Organization, Part 3

Did you think I forgot about ORGANIZATION?? Here is my next (and last) installment of organization posts! Hopefully you caught my previous 2 blog posts on some cool videos I found – Stabilizer Savvy and How to Start an Embroidery Machine Business. Now back to Organization and Part 1 & Part 2 are on the blog…

Tips & Timesavers for doing monograms and appliques

Beth’s answer to this – if she has 10-15 minutes before school, carpool or a sports event, she will sit down and design monograms (in her software) so they are ready when she is ready to sew them. She also may cut fabric and iron on the backing (Heat N Bond Lite) so she’s ready!

This is also where having extra hoops comes in handy! When I first started, my PE700 came with 1 5×7 hoop. Of course I ordered the 4×4 and 2×3, but also eventually ordered extra 4×4 and 5×7 hoops. That way I could work on hooping the next item while stitching another. I now have 3 4×4 hoops, 2 5×7 and a variety of other hoops – Durkee 9×9 and 6×6. I also have a variety of Fast Frames so I have plenty of hoops/frames to get the next item ready!

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INSTEAD of cruising Facebook (or Instagram, or Pinterest…) while that 46 minute monogram stitches, see what else you have to work on and start preparing. Iron, mark your center, go ahead and hoop it or attach it to the fast frame, cut your fabric for appliques, iron them and apply Heat N Bond Lite. Go ahead and set aside thread colors for the next project! There are lots of ways to maximize your time while sewing. Try not to get distracted! 

I think I posted this photo before, but while the burp cloth was stitching, I went ahead and ironed the bib, marked the center and ironed tearaway stabilizer on the back. I knew I was doing a small patch applique, so I went ahead and cut that fabric, ironed it and applied my Heat N Bond Lite. It’s ready to hoop and stitch!

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I was doing a few of these cute bags the other day from Ikea. While 1 was stitching, I went ahead and got the next one ready – center marked and attached to the fast frame! I didn’t have another frame to get the 3rd one ready, but I went ahead and marked my center. IMG_5574

Easiest Way to Pick out Fabric & Thread Colors

This can be hard sometimes and easy sometimes! For me, Sew What-Pro saves me A LOT of time in this department. When I am getting ready to sample or sew a NEW design, I always open it up in SWP first and change the colors around to get an idea of what colors I want to use. This gives me a head start in choosing fabrics. Here’s an example:

This is what the design looked like fresh out of being digitized, ready for me to sample. As most of you know, my husband Jeff does the digitizing and he makes each step a different color, but there’s no rhyme or reason to which colors he chooses.

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The first thing I do is change the colors to help me visualize what color fabric and threads I plan to use. For boy designs I usually start with primary colors, or my favorites like turquoise, lime, orange, etc. For girls, I usually start with hot pink and then go from there – turquoise, lime green, orange. This is just a starting place!

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This is one of our single fabric patch designs, so I typically use simple fabrics like ginghams, stripes & polka dots. As you can see, setting the colors I want to use before I sew it really helps!

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Sometimes you might be matching a pair of shorts, or matching a monogram to some trim on a bag. Those projects are easy! Sometimes I am sampling new designs and I will sort through every piece of floral fabric I own trying to find the perfect fabric. This is where organized fabric comes in handy! I have mine organized by design – polka dots, ginghams, florals, boy fabrics, textured fabrics (minky & chenille), etc.  Keeping your fabric & thread organized is a good start!

If your applique is several fabrics, start by nailing down the main fabric. If it’s a floral, see what goes with it – polka dots, ginghams, stripes, solids, etc. Most of our designs at Applique Cafe are very SIMPLE. Other than Turkey designs and a hand full of others, most of our designs aren’t more than a few fabrics which makes your job easier!

When do you not work or when is it OK to take the day off?

Beth tries really hard not to work when her kids are around! See my last post! 🙂 If her kids are playing outside, she might throw something easy and “safe” on the machine. If she is not in the mood to embroider, she tries to stay away from the machine. I agree! That’s when you make the most mistakes, or your machine will act up FOR SURE. Personally, I try not to work on the weekends. There are some Saturdays when we have nothing going on and the kids are down the street playing, so I might sit down and get some work done. I often have people call and want to come over at all times of the day, including when we are eating dinner. I try to avoid that! You need to keep family time sacred, and as much as you think you need to work for 12 hours a day, you need to pace yourself, be more organized and set a reasonable work schedule!

Another tip or suggestions that I got:

At the end of the day, put everything back in it’s place! Put your hoops away. Make sure your fabric is all back in the right basket. Throw away the scraps and things that need to be thrown away. Finish up the day by leaving your work space organized and clean, then you are ready for the next day!

If you have any other suggestions or tips, do share! Leave us a comment and I will be sure to share!

Summer

It is officially summer at Applique Cafe! My kids finished school on Friday and we spent the weekend at the lake through Monday. Yesterday was officially the first day of our summer, and today we christened the neighborhood pool for the first time. For some reason it doesn’t really feel like summer to me? Other than NOT having to get up early, pack any snacks or get anyone dressed for school, it doesn’t feel like summer. I think this past school year flew by so quickly that it hasn’t hit me yet!

After doing about 24 graduation towels in the past couple of weeks, here are a few things I’ve been working on. Below is an outfit I did yesterday (the shirt part of the outfit) for our cute little neighbor who is turning 2. She loves fish, so I went with our Girly Fish design. The top and knit shorts, which are adorable, are from Monkey Tails Blanks. MTB is based out of Montgomery, so when my neighbor asked for recs on a cute top or dress to wear, I sent her to their website. When ordering, you can also order a swatch of fabric to coordinate your appliques with your bottoms. I honestly wasn’t sure how the stripes would look on a fish design, but I love how this turned out! Knit is suprisingly easy to work with and I use Heat N Bond Lite on it which fuses the knit to my shirt and the outcome is a clean crisp applique. Font: Monogram Wizard Plus “Happy” (my absolute fave for girls).

