Last chance for Embroidery Library's Free May Designs!

Today is your last chance to 'buy' your Free May 2015 machine embroidery designs from Embroidery Library. This month there was three of them. One set was Suzani Butterfly with Flowers and also a Suzani butterfly on it's own. There is also a fun vintage sewing machine with birds and flowers.  Lots of places that these designs can be used.

While you are there picking up your May designs, you can grab the June designs already as well. There is a basket of lovely red roses in two sizes, and a Spice it up sampler also in two sizes. It is certainly worth your while to go get these designs.

What if you don't have an embroidery machine yet but are planning eventually to get one? Get those designs now anyhow so that when the day comes that you have an embroidery machine you won't be dependent on just the designs that come with your machine. I have been downloading free designs for years and I probably have maybe 4-5 thousand ones. I even download designs that are larger than my machine can cope with, but I want to have them just in case. In the meantime study up on brands you are interested in. I do recommend Janome machines, and no they don't pay me to say that! I've been using their brand of machines for close to 35 years at this point and they never disappoint. You can either buy a stand alone embroidery machine or choose from several different machines at different price points that are combination sewing and embroidery machines. While I do recommend that you support your local dealer, if you are so unfortunate to have a dealer that is a 'pill' or they are so far away, you may want to consider buying on line.

Pressing Quilt Block Seams

For years I have read in every book and magazine along with discussions with other quilters, that when pressing seams in a quilt block to press BOTH seam allowances off to the darker side or to one side that will help keep all the seams aligned correctly for sewing all the blocks together. So I pick up a magazine yesterday (sorry can't remember the name off hand) and while I was looking through it, they had an entire page devoted to pressing the seams in quilt blocks open and why, including preventing two seams from getting off kilter when you sew over both of them where you might go from two layers of fabric to six within one stitch length. They had a lot of good reasons for pressing them open and pooh-poohed the idea of it leaving the seams with too much thread tension to hold up. As a garment sewer first before being a quilter, I know that I'm still wearing skirts regularly that I made up to 20 years ago with nary a popped seam. So how can the seam pop out so easily on a quilt when they don’t on garments which actually would get rougher use and lots of trips through the washer?

Anyhow I was looking for ideas on whether any of you have tried and/or routinely press your seams open instead of off to the side. It 'seams' it would help those of you that have trouble with intersections on your 7700 not get thrown off so easily.

Have the books and references been wrong for all these years? As part of my quest to be the best I can be with quilting, I have been trying hard to follow the rules, but is the this a rule that needs to be updated and broken?

Here are some great quilt magazines that I have enjoyed over the years. The one that I found the information about pressing quilt blocks was in the premier issue of a magazine on using pre-cuts. I don't buy precuts, I make my own. At the end of every project, with the leftover small pieces of fabric, I cut out 2 1/2" strips, 2 1/2" squares, 4 1/2" squares and 4 1/2" x 2 1/2" rectangles. If I still have odd shapes left over I will cut them into something that is a fairly common size, such as if I have enough to make a 3 1/2" square, that is what I will cut it into instead trimming off an inch of fabric on both sides and thus wasting part of it. If I wanted to, I could also make 5" and 10" charm and cake squares and fat  quarters, but instead if I have that large of piece of fabric leftover, I fold it up and put it back in my stash. But I've been thinking about rethinking that process. Stince I started working on hexagons for quilting, I am also always looking out for  leftover fabric shapes that I can use for different size hexies.

Doll Faces machine Embroidery Design and Rag Doll Pattern

One of the things I like the best about Embroidery Library, besides all their great FREE designs that they give us, is their constant innovation. Today's email from them features Doll faces and a rag doll body design in several sizes and instructions for making the rag doll. Here is an example of just one of the MANY faces you can use.

You can find this doll face here: Doll Face . You can buy them in 4 different sizes ranging of this face from 2.51" X 1.79" up to 5.87" X 4.18". Obviously you can choose what eye color that you like as well. With the many variations in the doll's faces, whether awake, asleep or winking, as well as different mouth, eye and nose formations 36 different faces were showcased today x four sizes gives you a choice of 144 doll faces, some of which are suitable for the face of a Raggedy Ann and Andy type doll. Not enough faces for what you are doing? Go to the Doll Faces Department and take your pick from 30 pages of doll faces!

