Back to School

My boys started back to school this morning! Browder is now in 3rd grade and Garrison is in Kindergarten! They were both giddy this morning and were still giddy when they got in the car after school. That’ll wear off in about a week when I have to lock Browder in the kids’ “office” to do his homework (in tears because it’s SOOOOOO hard). Overall I think they are excited and I think Browder is a little pumped that Garrison is now “in the trenches” with him! Mallory still has a couple of weeks before she goes back to preschool. Anywho it’s been a super busy week or two getting ready for school. It’ll take another week or two for reality to hit that we are BACK IN SCHOOL! 

Once again, I’m loving the Monogram Wizard Plus Facebook Group. I’ve learned so many tips and tricks! One thing I read was in regards to monogramming towels. Here are a couple of towels I did last week and they turned out great (better than usual)! I adjusted the BOLDNESS to 120, selected FILL and UNDERLAY for the font. This is Embroidery-Boutique’s Dotty font. Applique Cafe doesn’t sell ANY fonts BTW. I use this one a lot because it shows a lot of fabric. It also matches my Monogram Wizard Plus Kim Single font. With towels, I use iron on tearaway stabilizer on the back and solvy on top and I hoop it all together. Fabric for the L ~ Windam Fabrics Shadow Flower.

 Here’s another towel with MWP Kim Single font. It looks thicker and better to me with the increased boldness and underlay! I like to use “fill stitch” on towels versus “satin stitch”. It lays the pile of the towel down and won’t “pick” like satin stitch might. I also use fill stitch on most bags and backpacks. Speaking of backpacks, I have gotten my moneys worth out of my Fast Frames in the past couple of weeks. I’ve monogrammed A TON of bags and backpacks!

 I had a few people ask me (and I see it asked all the time) what MWP fonts are good to buy. Here’s a list of the ones I’ve bought and I’ll put a * by the ones I use A LOT. Some of these I got on the website store and some are from Alpha Pak disks that you used to have to buy before the downloadable fonts were available. This list may or may not be 100% accurate as some of the fonts I’ve had forever and can’t remember if they came w/ the software or if I bought them. Arabesque, Cotillion (dressy boy font), *Kim Multi/Single*, *Library*, *Master Circle* (my go-to girl scripty font), MC Center, Party Time (aka Curlz), Playground, Rascal, Recess, *Specs*, Stretch, Worms, Tipsy, Sunny, Penpal. I used to use Tipsy a lot for boys but now I use Library the most. Check out the store to find all of these “extra” alphabets. Some of these came as a set (disks) and I think you can buy them all individually now. There are a few more I’d love to have and will look out for the next Needleheads sale ~ Camp is cute (cowboy-ish), Empire is a great one similar to Master Circle, Silly is cute, Blackboard, Pendant is pretty, and Techie. These fonts are a little pricier than other fonts you buy and merge, but, they are totally scalable and adjustable in MWP and if it’s a font you’ll use a lot (like I use Library and Master Circle every other day), it’s well worth a few extra bucks!

We went to the lake this past weekend with 4 other couples and their families. We had 10 adults and 12 kids and this was our 7th year. We always have fun! Anyway, I came home Sunday and checked Facebook Sunday night. I was going to remind everyone about our sale ending today. Low and behold, I looked and we had an even 10,000 Facebook fans! I was taken aback a little. I try not to take too much stock in that number because of course not all 10,000 fans have embroidery machines. There are other embroidery sites who have 15,000 or even double what we have. HOWEVER, it’s fun and thrilling that 10,000 people *like* our page! That’s a lot of people! We’re already at 10,059 and the number grows every single day! Thanks to all of you who support our little business!

Our 50% off sale ends today, which means it’ll be taken down first thing in the morning! You still have plenty of time ~ www.appliquecafe.com!