New Year… New Designs!

Happy 2019! We finally did a few new designs which have been listed on the website. Applique Cafe was put on the back burner for the latter part of last year, but we hope to put out more new designs this year. I have continued to check email 10 times a day, ship notepads, run sales, etc. but the design part has fallen to the wayside. Here’s to 2019 GOALS!!

Love the “blanket stitch” finish!

My 10 year old LOVES Unicorns! I love this color combo with the gold and pink and seafoam green!

This Heart Trio has a redwork finishing stitch. I did use Heat N Bond Lite on my fabric to bond it to the “shirt”!

Have a great rest of the week! Check out the new designs, our notepads, etc at Applique Cafe!

School.Is.Out…

Y’all. It’s SUMMER. I think I am in denial and feel like I’m just on Spring Break vacation. How did we get here? My kids finished school on May 22 and the next day we headed to the beach which we have never done before (left town right after school gets out). We are still here and are enjoying some family time for another week. Here are a few pics from this past week, plus some pics of some of our new AND old designs.

Maggie got to come to the beach with us, and she is loving beach life! A little salt air does us all good!

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One of her fave spots is looking out at the Gulf! Dogs aren’t allowed on the beach, but we may have taken her crab hunting one night (when it was dark and no one could see).

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This is my favorite of her spread eagle looking out over the pool.

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We celebrated Browder’s 12th (!!!!) birthday Monday and he requested a trip to Big Daddy’s ripoff Arcade. $100 will get you a couple of candy necklaces!! Just kidding. I think we really spent $20 for 25 minutes of entertainment and a bunch of useless tickets.

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Sissy and I made cupcakes.

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He’s 12 y’all! That’s almost 13…

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Tuesday night my mom came for a visit so we took her to one of our fave spots – Fisherman’s Corner. If you ever come to Perdido Key or Orange Beach, call and make a reservation. It’s a shack, but some of the best seafood you’ll ever eat!

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Now on to Applique Cafe stuff. First of all, we are having a SALE through June 3rd, which is…. I have no idea what day it is….

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Here are some new designs we’ve added over the past month or so sewn by Jilly’s Mom Made That. All of these designs are on our website of course and are ON SALE!

Crab 22 Elephant 42 Flower Patch 22 Saw Tooth Fish1 Umbrella and Rain Boots1 Vintage Golf Green1 Vintage String of Fish1

Here are some other AC designs that I’ve sewn recently. The shorts are from Old Navy and were a funny yellowish greenish color to match. I had ONE fabric so I went with it and some other coordinating thread colors. Love how it turned out!

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A dear friend of mine is having a baby this summer, so I did a couple of (Blanks Boutique) gowns for her! They zip up the side so they are super easy to applique!

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This is a Monkey Tails Blanks dress with our Popsicle Trio design! I love a good trio! 🙂

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Here are 3 other NEW designs we listed this week! I love the Vintage stitch designs (such as the Fireworks). They are SO easy and fast to stitch! I recommend using a cutaway stabilizer on the bottom AND solvy or water soluble on top for those designs.

popsicle trio 2 500 vintage fireworks 500 submarine 500

Happy Summer!

The Year of Hats

I am declaring the summer of 2014 The Year of Hats, or the Season of Hats, or the SUMMER OF HATS? I’m doing hats every week and this will be my 3rd blog post this summer on doing hats. Check out the first 2 HERE and HERE. I’ve also done 2 posts so far on VISORS, so check them out HERE and HERE.

I have mostly done monogramming on hats, but recently did our new Anchor Patch (which comes in a “small size” great for hats).

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This week we listed a new Mini Dog Applique AKA “Stitch” so I sampled it on a hat as well. It was a little trickier because I had to trim around the small legs of the dog. I typically use Gingher 4″ curved scissors to trim my appliques, but busted out the “Snips” for this hat. I used my 5.5″ X 6″ Fast Frame + sticky stabilizer and pinned the front of my hat to the frame. I use the seam on the front of the hat for my center and it’s best to get the front of the hat as flat as possible and pinned down securely. I also use chip clips to clip the bill of the hat (which is flattened) to the frame.

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Here it is after I’ve unpinned. I not only use a layer of fabric, but I fuse it to a layer of medium cutaway stabilizer with Heat N Bond Lite so that the seam doesn’t show through my fabric. Fabric alone would probably work, but adding a layer of stabilizer keeps it firm and you can’t see the hat color or seam through the fabric.

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Finished product! Please note that the dog polka dot fabric is not wrinkled. For some reason the camera captured the dots weird and it looks that way, but it’s flat and smooth!

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More hats. These cute seersucker striped hats came from the J. Crew Outlet and were about 6 bucks each. My sister in law bought all they had and I have 3 more to do today. Again, flatten the bill, chip clip it to the fast frame and smooth and pin the front of the hat.

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I used Monogram Wizard Plus “Master Circle font and this is roughly 2.75” tall. I think I increased it a couple of times once I got it on my machine and saw that I had a little more room.

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This is what it looks like from the bottom. Most hats come with a “lip” or mini liner (the white part) that folds down – I usually pin it back before I pin the hat to the frame. The chip clips keep the bill flat and in place on the frame.

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Finished product!

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Here is another type of Fast Frame that I was told worked great with hats. It’s a 6″ thin radius frame and this one is from Ken’s Sewing Center. I believe you can also get a 4″ thin radius frame which might also work great for hats. Make sure you get THIN. Most 7 in 1 Fast Frame sets come with a regular radius frame, but I believe the thin will allow you to get closer to the bill on the front. They also sell these frames at Sewingmachine.com, but are currently not on the website. I was told they should be available next week online. Again, I don’t have one yet, but was told they work great for hats!

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We listed a few new designs this week and are having a quick little July 4th SALE at Applique Cafe.

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Here are our new designs for this week, which include a couple for BACK TO SCHOOL!! We also added a new “Patch Applique“. I love the TOOLS and these new patch designs are only 1 fabric and super easy to sew.

 

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Have a safe 4th of July!!