Over my years of sewing and machine embroidery, I have run across the occasional doll face that you were generally stuck with one size and one face, so this is fantastic for doll making, especially for rag dolls that a smaller child will use as there are no small parts like button eyes to fall off. With being able to embroider the face, a grandma or other type of holiday elf, can churn out a lot of unique rag dolls for presents in no time at all.

Not only did they show us some new doll faces today, today's email focused on ideas for children's clothing, such as this unicorn that comes as a split design for use on opposite sides of a zippered jacket or sweater. One of the designs was a dinosaur that they split on either side of a Kangaroo pocket so that you see the head coming out and the tail going into the pocket. There are even instructions on how to make this effect. These designs also come in whole animals in all embroidery or applique and feature a lot of different animals. The unicorn design you can see here with a link to the instructions on that page.

Who are these Fairy Tale characters?

 

 

Can someone help me out. I'm trying to list this girls costume pattern, Simplicity 0666 or 8514 Size 2-6. I recognize the one character, but her name escapes me and I have no clue who the other one is although she looks a lot like my niece Kim when she was little! As soon as I know who they are, I will get the listing up and thank you!

Ideas For Recycled Blue Jeans

 



One of the best things about Pinterest, in my opinion, is finding terrific blogs and websites with a bountiful supply of ideas. Finding this blog started with seeing one photo on Pinterest and then following the link to this blog called ANDYAAF . While the site is in another language, once the photos load, you can click on the button at the top of the blog to have it translated into your language. I have NEVER seen such a wealth of ideas for using up old worn out blue jeans. No matter how they get worn, there are always spots on the jeans that will wear like iron for another decade or so. Pop on over to visit to get some great ideas. Maybe you can make all your stocking stuffers for Christmas out of a stack of old blue jeans hanging out in your sewing room, or maybe just one idea will grab at your creative heart. Whichever, you need to visit this site!

A blue jean purse and a blue jean apron I could have thought of, but blue jean sandals?!?!!

After visiting the blog, write in with photos and tell us what you made once you got an idea of what to do.

Free Flower Bouquets Machine Embroidery Designs

Embroidery Library, besides their 2 Free monthly designs that they posted for April has now posted four more Free designs just for this weekend ending Sunday, April 5, 2015. The  four lovely designs are in for sizes each so you can download a total of 16 designs for free and if you haven't downloaded your April designs, 2 new ones in two sizes each, this is a good time to do so! This Poppy design is one of the four designs available for free just this weekend. Isn't it pretty?

This Robin with her nest and eggs is one of the April designs, free to download all month.

Starbird Stock Designs also has a cute Rubber Duck Swirl Design that would be so cute on a baby's bath towel or burp pad.

I hope you like these designs and download them and then go on to support these great companies that consistently develop new, wonderful, great quality machine embroidery designs.

Taking your time to finish a project

I've been working on a Project Linus quilt off and on for several months now. Between not feeling well, being too tired to sew, and just busy, I still don't have the top finished. Sometimes, however there is a gift for procrastinating. I've been using some really cute frog fabric with blue backgrounds. I also have another top made with a pink background, and enough scraps and leftover chunks of fabric to make another quilt top. I kept feeling like it was missing something. I needed a frog machine embroidery design. While I found a few that might work, I would have had to pay for them. Since these are quilts to give away for charity I try to make them the best possible without spending a lot of money on them. The fabric was given to me, so other than the thread and batting they are essentially free. A frog design would have raised the cost. But today I found an adorable frog applique for FREE at Adorable Applique.  Isn't this frog just too cute and fun for a child's quilt? It's Perfect!

Adorable Applique also has a sister site called Cute Embroidery. I've only been connected up with them for the last couple of weeks, and they seemed to have a lot of FREE machine embroidery designs, especially ones that will appeal to children. Sign up for their newsletter so you know when a new design is introduced. You have to get them quickly before another design replaces them.

