stabilizer. The "inappropriate" stabilizer of heavyweight interfacing produced a much better embroidery design, whereas what I *thought* would be the appropriate stabilizer looks, well, not so good. What does this mean? Just use a thicker stabilizer? Two pieces, maybe three? v

Also, the stitching was a b*tch on the bear one too. I used different and new needles to see if it would make any difference. Played around with the upper tension. No difference either. The threads on top kept getting loopy in certain places. It didn't do that as much with the thicker, "inappropriate" interfacing stabilizer.

So, what gives? Just use a thicker stabilizer or more pieces (maybe 3)? I'd like to make more and try to sell some for Christmas so any help on improving the appearance would be greatly appreciated.

One thing's for sure, I underestimated the time it would take to do the designs. I was thinking I could do 3 designs/day for one hanging. Didn't quite work out that way. Between all the thread changes, I was lucky to get one design done per day. I don't sit at my machine either so the machine has to frequently wait for me to change the threads too. The good thing is, I'm learning. Getting a little better and more knowledgeable about Embird and embroidery in general.

Looking forward now to get started on a few more. First some for my own home, then some to try to sell.