Do you hoop towels?

Happy Summer! My eldest child finally finished school last Friday, so we have been officially out of school for 1 week (as of tomorrow). I didn’t really feel like it was summer until Tuesday. We went to Birmingham and a wedding this past Saturday, spent Sunday at the lake and then Monday at the pool for Memorial Day. Tuesday felt like our official start to SUMMER! Woo Hoooooooo!! Well, summer flashed before my eyes Tuesday night. Both boys had soccer games and during the 3rd quarter of Browder’s game, he (was tripped? and) fell on his arm. It was one of those where the ref immediately called Jeff over and it took me about 45 seconds to run across the field myself. He had fallen and landed on his hand with his arm straight and was crying. His arm was  bent and he wouldn’t straighten it. Trampolines, swimming pools and the beach all flashed before my eyes!! Long story short, we decided to head on over to the ER for an X-Ray which proved nothing was broken and he was FINE!! Praise.The.Lord. Hallelujah too! For some reason, the nurses all thought my middle child, G, was the patient. I wonder why? He likes to make himself at home.

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Here’s B after we got home from the ER and by then he was able to straighten his arm and was fine! Now we know we should have waited a couple of hours before heading to the ER. But, we were in and out in an hour and had we not gone, it would have been broken in 3 places. As you may recall, Sissy broke her collar bone last May so we don’t play around with bones. Speaking of Sissy, she left last Friday to spend the weekend with her cousin down at the beach. She extended her stay and is FINALLY coming home this afternoon!! It’s been quiet without her!! Anyway, back to soccer, trampolines and swimming!!

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Here is what I’ve been up to this past week or so. These adorable rompers are from www.jiffyshirts.com (Apples & Oranges brand). Sonny and Sophia are twins, so they needed to be coordinated. I came up with this using these coordinating Riley Blake fabrics and Sew What Pro. See if you can follow this…

Pink – 5×7 Rectangle Scalloped Patch + 4×4 fish from Fish Patch + Sophia in Monogram Wizard Plus “Kim Single” font.

Blue – 5×7 Fish Patch – fish, + 4×4 fish from Fish Patch + Sonny in Monogram Wizard Plus “Tipsy” font.

Did you get all that? One of the many reasons I love Sew What Pro!

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I got asked several times at EAC this year how I hoop towels, or IF I hoop towels. I am a hooper! When I bought my first machine I learned how to hoop, so I hoop almost everything. I do use Fast Frames with my PR650 when I’m doing things I can’t hoop (lunchboxes, ribbon, backpacks, etc.) but for most other things including towels, I HOOP. If you loosen the hoop enough to get the towel in there, then you can tighten it and it’s secure. I use a water soluble stabilizer on the top, as seen below. It is hooped with the towel.

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On the bottom I use an iron on tearaway stabilizer which will be removed (torn away) when I’m done. It doesn’t have to be iron on. Any tearaway will do, because you don’t want stabilizer left on when you are done. Hence the tearaway!

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I did at least 10 towels this past week for graduation gifts. I put the hoop on my machine upside down so that the excess towel hangs in front of my machine. My machine stand is a file drawer table, so I open the door and let the excess towel “rest” on the drawer.

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Since my towel is on the machine upside down, I also rotate my monogram to where it will sew upside down. As you can see on my machine there is a Rotate button. The font I used is Monogram Wizard Plus “Sydney”.

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Here are a couple of finished towels. I also use FILL STITCH on these towels and the monograms pretty much fill up my 5×7 hoop (close to 7″ wide).

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I posted this on Facebook this week. This is a shirt I did for my Mallory to match some cute Candy Ta Dot (Michael Miller) shorts I got from Doodles Boutique. This is our Bubbles design we just listed in the past week or two. The shirt is an old Just Blanks shirt. I bought a box of them a few years ago from a clothing line that was not going to be using them as blanks anymore.

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Finally, here is a Columbia PFG (Performance Fishing Gear) shirt I did today for my 13 year old niece! She sent me a photo she found on Pinterest. This is, again, Monogram Wiz Plus “Sydney” font and I narrowed the letters up a bit to try to fill up the 5×7 hoop, making the monogram 7″ wide and as tall as I could get it. As you can see below, these shirts have “vents”, so I was able to hoop inside the top layer and monogram inside the “vent”. Not sure you could do that with a single needle machine, but I was able to do it on my 6 needle without monogramming through the mesh lining layer inside.

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This is the inside of the shirt. This is a mesh lining inside the shirt (not Comfort Cover).

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I hope everyone is enjoying their summer! I am working on sampling new designs for Applique Cafe this week. 3 down, 1 to go! I’ve worked hard to get all of my customer work pretty much done (or at a manageable level) so that I can enjoy my kids, sleeping in, going to the pool and just doing nothing. Oh, and more blogging!! Have a great weekend!

Comments

  1. I am about to do some towels.. I may try hoop,, Never have hooped them.
    Since I am going to use MWP Sydney may I ask what width for font , height and boldness did you use… I have trouble with that part..

    TIA

    • The monogram was around 7″ wide. I did not change the boldness. I may have done the width of the font like 85? Sorry I didn’t write anything down! Also, I did kerning like 3 or 4.

      • Thank you for posting the shirt! I went out and bought 2 today! One in ladies size for me to wear, and one in mens size to use a a swimsuit coverup. Thanks again for all of your help and suggestions!

    • I have tried hooping towels but they still pop out of the hoop. Do you have any other tips? Maybe my towels are too thick? So enjoy your blog …. Inspiring and educational!

      • Some towels are thicker than others, and I know single needle hoops are harder to get on there b/c they aren’t as thick!

        • I have a 10 needle so it must be user lack of knowledge. : – ) I am doing 4 bath towels today so will try again.

  2. In case another reader was wondering, I did a Columbia shirt like that when I had a single needle machine! It kept moving around, but by removing the little triangle (and sewing it back on when I was done), I was able to monogram the back with no problem!

  3. What type of stabilizer did you use for the Columbia shirt? Also, is there a way to change the size of the monogram in monogram wizard plus like if I need the height to be the size of the width and the width the size of the height?

    • I used Medium Cutaway on the bottom and I did use water soluble solvy on top. Yes, in MWP you can adjust the width of the letters to make them skinnier – that way the font is tall and wide. Does that make sense?

  4. Do you pin your water soluble stabilizer on first and then hoop? Always hard for me to mark the center on towels for some reason.:)

    • I usually mark the towel with a pin, then as I am getting ready to hoop I pin the water soluble (still keeping my center). You could also just float it on top.

  5. julie Holliman says

    What brand of iron on tearaway stabilizer do you use for your towels?

  6. I wonder how to make the appliqued name even on a towel when I only have a 4×4 area?

    • How long is the name? It would be very small in a 4×4 area. You could do a letter at a time, but then there’s the matter of spacing!