Applique Cafe Christmas List!

Just a quick post to share with you all the things we offer at Applique Cafe that should be on your Christmas list! 🙂

  1. GIFT CERTIFICATES!! We sell them in $10 increments and they can be printed and mailed to you or to your mom/friend/cousin/neighbor. If time is of the essence, I can also fill in the info and email it to you to print!

Applique Cafe gift cert 400

2) Monogram Wizard Plus!! I’ve sold 2 this week, so a couple of people are getting new font software for Christmas! There is an actual installation CD for MWP which is shipped to you. I usually mail same day, so it will arrive in your mailbox within 2-3 days (we ship USPS Priority Mail). If you are new to embroidery and are frustrated with the fonts that came on your machine, or with merging letters together, then check out MWP! It’s a GREAT investment for your embroidery business. Below is an example of your screen and it’s super easy to use!

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Look at all the possibilities! It comes with all of the font options you see below, plus you can add to your font collection with a few clicks at the Needleheads store.

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3) Needleheads Store Gift Cards!! You bought or already have Monogram Wizard Plus, and you want to add to your font collection? We sell $25 Needleheads gift cards for $19.99, so you’re saving $5.01 off the bat! Needleheads often runs sales and specials too, so you can save more by using our gift card on top of their sale! We have physical gift cards we can mail you, OR, most people just want the code to get the discount (which we can email to you). Needleheads gift cards are redeemed at the Needleheads Online Store.

Needleheads gift card sale

4) Sew What-Pro Embroidery Software!! SWP is a top seller at Applique Cafe month after month. Not only is it super affordable ($65), it’s easy to use and honestly I couldn’t survive without it! I use it for merging (adding a name to an applique design), minor editing (deleting a part of a design) and for the most part, just to SEE the applique design I’m working on. It shows me the size I’m working on, each step in the process and I can play around with colors (thread) to help me choose my fabrics!

Here are a couple of workspace examples, and I just updated my SWP last night so the screen now looks a smidge different! By the way… the names you see are done in Monogram Wizard Plus, then merged in to Sew What-Pro!

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5) Durkee Cap Frame!! OK so we don’t sell cap frames, but if you saw my recent post on the “new” Durkee Cap Frame, then you might want to add it to your list too! Check out my blog post from earlier this week to learn all about it – HERE. If hats are on your product list, then consider investing in a DCF to make life easier! 🙂 They have frames that are compatible with multi AND single needle machines!

Durkee Cap Frame

6) Mighty Hoops!! Again, not something we sell here at Applique Cafe, but again, check out my recent blog post on the super easy magnetic Mighty Hoops! The hoops can be used alone, or with a fixture to help with centering and easy hooping. Check out that blog post HERE. Below is the 6.5″ square Mighty Hoop and Fixture, and I’m giving it a workout this week monogramming towels!

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And here is my 7.25″ square Mighty Hoop that I use without a fixture! It’s great for items like bibs and bags that are a little harder to hoop.

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7) Applique Cafe Christmas & Holiday Designs!! Lastly….. all of our Christmas & Holiday designs are 40% off, so if you are still working on Christmas shirts, towels or even winter (this category includes snowmen, ice skates, mittens and other winter designs), then they are on SALE!

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Labor Day Specials

Needleheads gift card sale

My Monogram Wizard Plus People…. Take note:
1) We are now selling $25 gift cards to the Needleheads {Font} Store and they are on sale for $19.99/each. (Save $5 herehttp://www.appliquecafe.com/catalog.htm?item=892)
2) Needleheads has a few *new* fonts in the store, and several of their fonts are on SALE (Save $2-3 here)
3) More Discounts (Save MORE here):
$10 off a $35 or more Purchase
$25 off a $60 or more Purchase
$50 off a $100 or more Purchase
4) Some of my *favorite* fonts from the Needleheads Store: Bistro, Camp, Happy, Kazoo, Library and Sweet Script! You can also add new Alpha Paks like Master Circle, Blackboard, Pendant, etc.
5) Who doesn’t love fonts? It’s right up there with my fabric addiction. 
labor day sale

We are having a Labor Day SALE at Applique Cafe! All designs are 35% off through Thursday, September 10th!

Craftsy is also having a great sale on classes & supplies this weekend! On my blog, search “Craftsy” for several blog posts I’ve done in the past 6 months or so on awesome embroidery & product photography classes!

