Bye Bye Spring Break!

Posted by on March 21, 2011

Spring Break is over. Back to reality. Back to school. Back to getting up before 8:00… I’m sad to report that Mallory seems to be dropping her nap. Her naps lately consist of play-time and dragging all of her toys out all over her room. She’ll stay in there for a good hour, sometimes longer. Then you’ll hear a little “knock” at her door. This is her way of asking if she can come out! Nap-time is my work-time, so I’m none too thrilled about this! Every few days she WILL lay down and take a nap, so I will hold on to those days for now!

This is a new Applique Cafe dog design that will be listed this week (at 50% off I might add). Someone suggested on Facebook that we name this Dog, so I asked my fans and the majority voted for “Stitch“. Embroidery, sewing, thread, applique, STITCH – get it? So Stitch it is, and Stitch just got his own category on the website! I have tons of ideas for Stitch so we’ll see what else he can do! For now Stitch is heading to the beach…

I just changed out my needles on my machine. Wow so much dust accumulates! I use Schmetz Embroidery needles (75/11) and I get them from www.sewingmachine.com. I hear of people talking about using this type needle for this type fabric and that type needle for another. I have 6 needles to change, so all I use are 75/11 Embroidery needles. I mostly do towels, tshirts, etc (no canvas or burlap or anything) so hopefully this is all I need!

Are you feeling the randomness of this blog? Napless Mallory and the boys are outside in the back yard so I’m just throwing this post together while I listen to her fuss and whine about her capri sun being gone and G not sharing the football with her (UGH!). Saturday Jeff did pine straw with a little bit of assistance from myself (I cut the twine) and the kids. I said that it looked like a pine straw truck exploded in our back yard! It looks GREAT! I really love our back yard! It’s big and FENCED IN (re: kids) and nice and flat! I just hope some nice family will come along (soon) and like my back yard as much as I do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Selling a house is a good lesson in contentment, envy and again, contentment! I do love my house, but I have my list of things I want to do at my next house:

  • have an organized SEWING ROOM
  • organize my fabric
  • cook more
  • invite friends over more
  • set better “work” hours

etc etc etc… I keep thinking “when we move I’ll do this(fill in the blank). Sigh…….

I did this shirt yesterday for one of Mallory’s classmates. This is a design I got off of Etsy and G had this same B-day shirt last year. This is one of my favorite b-day designs (and it’s NOT AC!)

I also did another shirt yesterday based on the below. I used the same “colors” but not the same design. This KK shirt retails for $34 I think (+$$ for adding the name, + shipping I assume).

How is my version? This is the Applique Cafe Shark and I got the solid turquoise fabric from Joann. The font is MWP Serif Block (I decreased the font density to 75 instead of 100 b/c it was too thick). I like how it turned out! Oh, I also stopped the machine and changed the thread color so that the eye & gills would be a different color. As is, they stitch all in 1 step as the same color. My shark isn’t near as scary but I think he’s cute!

So this morning I had a photo shoot (really!!) with my friend Amie (see Linen & Boxwoods). You might have noticed the L&B ad button and blog on my blog list. I will be doing a post about her blog hopefully this week! Grace (of Grace Photography Studio) met us and really took pictures of us having coffee, which is what we do! It was HILARIOUS! I’m about the least photogenic person I know and I can’t wait to see what she got! She also took a few shots of just me for my bio (about me). I am thrilled that she agreed to do this for us/me as she is a genius photographer! Stay tuned for that post!

We will be listing FIVE new designs this week (maybe by tomorrow) and all will be 50% off: canoe, giraffe, beach dog, popsicle trio and a flower (all can be previewed at www.facebook.com/appliquecafe). Back to work….

Filed Under: Applique Cafe, Design, Family, Products | Tagged: Tagged With: ,

My tutu post!

Posted by on March 14, 2011

Yesterday we spent the afternoon outside. Jeff did a little mowing, the kids did a little playing and I pulled weeds (yipee). We also all took a walk around the hood ~ we started out w/ Sissy in the buggy, G on his bike and Browder on his scooter. By the time we got home Browder & Sissy were in the buggy with the scooter in the back, G was walking and I was pushing his little bike! It was beautiful weather and my start to training for a September 5K (I need A LOT of training and believe me, walking around the hood was a start!!). I couldn’t resist taking pics of Sissy in between pulling weeds. She doesn’t play dress up ever, but decided to wear this tutu all afternoon and I LOVED IT! She rode her tricycle with it on and even rode in the buggy with the tutu on as well as a Princess helmet. These are the moment that I love having a little girl!!