March 2015 Free Embroidery Library Designs

Check out the newest FREE embroidery designs from Embroidery Library for the month of March 2015. After that there will be a price. I love the great designs from Embroidery Library. These two both come in 2 different sizes. For free designs I always download all sizes of a design since you never know when someone is going to give you a Janome 12000 or 15000! Generally though, when Embroidery Library only publishes two sizes they will fit into a size 5" x 7" hoop as well as a 4" x 4" hoop. I don't like how some designers forget that some still are happily embroidering away with machines that can only take these two sizes.



Embroidery Library currently has a sale going on and I'm picking up a couple of designs that I really like including the Sweet Pea Design Pack. It has several variations including two sizes of border designs and sizes of corner designs. I love sweet peas and these are just too pretty. Do I know what I will be using them for? Nope. I will think of something eventually though in the next 500-1000 years I will need to stay alive to complete all my intended projects!

In Memorium: Koos Van Den Akker

 

Vogue 1301

 

 



 

 

Vogue 1377

Koos Van Den Akker a well known designer died February 4, 2015. While many of his designs were rather strange and different, some just grabbed you. Want to learn more about his life? You can visit his Wikipedia entry here. He also designed a series of sewing patterns for Vogue. We have a lot of his most current Vogue Sewing patterns available in our store at this point, except for one that I really loved that I have tucked away for me to try someday). Unless he had a pattern or two in the process of being published at Vogue, there will be no more of his patterns available to us so if you have been looking for one, this is probably a good time to grab one. Pictured are just a few of his Vogue pattern designs that we currently have in stock. Most in two size ranges at this point.

 

Vogue 1277

Kaleidoscope Stitching for Hand Embroidery

I have always liked the images that Kaleidoscope made when looking through the tube. I especially have liked the special effects that quilters can make with the Kaleidoscope blocks. I'm not sure why I have never made a Kaleidoscope quilt. But then after my last Remicade IV day I popped into my local Barnes & Noble for my 'treat' and saw and looked through the different craft magazines to see which ones would come home with me while I rested for the rest of the day. My Remicade day takes the starch out of me. Anyhow I picked up the current copy of Stitch magazine, Issue 91 Oct.-Nov. and saw this stitch in it and had to have the magazine!

I used a variegated embroidery floss to make the design. For those with eagle eyes, yes I did make a couple boo-boos. Ever since I got bi-focals I have had a few problems with counting spaces on Aida cloth. I love how the design comes out. The article showed the many different ways that you can change the whole look of the stitch by just your use of floss colors and whether you use variegated floss or not.

This is one thing I do like about this magazine is the clear instructions and diagrams, plus samples to help you learn how to make the different stitches. It also has projects to make, and different techniques to get your stitching repertoire increased. I have finally broken down and gotten a subscription by way of Amazon. There are two different Stitch magazines being published that I know of with the name Stitch. This one comes form the UK the other has sewing, quilting, stitching projects from Interweave. I wouldn't mind have a subscription of that one either. It is very hard to find a magazine that focuses on other types of embroidery other than counted cross stitch, so I have been happy to pick it up when I can. Depending on how my hands feel, I can't do a lot of hand embroidery or quilt piecing for that matter, but it is nice to get new ideas to try.

DIY Costumes

Through the kindness of another seller, I was able to get a lot of new costume patterns. Not only can they be used for Halloween, many would be good for school plays or even dress up for little girls. I remember years ago making a cape for my son Ron, and how he wore it all the time. I always tried to make costumes so that they could be worn to play in, such as a sheriffs vest with a star embroidered on it.

I'd love for you to drop in and see our fine selection of costumes and if costumes aren't what you are looking for, we have plenty of other types of sewing patterns. At today's count, we have over 8100 sewing patterns that are uncut and unused!

February's FREE Machine Embroidery Designs from Embroidery Library

Yet again Embroidery Library gives us some lovely machine embroidery designs in two sizes each for this February 2015. While a few companies will give very small simple designs to show their digitizing capability, Embroidery Library gives out full-fledged gorgeous designs to try and use and this month's are beautiful. I appreciate all the companies that make these wonderful designs and give out samples to try. I know with Embroidery Library, it sure works for marketing, since every time I don't have a design I need, I go to Embroidery Library first to buy what I need if they have it.

