New Wholesale Blanks!

Happy Wednesday! I hope everyone is feeling better than I am. We live in Montgomery, AL, so the weather is “cray-cray” as they say. One day it’s 30 degrees and the next it might be 80. We’re back to pretty cold and cloudy today so my sinuses are a mess, I can’t breathe and I haven’t slept in 2 nights. I’m a little jacked up right now on DayQuil and Starbucks so pray I sleep tonight!!

I did some shirts last week and had to share this one. This customer of mine is very specific and EASY and this was her idea, not mine! She wanted a double circle with this cute Tricycle fabric in the middle. I’m guessing she has pants or shorts to match. Sorry the photo isn’t great, but you get the idea. I just merged 2 circles together in Sew What Pro. Getting the size right was a little tricky and luckily it worked out with the tricycle.

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Super cute fabric! I thought I had some to tell you what it was, but I can’t find any and my customer has already picked up (it was her fabric). I’m guessing Fabric Finders?

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I think in the past I’ve done something similar with this fabric (below) using a rectangle patch and one of the cars, buses or bicycles. If you have fabric similar to this and can’t find the right design to match, consider using your fabric in a patch!

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Jeff & I went to a friend’s 40th birthday party this past weekend, and the theme was 80s & 90s. It was HILARIOUS! The music was great too! Jeff rounded up his outfit and sporto-rolled his old jeans, and I hit Walmart (yes, Walmart) for most of mine. I hate you can’t truly appreciate the banana clip in my hair! My top was neon pink and actually glowed in the dark. Did we really dress like this?? We are headed to an 80’s Prom party next weekend so that should be fun too. I found a dress on Etsy and can’t wait to get it. Think MAUVE, huge puffy sleeves and a huge bow across the back!

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Now on to a NEW BLANKS supplier. I got an email a week or two ago from Blossom Blanks based out of Birmingham, AL. Jenny offered to send me a few blanks to try out and I got them yesterday. They are really cute! I was going to do a few samples on them and post then, but decided to go ahead and post some photos today. A little info on Blossom Blanks ~ they are a family owned business based out of Birmingham, AL and at this time they are strictly wholesale (business license and sales tax ID required). Their shirts are 100% organic cotton and very soft. With any cotton there is some shrinkage and their sizing accommodates for that. Right now they offer long sleeve tees for boys and girls and onesies (long sleeved). They are taking pre-orders for short sleeve tees for boys and girls (ruffle) and onesies and also baby gowns (late February) and girl angel sleeve tees (March). They only offer white at this time but intend to add color as they grow! Check out their website for their Gallery of photos and for more information!

Here are my pics, and again, it’s a little cloudy today so take that into account!

This is the girls ruffle long sleeve tee.

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This is the boys long sleeve tee.

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This is the long sleeve onesie.

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Here are some closeups of some of the detail on the tees and onesie.

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Again, check out Blossom Blanks for more information! You’ll find a size chart and can get pricing information as well as see photos of some cute kids in these blanks! They are also on Facebook.

Don’t forget that our Applique Cafe sale ends tomorrow (Thursday, 1/24)! We listed 5 new designs yesterday shown below.

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 Also, have you heard there is going to be a 2nd annual Everything Applique Conference this year? The date is set for May 17-18th in Birmingham, AL again. Follow the page on Facebook to keep up with all of the class information, registration info, etc.

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Sample Makeover and HNBL

A little history on Applique Cafe… we started in August 2009, so 3+ years ago. Bless my heart, some of my old samples are just sad! The fabrics are yuck so-so, but some of the photos are worse than so-so. We now have over 575 designs, so while I can’t re-do ALL of the “bad” samples, I’m working on it here and there. I also just recently started removing the background (i.e. white stabilizer or shirt or whatever I used) from my photos. Again, I can’t do all 575+ but work on them here & there. I use Photoscape to edit my photos (rotate, crop, lighten, add watermark, etc), but also have Photoshop Elements (Adobe Photoshop Elements 10) to remove my backgrounds. I really need to learn more about Elements so I could do it all in there, but for now I toggle back and forth between the 2 programs. Photoscape is FREE, BTW.

We also sell some of our designs at SWAK Embroidery and also on Etsy. Here’s a prime example of a design that we were getting ready to list on Etsy. Our Alligator design is one of our originals (#60 out of 575) and I shrieked a little when I saw this picture! The fabrics are cute enough, but I think I must have taken this picture in a closet somewhere! So…. this morning I re-did the sample with a brighter chunky lime gingham with turquoise teeth and eye. I also got a brighter picture (outside even tho it’s dreary here) and removed the background in my photo. It looks MUCH better, eh? One design at a time…… A good photo and fabric can make ALL the difference!