Another tutu – this is a new AC design I just sampled and it will be listed soon along with several other new ones! There is a lime satin stitch “band” underneath my bow (that I pinned on for the picture).

MORE TUTU!!! How cute is this gator!! The girls at Bayou Belles and Beaus emailed me about advertising today and after some back & forth, we agreed to try them out for a month as an ad sponsor on my blog. As you can see I have added their button on the right with my other sponsors and I also posted on my Facebook page about their page and added their link to my favorites on Facebook. Did you get all that? I jotted down on my pad of paper that they had 350 fans when I mentioned their page on my page. I just checked and they are now up to 408! They have some cute smocked dresses and other items! Check them out!

The boys had Art Camp this morning and my inlaws took Mallory for the morning too. They didn’t come home til 2:00 so I was able to WORK (for a change) and got all of the below done (with a lunch break to Mama G’s and Nancy’s). These are all Applique Cafe designs and I did all of the onesies using my 4×4 hoop. I did use a 5×7 hoop on the bibs. The lion font is Tipsy (monogram wizard plus font) and the others are done in MWP Atilla. Some I made skinnier and the golf green I curved the name. The cowboy boot bib is MWP Simple Script which looks cowboy-ish to me!

I did these 2 last week ~ also AC designs. Fonts: Mermaid is Sunny MWP and Flip Flops is Kim MWP!

I also had someone comment about brown thread. These are the 2 I use the most. The left is your basic chocolate brown and the right is a deeper darker brown. I have a few other weird browns but rarely use them!

 

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN A SPONSOR AD, PLEASE EMAIL ME AT rosemarygulledge@gmail.com!

Filed Under: Applique Cafe, Design, Shopping | Tagged: Tagged With: ,

How do you “raggy”?

Posted by on March 10, 2011

You may see the cute “raggy/shaggy” designs at Applique Cafe or other sites and wonder “how do they do that?” I get the question quite a bit and was working on a new design today, so I decided to take pics of each step. We have a few raggy designs at AC (click HERE) and there are also some cute ones at www.embroidery-boutique.com! I love her raggy flower and butterfly!

As you can see below my machine has already sewn the 1. Marking, 2. Tackdown and 3. Satin stitch for the strawberry design (not yet listed). This is step 4. Marking for the stem.

The key to a raggy design is flannel. You can use colored flannel, matching flannel (lime fabric and lime flannel) or use a contrasting flannel which I have done on some of the EB designs before (hot pink fabric and lime flannel underneath). It’s up to you and this is plain ole flannel I got at Hobby Lobby! As you can see below I’ve ironed both pieces (note to self: get a new tabletop ironing board asap).

I want my gingham to be diagonal, so I’m laying my fabric on top of my flannel and placed them both down for step 5. Tackdown.

This is step 5. Tackdown below.

Step 6 for this design is called a redwork stitch. It’s sort of a thick running stitch that goes back & forth a time or two to create the thick dense stitch often used in quilting.

Now I’m going to trim my fabric AND flannel around the redwork stitch, leaving about 1/8″ (or more or less depending on how raggy you want your fabric). I’m using 4″ curved Gingher embroidery scissors for this.

This is what it looks like after I’ve trimmed the excess fabric away. As you can see I left about 1/8″, but you could cut closer to the redwork for less shaggy or leave it longer for more. It’s up to you!

Now I’m using my straight embroidery scissors that came with my machine. They are a bit dull and I just scrape the edges until the threads come loose and look “raggy”. As you can see I went ahead and did step 7. the seeds (in yellow).

A lint brush comes in handy. Just roll it across to pick up any loose thread, and if there are any long threads you can just trim those with your scissors and pick them up with the lint brush as well.

Here is what it looks like finished! Sorry for the poor photo quality but it was a yucky rainy cloudy day today. I will get a better picture tomorrow! This is how you achieve the “raggy” look – it’s very fast and very easy! Some designs are all raggy and some (like the strawberry) just incorporate raggy in to one aspect of the design (i.e. tree swing design).

Why flannel? It frays easily and adds a thick layer to your fabric to make it more 3D and quilted looking. You could also use just 2-3 layers of fabric, and I’ve also used just flannel in a raggy design before (see raggy snowman).

Why raggy? It’s personal preference! Some people like raggy designs and some don’t. I like them because they are different, textured and fast and easy to sew!

Do I use Heat N Bond Lite? For this design, YES on the strawberry part of the design and NO on the raggy part. The redwork stitch will hold your fabric down. HNBL is not necessary and would interfere with the fabric fraying properly.

Filed Under: Applique Cafe, Design, How To | Tagged:
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