Embroidered Napkins

Some friends of mine are holding a baptism for their infant daughter and throwing a party afterwards.  This is a major event and they were wanting to have party favors that their friends could take home to remember the event.  They settled on embroidered napkins for the party favors.

The first consideration was how many napkins and what size and type.  Based on the guest list for the party, they estimated that 40 napkins would be about right.  They wanted very traditional linen napkins, however these proved to be unobtainable for any reasonable price.  In the end, my fabric stash yielded up enough linen to make 8 napkins for special guests, such as the priest and Godparents, and we settled on polyester/cotton napkins already made for everyone else.  Those napkins came in packages of 1 dozen, so I made 36 cotton napkins.

Next was the discussions about what sort of design to use.  The sheer number of napkins involved meant that a relativelty quick stitching design with few color changes would be highly desirable.  A large, dense design doesn't work well on napkins anyway.

A long search turned up this lovely vintage wreath of daisies.  As an added bonus, the daisy is the girl's birth month flower.  To personalize the design, her initials were added to the center of the wreath.  Using the Floriani Total Control embroidery design software allowed me to add the initials and then change the order of the sewing so that the pink initials are sewn right after the pink flowers, rather than after the whole wreath is finished, avoiding one color change.

 The resulting design fits nicely on the folded napkin.  Because the design is sewn to a napkin, there's a desire to have no stabilizer left on the back side.   A tear away would be a mess, with all the small areas in the flower pedals, so a water soluble stabilizer is needed.  The design has to be so close to the edge that the napkin itself isn't firmly help by the hoop.  Instead, the stabilizer is firmly held by the hoop and the napkin is firmly pinned to the stabilizer.  It's necessary to pin the two outside the area of the design.

After a serious workout of my embroidery machine, then washing the napkins to remove the remaining stabilizer, then ironing the napkins, here's the whole set, gathered all together.  The linen napkins are the stack on the right.

Epilogue: The party was a marvelous success and the guests departed with their souvenir napkins.

Come back next week for another embroidery project from the depths of the Pacific Ocean.

T-Shirt Embroidery

Last week, I shared how I was working with a new material, linen jersey knit, and making a T-shirt as a test garment.  There's no reason not to embellish it and test out that aspect of how the material works.  There were some real challenges with the fabric, but surprisingly, the embroidery went smoothly.

The fabric is extremely light weight, so it can only support a low density design.  With the summery fabric and light blue color, I opted for a design that reminds me of the beach.  The design from Embroidery Library can be found here.

For my T-shirts, I like to put the embroidery high, to emphasize the neckline, rather than a more traditional placement in the center of the chest.  Designs that are at least vaguely V-shaped work best for this.  The design I chose isn't completely symmetric, but it works.

For design placement, I printed a copy of the design at exactly the same size as it would stitch out and set the horizontal placement to clear the neckline seam.  The center of the design is on the center of the shirt.  The original colors of light blue and yellow weren't going to work on my blue fabric, so I opted for an off white for the center and tan for the rest of the design.  In the photo, I'm placing the spools on the fabric to see if the colors are pleasing together.

I chose Floriani no show mesh for the stabilizer.  A knit needs a stabilizer that will stick to the fabric somehow to keep the fabric from stretching as it's sewn out.  The no-show mesh stabilizer has a temporary heat bond to the fabric, after stitching, it becomes a lightweight cutaway to permanently stabilize the fabric while not making it stiff.   I was very careful to not move the iron sideways on the fabric while attaching the stabilizer, given my previous problems with ironing this fabric. 

The finished design shows no puckering and blends well with the fabric.  It's more subtle than my usual style, but everyone needs variety.

Come back next week for more Fun with a Sewing Machine!

New Materials: Linen Knit

It's always fun to try out new materials, techniques, and styles.  While in Minneapolis, I found some linen jersey knit.  I've worked with woven linen fabric and some knits, but never a linen knit.  So, I bought enough to make a T-shirt as a test garment.

Most fabrics I buy go straight into the washer before I even think about cutting them out.  Pre-shinking the fabric means the final garment will still fit.  In this case, washing before cutting may have been a serious mistake.  The fabric came out of the dryer with a very serious roll to the selvages.  I decided to iron the fabric and take care of that problem.  BIG MISTAKE.

Ironing did remove most of the roll, but in the process, the selvages were stretched relative to the center.  A second trip through the laundry didn't fix the problem, nor did an attempt to stretch the middle of the fabric with an iron.  Lack of recovery (not returning to the original shape after stretching) seems to be an issue with this fabric.  After a third trip through the laundry, the problem wasn't all fixed, but it was at least better.

The roll at the edge of the fabric made it impossible to line up the pattern pieces on the straight of the grain in the usual way.  I tried to lay out the fabric straight, then applied the pattern pieces.  I'm sure there's some error in the placement, but with a knit fabric, maybe that's OK.  Also, due to the earlier differential stretching, there wasn't a consistent grain anyway.

I my standard T-shirt pattern and construction techniques, described in detail in a previous post.

Unfortunately, a fold of fabric got caught up in the neck seam.  I was able to fix the problem, but in the process, I got some small holes in the thin fabric.

I was able to fix the holes and hopefully the repairs won't be too obvious.

I'm not sure that I like this fabric.  Maybe I don't know the right ways to deal with it, or maybe I didn't have the right application for it.  I'll wear the shirt a while and see how it goes.  Linen is a wonderful fabric for summer, very cool and comfortable.  Here in the South, we've definitely got some more warm weather coming this year.

Come back next week for a post about the embroidery on this shirt.