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 Now, on to further discussion on Heat N Bond Lite (see this POST for more info). I saw a post or two last week on Facebook regarding Heat N Bond Lite versus Steam A Seam Lite (2?). You can find it at most sewing stores like Joann, Hancocks, Hobby Lobby etc. It’s described as “double stick fusible web”. Years ago before I discovered HNBL I tried it (and Wonder Under), but found it a little stickier than I liked for my machine. I HAVE NOT tried it since, and they may have changed it and I noticed a SASL2 so that may even be the new thing (vs. just LITE). Anyway, a question was posed on Facebook asking if people were going to switch, or stick with HNBL. I am choosing to stay with HNBL. I’ve been using it for years, it’s easy to work with and my machine has no problems with it! I encourage everyone to try SASL if you feel inclined (Wonder Under too for that matter), and figure out what YOU like! Figure out what works best for you and your techniques, and your machine, and your finished product. Just because I use HNBL doesn’t mean everyone else has to. But, I do recommend it!

I thought I would post a few pics I took of a shirt I did recently for my daughter. I wanted to show what the shirt looked like straight out of the dryer. This is a Garanimals long sleeved tee from Walmart (60% cotton/40% polyester), and our Bird 3 design. As you can see it’s a little wrinkled, which is normal for a t-shirt I believe and this was probably after 3 fluff cycles since it takes me 3 days to get clothes out of the dryer to fold them.

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The applique itself looks pretty good. Most of the “wrinkle” in my opinion is in the shirt. The applique fabric is still fused to the shirt with no bubbles.

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I ran an iron over the shirt a time or two, and this is how it looks. There is a “wet spot” between little birdie’s legs, which is probably a stain of grease or cheese dip or something. Sissy is 4 so most of her shirts have something on them!

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The applique looks crisp and wrinkle-free!

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Here is a side view – no bubbles.

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I use a cheap Shark iron that most likely came from Target.

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The instructions on HNBL say: Preheat iron to medium heat, no steam. I do keep water in my iron but do not use the steam setting. The water comes in handy ~ squirt it on any hoop burns and iron and they go away. Also, if you stitch an applique design on a shirt and feel as though your fabric is a little bubbly, squirt a little water on it and iron well. For me, it takes the bubbles out and fuses the applique fabric to the shirt. In case anyone is wondering, I do not prewash shirts, fabric or anything. No dryer/hanging to dry is probably good practice for applique shirts, but I have 3 kids and doing laundry is a daily chore. I dry just about everything and have no issues!

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Please comment with any questions!

Christmas is ovaaaa…

Wow, Christmas is over! It seems to come and go so fast!? We haven’t “put away” a single decoration yet and are enjoying some time off. Here are a few things I worked on over the past week for Mallory and for a friend’s daughter. Below is an orange cord skort I got from someone ($10 hand-me-down) and I got the hot pink tee from good ole Wally World to match ~ Garanimals. The skort has hot pink ric rac trim. This is our Bird 3 design. I just love birds! I also love hot pink and ORANGE!!

 Below was a hoodie dress I got Mallory for Christmas from Old Navy. It is like a sweatshirt material and sooooo soft! I can’t find them online, but they come in several color combos and of course I bought it on sale with a coupon. Again, hot pink and orange and I used MC Center (Monogram Wiz Plus) for the font. It’s the sister font to Master Circle and might be my new favorite! This is nothing fancy, but I just love picking up a dress for 10 bucks and adding a monogram!

These are J. Khaki shirts from Belk, and I did our Heart Cross design on this one. I tried to find this shirt online too but all I see is SPRING! The chevron fabric is from TJ’s Fabrics which I love.

 On this J. Khaki shirt, I did Embroidery-Boutique’s Raggy Flower design, which is a favorite! On the raggy designs I use a layer of white flannel underneath my fabric. You can also use colored flannel or a couple of extra layers of fabric underneath – white or gingham that coordinates. This fabric is an all time favorite – it’s from Hobby Lobby. Check out Helpful Posts for more info on Raggy designs.

 

Are you asleep yet? Not much exciting to report! We just listed 4 designs at Applique Cafe. We are having a sale on all designs through Wednesday, January 2nd. Lots of new Valentine designs and we’re working on more new designs for SPRING and EASTER.

Have a great weekend and a HAPPY NEW YEAR! I’ll see if I can come up with something more exciting to post next time. I was thinking of posting about red & pink thread colors for Valentines Day??