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I do monogramming for a local gift shop, and today on the machine I had a semi large cooler bag to do. My machine is typically on a 1 file drawer piece of furniture, and this is the second time in years that I’ve needed a real multi needle machine stand. The cooler was a bit too bulky to cram under the machine, so I straddled my machine on my stand and my tool chest. It worked! I watched it the whole time holding my breath, believe me!

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Yay! (Monogram Wizard Plus “Curly Q” font)

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Other than the above, I have a short list of old designs that I’m re-sewing. Sometimes sewing a design with new fabric brings it back to life! Here’s our Sea Turtle, which is like our 113th design (we now have close to 800 designs on our website).

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Our Simple Turtle, #102.

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Slide (#140)

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Our Snail, #91!

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I have a few more I’m working on, doing a couple each day. The above multi dot fabric used in the Sea Turtle and Snail is from Alfie & Bettie, Gumballs Pink. It’s super cute and I’ve been asked several times what it is.

Here are several cute new fabrics I got from TJ’s Fabrics. The small quatrefoils are from Fabric Finders. The larger quatrefoils are Riley Blake! I really like the colors on the larger quatrefoils and can’t wait to use them! Someone asked if these were replacing CHEVRONS! Not sure, but they are cute!

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I will close with several pics of the kids, including MAGGIE, from this past weekend and the end of the school year! Yes, those are real ducks. Our neighbors at the lake bought and raised them in St. Augustine, FL and brought them to the lake this past weekend to release them. They were fun to watch! Have a great rest-of-the-week!

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Embroidery Software and Fabric

Happy Thursday Friday! Sometimes it takes me a day or two to get a post up…  I am so excited to post about a “new” product I am now selling on the website!! No, not all of the cute and simple applique designs even though I AM excited about selling those too. I am now selling the wonderful, affordable, not really new, but easy-to-use embroidery software I have been recommending to anyone who asks or will listen for the past several years. SEW WHAT-PRO!

What do I use it for? Mainly I use it for merging a name or initials with an applique design. An example is below. I formatted the name “andrew” in Monogram Wizard Plus (font is Kazoo). I save it to my computer. I open SWP and OPEN the new fish design and then MERGE in the saved name. I then arrange it all and center the whole design and then put it on my machine to sew! There is a lot more you can do with SWP, but that’s my main use for it.

ALSO, I use it even when I’m just sewing an applique design with NO NAME. I like to *SEE* what I am sewing on my computer screen, so I open all of my files in SWP so I can see them. You can click on the thread chart on the right and see which step is next! You can also use SWP to delete parts of a design. A lot of people also use it to merge bought embroidery fonts together. When you buy embroidery fonts on the internet (NOT using a monogram software such as Monogram Wiz Plus), each letter is it’s own file, so you have to merge the letters together to form a name or initials. SWP can do that!

Please check it out on my website (Sew What-Pro) if you are looking for software such as this! It’s only $65 and it’s the best $65 I’ve ever spent. There is more info on the listing and also a manual you can download to look over.

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I had several people ask me where this Footprint design came from from a previous post. I did this design on some burp cloths for a local ministry so the design was sent to me. Thank you to my blog reader who reported where the design can be found! It looks like it’s part of a set, but maybe you could email the website and just get this design? You can find it HERE. (ps designs are a little pricey compared to American sites?)

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Now on to FABRIC! Last weekend the fam traveled to Destin, FL for a soccer tournament for my middle child. We normally take a route which leads us through Troy (AL), around Elba and someway here and there we end up at the beach. Well, there was road construction somewhere near Elba and we ended up NOT going the way we had planned. When I realized we were heading towards Opp, AL, I got excited b/c TJ’s Fabrics is in Opp! I had not been through there in a long time and was overwhelmed by all of the beautiful fabric that has now taken over the store! Last time I was there 1/2 the store was fabric and 1/2 was gifts and drug store type items. This time, fabric was everywhere!! Everything is arranged by colors and chevrons and I could have spent all day there had the kids and hubs not been waiting in the car. Lucky for you, they have an awesome website so if you aren’t in Alabama or traveling through the area, you can order online. If you ARE traveling to the beach (Destin, Panama City Beach, Seagrove/Seaside, etc) then DETOUR!! Plug it in the GPS and stop by, and tell TJ I said “HI”!! 🙂

My selfie for 2014! I will let the pictures speak for themselves…..

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See what I mean? This is just HALF of the store! They also have a studio room (right side of photo) where they do classes and quilting and all that. Oh, you can still get a prescription filled there too! 😉

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I’ll take one of each….

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Chevron for days…..

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Here’s what I left with! I can NEVER have enough polka dots! These are Michael Miller “Kiss Dots”. I may have kissed them…

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Sissy with some other pretties!

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Fat quarter bundles ready for you to grab and go!

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More chevrons….

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These are Susybee Bunny Dashes & Carrots. Easter is a little over a month away!

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Our Jellyfish 2 design! I believe they are also sewing and doing appliques & monogramming for customers!

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Michael Miller Diddly Dot Primary! So cute!!

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They also have gobs of blanks!

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More pretty colors…

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I’ve had my eye on these since I saw them on Facebook! These are Riley Blake, Summer Breeze.

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Again, if you are traveling to Florida this summer and coming anywhere near South Alabama, stop by!

I hope to get a more detailed post up soon on Sew What-Pro and how I use it! It’s been a busy week so stay tuned…

One last thing, because there is nothing more disheartening to post something and get no love!!

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