Do you ever fill overwhelmed with emails some companies send you? I sure do. I had signed up for a company that in the beginning only sent an email every month or two and then it became weekly and then daily! Sorry, but that is way too much and I had to unsubscribe. I've been running into the same problem with Craftsy. While I like their intention and they do have good classes, they also seem to be paying McCall's, Vogue and Threads Magazine to send out their emails as well, so almost daily I get 4 identical emails, day after day, all promoting a particular Craftsy class. Thanks but no thanks. I didn't sign up to get Craftsy emails from Threads or the pattern companies. So these companies that sent me specific, targeted email that I did want to see, are now bombarding my email on a daily basis as well. Tried to write to one of the companies and got the classic pass the buck response. Don't these companies know or understand how they are turning off their paying customers by doing this? I think I currently have around 100 unopened emails since I just haven't had time yet to get rid of the clutter.  Anyone know how to get companies from sending emails that I'm not interested in and that aren't the actual companies, to cease??? Okay, I'm done venting. Happy Stitching.

More Organizing My Sewing Room

Almost two years ago I set myself a goal of organizing my sewing room. Unfortunately it is taking much longer than anticipated due to my lack of physical energy, but every little bit helps. I have been enjoying getting different Binders, Dividers and other office supplies to try and review on the Amazon Vine program as I am slowly but surely trying to get all the paper and other items in my sewing room organized. One of the things that are hard to keep organized is the many different acrylic templates and rulers and their instructions used in quilting. For me they and their instructions were all tossed in the same drawer that I not only had to find the correct template but the instructions to be sure I am using it and measuring correctly. It is amazing how something that looks so simple needs to be used carefully so an entire quilt block comes out okay. So that is what I was working on this time. I had some 3 hole punched plastic sheet protectors that I put my rulers in and on the actual divider with the very nice big pocket I tucked the instructions for each of rulers that were in that section. Five dividers was exactly right for this project. The sheet protectors that I used were not real heavy duty, so I didn't stuff them full. just one or two templates/rulers was sufficient.

There were divider tabs that could be run through your printer with instructions on how to set them up at the Avery website, but for 5 dividers I decided it was much easier and quicker to write what I needed on each tab an slip them in. Some tabs were rather a tight fit, but I would rather have that than divider tabs that are too loose and the tabs would then fall out. For someone that is putting together a lot of notebooks with the dividers, I can see them setting up a template in the computer and then printing it out and they would be much more professional looking. As it is, I am happy that I now will no longer have to rummage around looking for the correct ruler and instructions. Ever minute spared looking for something is a minute more to do what I really like.

Compared to what was available back in the stone age when I went to school, it is nice that people can have a choice in exactly what they need in dividers, binders, tabs, etc. so that their notebooks meets their needs exactly and Avery works hard to give you those choices.

 

 

Curvy Sewing Collective

For all you curvy gals out there, myself included, a website devoted to the curvy woman that sews her own garments. So great to see examples of how particular patterns fit and see many take offs from some of these ladies favorite 'Tried-And-True' (TNT) patterns. I'm sure we all have one. I have a top that I love to make that I think I've made in at least 6 if not more variations. Also this site will give you even more inspiration to sew patterns that you haven't been sure about. Truthfully I was surprised at how well some dresses like a shirtwaist dress could look on some of these women. I have avoided anything with a definite waistline for years, maybe I will get brave enough to try one since dresses with waist are my favorite kind, but I can no longer do zippers up the back so will probably have to stick to front buttons or other kind of front closure.

Visit The Curvy Sewing Collective for Plus-Size Sewers and see all the great info and chances to participate in monthly sewing photo ops.  While we may not carry all the patterns that are posted on that blog, we do carry a large selection of plus-size pattern styles at Moonwishes Sewing and Crafts.  We would love to have you visit and make us your pattern stop. When sourcing patterns for our store, plus size patterns are always the first thing we buy, any other size comes in after that.

Here is a link to a great Threads article for a Fashion Sketching Tool Kit.


Threads is one of my favorite sewing magazines. I have learned so much by reading it - every issue no less!