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Lastly, check out our new Digitizer’s Pick which is our Pumpkin 13 Design! This pumpkin could be sewn with a wide variety of cute fabrics! I am obviously partial to polka dots and ginghams, but would love to see this in some other cute fall fabrics! adigitizerspick 500

Big Monograms!

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Good afternoon! I’m excited to be “back to work” this week after being lazy at the beach all last week with my family. When I say family, I mean throughout the week we had 17 people under one roof. My entire family goes for a week every summer to the Seagrove/Seacrest Beach area. We are enjoying summer and trying to stay cool! I posted this PFG (Performance Fishing Gear) shirt a few weeks ago. I did this for my 13 year old niece. I’m sure she saw it on Pinterest or something! This shirt led me to this post on adjusting fonts in Monogram Wizard Plus to make your monograms BIG. It’s certainly not rocket science, but perhaps you haven’t thought about it much. You can adjust the width of your fonts so that the end result is a big monogram that fills the hoop as much as possible!

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Pardon my photos. I’m sure there is a screen-capture-something that is easier to use than Prt Sc, then opening and pasting in Paint, blah blah blah. I’ll do my research on that. In the meantime, here are MY screen shots via my camera. This is just a regular monogram done in Monogram Wizard Plus using Kim Single font. As you can see (with your magnifying glass perhaps), the Letter Size is 1.67 and everything else (i.e. boldness, letter width, kerning, etc) is default 100. At Letter Size 1.67, the name turns out to be 2.09″ tall and 7.03″ wide, which would probably fit in your 5×7 hoop just fine. Not too bad, but by adjusting the Letter Width, you can make the name taller which appears bigger even though you are still in the 5×7 hoop.

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Here I adjusted the Letter Width to 85 and the Letter Size to 1.95. My name is now 2.45″ tall and 7.02″ wide. Basically what I am doing is making the letters “skinnier” and taller. Width of the name stays about the same to fit in the 5×7 hoop.

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Here I decreased the Letter Width down to 75 and Letter Size to 2.20. Now my name is 2.77″ tall and 6.99″ wide. By decreasing the Letter Width and increasing the Letter Size, Mallory is now almost 3/4″ taller than what I started out with! With some fonts you can also adjust the Kerning, which makes letters closer together or farther apart. With this particular font I can’t really get them any closer together.

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You might notice above, the “>” in Mallory (Mallor>y). See THIS POST for an explanation of that! If your letters are spaced unevenly with certain fonts, check out the post!

So now on to another PFG shirt I did for my other niece. I want the monogram as big as I can get it and I want to use my 5×7 hoop. As you can see below, Letter Size is 3.00 and everything else is default. The monogram size at these settings is 6.96″ wide to fit the 7″ wide hoop, and 3.00″ tall. Not bad, but I can get it a little bigger. This is Monogram Wizard Plus “Sydney” font.

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Below I adjusted the Letter Width to 85, which “skinnies” up the monogram to 5.85″ wide (still 3″ tall). I can now increase the Letter Size to get the width back up to closer to 7″.

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I bumped the Letter Size up to 3.55 (Width is still 85) and now the monogram width is 7.01″ and 3.55″ tall. Bigger!

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Below I adjusted my Letter Width a little more, down to 80, and Letter Size up to 3.75. NOW my monogram is 6.96″ wide and 3.75″ tall. By making these adjustments, my monogram went from just 3″ tall to 3.75″ tall. It fills the hoop much better and the monogram will be much bigger on the shirt.

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I took a few shots of the shirt as I got it ready to monogram. I marked my center on the back of the shirt (top panel).

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These shirts are “vented” so I inserted a piece of cutaway between the top layer I’m monogramming and the “net vent stuff”.

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On my 6 needle machine, I hoop with the frame inside the shirt. Again, I’m using cutaway on the inside and I am using water soluble on top (just for extra stabilization). I only had precut squares of the solvy so that’s why you see 2 pieces.

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I put the hoop on my machine upside down, so the monogram is rotated upside down and I had to make sure the arm of my machine was inside the 2 layers of shirt! Sorry this part is a little confusing! If you ever try to monogram one of these shirts, this will make sense.

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Here is the finished shirt. When finished I unhoop, trim the excess cutaway stabilizer from the inside and then just pull away all the water soluble from the top.

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I hope that helps! Again, NOT rocket science with the width/letter size adjustments, but if you are a newbie you may not have realized you could make your monograms a smidge bigger!