Fabric, Fabric, and more Fabric

Thank you for all the kind comments and emails regarding my last blog post! I’m feeling like 99.9% normal as of today, and I’m looking forward to driving again (hopefully tomorrow)! Other than fighting a nasty sinus/cold thing, I don’t feel like 2 weeks ago I was near death. Not really near death, but you know the feeling. I forgot to post last time the funny thing that happened that Friday morning as I was getting ready to “check out” of the hospital. Walgreens called me in my room because they were to bring me any meds that were prescribed to my “bedside” before I got out. The poor girl who called me ask “What time is your baby getting discharged?”. I wonder what she would have said had I replied “My UTERUS was discharged on Tuesday. Bring me my drugs!!!!” I was on the OB floor, so I guess she assumed I had given birth! Jeff & I got a good laugh out of it.

Who’s ready to move on from Christmas fabric, designs, etc?? I AM! We have already listed a couple of new Valentine designs, including our Valentine Dogs and our Zig Zag Heart. How about some Valentine fabric? These are all new fabrics from TJ’s Fabrics and I don’t know which is my favorite!

OK so these aren’t technically Valentine, but they are NEW and CUTE!! I will TRY to include brand info for all of these, but some may not have the writing on them so you can check them out on their website. Check out the Newest Additions tab on the Online Store page or Home page.

Above: All Riley Blake Sweetcakes ~ Petals Pink, Strawberries Blue and Sweetcakes Blue.

Now on to some great Valentine fabrics! Love the red and pink together!

Above: Riley Blake Hello Sunshine ~ Dot Red, Plaid Red, Apple of My Eye Herringbone Red and Michael Miller Ta Dot Pink (I THINK?)

Above: Riley Blake Chevron Pink, Robert Kaufman Spot On, Moda Cherry on Top Strawberry and bottom right, ?? not sure what it is. It might be Moda also.

Above: Riley Blake Sweetcakes Heart Red (LOVE), Sweetcakes Love Pink (tiny hearts), Robert Kaufman (middle), and right Riley Blake Sweetcakes Stripes Pink.

Above: Robert Kaufman Remix Chevron Red, Riley Blake Sweetcakes Stripes Pink, Fabric Finders Chevron Rasberry, Riley Blake Chevron Red, Riley Blake Sweetcakes Stripes Blue and bottom right, Fabric Finders Chevron Red.

Sorry I didn’t link each one, but you can go to their website and search by Designer, look at all new fabrics, etc. They are all easy to find! Have a great day!

p.s. Today is the last day to take advantage of 25% off gift certificates at Applique Cafe!

Crab Legs

Happy Tuesday! I’m feeling much less stressed since my last post. I was able to leave town Friday morning and head south for a party-of-8 weekend beach trip with my bunko gals. I have been playing bunko with a group of girls for the past 14 or so years. A lot of girls have come and gone, but there’s a core group of us who have gotten married together and had kids, all while meeting once a month to roll some dice! We went to Destin this year and had a great time and the weather was outstanding! Saturday night I decided to order “Shrimp & Crab Legs” because it sounded good and I didn’t want fried shrimp and french fries. Oh my! When they brought out the bib I realized I might be in trouble. I did wear the bib (since I burned a hole in my dress earlier that night with an iron and wore it anyway) and my poor friends sitting next to me needed bibs too! I did have to pick crab meat out of Amy’s hair at one point. Anyway it was really yummy even though I had no idea what I was doing. A trip to the bathroom afterwards was in order (to wash hands)… BTW we ate at Poppy’s in Baytowne Wharf. This photo doesn’t show the plate of crab legs 5″ high when they brought it out to me.

 

 We came back Sunday afternoon and that’s when I kicked in to high gear and cleaned/organized/did laundry so that I could start the week Monday without a mess. To me, having a clean house and being organized means less stress. I’m trying to work on a “schedule” so I can work 2-3 days a week, still get my errands done and not have my head spin every afternoon after school. It’s a work in progress! I’ve been doing this since 2007 and still haven’t figured it out… I’m making lists and just trying to get everything done! I won’t mention that the sink is full of dishes and the counter is full of the days errands….

Here are some AC designs I did last week on onesies that were sent to me by a customer. This is our Owl 2 design which I love! I love all owls! The dot is a Riley Blake fabric (Multi Good Dots – great colors) and the gingham is Fabric Finders (1/8″ I think). The cord is just a good celery “baby whale” cord (I think??).