Great Little Sewing Light

I have the privilege of being on Amazon's Vine Review Program (sorry you can't ask to be in this program). Besides lots of books that I get to read and review, I also get all sorts of items to use and review. This little light I just got to review. It can clamp onto an embroidery hoop if you need extra light for part of a design. With the arthritis in my hands, I can't continually hold onto my embroidery hoop with even this little bit of extra weight added on. But if you are in a tiny very technical spot, and need extra good lighting this little light will do the job. I have also checked, and if I clamp it onto the accessory table that came with my Janome 7700, and then point the light to any unsewing I have to do. Don't you just hate unsewing? I know I do and with this little light I'll be able to see those stitches that are hard to focus on with bifocals.


 

Embroidery Library December 2014 Free Designs

Embroidery Library December 2014 Free Designs have now been posted and if you haven't picked up the November ones, they are still available through November 2014. December's designs are lovely ones that you can use for Christmas projects. One is a Christmas Deer called Prance and the other two are Poinsettia designs within a circle or diamond border. All three designs come in 2 sizes each so you get a total of 6 free designs. Be sure to pick them up while you can.

Spring Floral Monogram Embroidery Designs

With the snow we already got--in less that a week!!--and so many machine embroidery sites promoting lots of Christmas designs currently, it was such a nice surprise to see this Spring Floral Monogram - ABC available for FREE at Hatched in Africa. Now the hard part, remembering to check the site on Tuesdays and Fridays until the set is complete. The whole set will be free as long as you pick it up within the three days after being posted.

Artful Machine Embroidery: A Visual Guide to Creating Clothing You'll Love to Wear

I just saw this book on a embroidery design site. I'm not sure how this book got past me as it was published in 2012. It looks like a terrific book to help you learn some principles and design settings for using machine embroidery designs to make your garments just that much better. The book is Artful Machine Embroidery: A Visual Guide to Creating Clothing You'll Love to Wear by Bobbi Bullard. The book is 227 pages with ISBN 13 - 978-1607055822 and is a softcover. It also come with a bonus CD with 20 machine embroidery designs. I always love getting some of the designs that are used in a book so that I can recreate the look. 

Back when I had my first sewing-embroidery machine, the Janome 8000, you could only buy designs from Janome and they cost almost $100 for 8-9 designs, all smaller than 4" x 4". Since Janome was the first out with a sewing-embroidery machine combo for home sewers, no wonder new designs were so expensive and would entail a wait of anywhere up to around 6 months before the next Memory Card would come out! We are so fortunate now that we have an abundance of machine embroidery designs and no waiting or extraordinary high expense to purchase them! I have probably several thousands designs that I got for free from the different companies so that you can test their designs before purchase. Way back in the early 1990's I would never have conceived of being able to get designs for free! I post many of the ones that I find on a Pinterest page and just in the last two years since I started Pinning I have over 400 free designs posted!

 

The Janome 12000 is my current dream machine!
 


Don't have a ton of money for a dream machine (which is why it is a dream machine!) The Janome 350 is a nice stand alone embroidery machine that can be used to embroider while you sew on your regular sewing machine.
 

November Free Machine Embroidery Designs from Embroidery Library

I don't think anyone can read this blog for long without realizing that my favorite machine embroidery company is Embroidery Library. The are generous with freebies and sales and their designs sew out so well. Over the years they have added extra features which has really helped including being able to run off a color chart of Thread Exchanges depending on which threads you use or have. I have a mixture of Robison-Anton, Sulky, Coats & Clark and Janome threads. However they don't have Janome threads, but they are hard to find anyhow except at a Janome dealer. So for each design you print out you can choose to print out several thread companies on one sheet of paper so you can see which colors you actually have that you can use and what you might want to buy or substitute. You can also print out a sheet with all the design info such as the size of the design, number of stitches, etc.

Here is one of the November 2014 Freebies from the Autumn Birds Department.

 

 

The next design is a Suzani Fall Flower Trio in one large design or for those with a smaller hooping capability two smaller designs that can be joined to make the larger one. You can see more Suzani designs in the Suzani Department.

 

 

These are only available for this month, November 2014, so be sure to get them soon!