This is where Sew What Pro comes in handy! This is the patch from the Football Patch design and the megaphone from the Megaphone Square Patch design. These are both Robert Kaufman dot fabrics I’ve had forever (and use a ton). Font – Monogram Wizard Plus “Kim Single”.

 Here’s the Zig Zag Turkey design. I’m not sure what this fabric is? I want to say Riley Blake but I might be wrong! Zig Zag designs are super easy and a little faster than satin. I recommend you use Heat N Bond Lite when doing ZZ designs so your fabric doesn’t fray.

 I get told a lot “I’m new to embroidery/I just got my machine/What do I do?/Where do I start?” While I would love to take time to walk each and every newbie through the process on 28 different machines, it’s just not possible. The best thing I can tell someone who is new to this is a) there is a thread chart in each zip file that shows you each step in the design. It’s that simple. b) put a super simple 1 fabric design on your machine (there are several in our Design on a Dime category), hoop a scrap piece of fabric or some cutaway stabilizer and just try it out. You’ll be amazed at how fast it will *click* in your brain and all make sense! If you mess up, I’d be willing to bet you will learn from it. Get another scrap or piece of stabilizer and try it again! c) read my blog, specifically Helpful Posts. When I started out, I had my machine and it’s manual. There were no blogs and I didn’t have anyone to email or call for help. I bought a font applique alphabet, put a letter on my machine and figured it out! I promise it will click in your head. Just remember that for each fabric there are 3 steps:

marking (shows you where the fabric should go)

tackdown (tacks that fabric down, then you trim)

satin (finishing stitch around the fabric – could be satin, zig zag, etc)

So 3 steps for each fabric in the design. Then factor in eyes, mouth, feet, etc. that might be just thread! Some designs sew marking, tackdown, satin all in that order for each fabric. Some sew marking and tackdown for all fabrics, then satin for all at the end. Both ways can be right so just look at the thread chart and figure it out! OR, try Sew What Pro. I pull up each and every design in SWP so that I can *SEE* it. I can click on each step to see what’s next! Check out Helpful Posts for some posts on SWP and what the screen looks like.

Have a great week!

Happy Summer!

Happy Summer! I hope you are all having a splendid laid back summer. When was the last time you used the word splendid? 1964? We survived VBS, have been enjoying some great pool time and are not about to strangle each other yet. I normally send at least 2 of my kids to summer school (2 days/week) but this year with bible school and beach trips and other goings-ons, I decided to keep them all at home. So far so good! I adore my kids, but we all know being with them 24/7 can be trying at times. Overall they are getting along great which helps my sanity! G just almost took Mallory’s eye out with a diving stick but other than that we are good.

Moving on…. here is an example of what fabric can do to an applique. This is an OOLLLLDDD sample of our Fat Fish design. It’s cute (and probably matched something), but…

not as cute as this!! I left the fin off and this Michael Miller fabric matches some shorts I got at an overstock sale for around 8 bucks. I need to replace my website photo BADLY! I really need to go through and redo LOTS of old designs.

My precious model. She just loves for me to take pics (not).

Here is a new Swirly Cupcake design we listed recently, and I did it on this Kas-Wear dress. The orange and hot pink fabric is Fabric Finders tri-check. I got it recently at Beth’s Heirloom Sewing. I love orange and hot pink or orange and any color. Anyway, you can find the Kas-Wear at Berlins Online! Mal’s head is cut off in this photo because I was trying to take her picture and she did not want me to (and was crying). She wore this as a swim coverup. We were probably headed to the pool and I stopped her for a photo shoot. Is there anything cuter than little 4 yr old knees??

Better! This dress makes a great swim coverup or it would even make a nice lightweight summer gown! Kas-Wear has some GREAT dresses, tees and other blanks in great colors! I’m monogramming a couple more for Mallory right now in lavender (w/ lime mono) and hot pink (also w/ lime mono).

I also appliqued this towel recently and the cute towel came from Costco! Who doesn’t love polka dots? The fabric I used is Michael Miller. I THINK it came from TJs Fabric.

Today is the last day for our 50% off sale ~ www.appliquecafe.com. I’ve seen a lot of fall designs come through the carts. As hot as it is, I know it’ll be football season before we know it! The font I used for SALE is Cheri from Jolsonsdesigns.com. I hope Jolsons has sold several of these alphabets because I have had a ton of people ask me what it was! We do not sell any fonts at this time, so most of the ones I use are like this one from Jolsons and I also have several from Embroidery Boutique!

 Have a great weekend! The sale will be “taken down” first thing in the morning!