In The Hoop Christmas Ornaments

Christmas is a great time for fun little craft projects.  You can make things that are pretty, but don't need to stand up to the rigors of daily, year-round use.  It's also a great time to experiment with new techniques.

Embroidery Library has quite a collection of in the hoop Christmas ornaments and they add more every year. These little gems are all made with the embroidery unit.  There's no regular sewing involved at all.  I will buy some each year and try them, like the free standing ornament from last week.  My tree is now mostly covered in hand made items.

Unlike the free standing ornament, these are made with felt.  A tear-away stabilizer is used.  (A water soluble one is a bad idea in this case, because you don't want to get the finished item wet.)   All the fancy stuff is sewn on the front, then another piece of felt is added to the back. 

You can even note on the back which year you made it.  Finally, the item is lightly stuffed with a tiny bit of polyester fleece.

Some designs work best with white felt, others do better with colors.

There are even designs that are not stuffed at all, where ordinary fabric can be used.

Best of all, most of these fit nicely in the 4" square hoop, so they can be made with just about any embroidery machine.

Merry Christmas to all.  Come back next week for more fun with a sewing machine as we explore a completely different project.

Free Standing Christmas Ornament and Water Soluable Stabilizer

It's the season to work on fun Christmas themed projects!   This week, I decided to make a lovely Christmas ornament for my tree.

This item is free standing embroidery.  Regular embroidery is fancy stitching on fabric.  Free standing embroidery is fancy stitching without the fabric.  The designs have to be specially created to make this work.  I've done some of this before, with butterflies.  This design from Embroidery Library is called the carnival Christmas ornament.  It comes in a small enough size that it can be made with just a 100 mm square hoop.

While making the free standing embroidery, a stabilizer must be used to hold the stitches together during construction.  The idea is to make the stabilizer go away afterwards.  This is done with a water soluble stabilizer.  When you are done, you just was it away.  I've been using Sulky Ultra Solvy, a heavyweight plastic like material.  However, I've been having trouble with this material tearing when dense designs punch too many needle holes in it.  At the Houston International Quilt Festival, I picked up a new kind of water soluble stabilizer that I was hoping would work much better.

 This is Embellish Rise-Away Mesh, brought to you by the fine folks at RNK Distributing.

I tried using just a single layer of the mesh for the ornament.  It didn't work well.  The stabilizer distorts quite a bit when put under too much stress.

However, unlike the needle hole problem, this can be fixed by using two layers of the stabilizer.  I think a single layer would be fine for free standing lace, but the denser free standing embroidery does a lot better with two, and this design stitched out perfectly.

My machines are still busy, so come back next week for more fun with a sewing machine (or two)!

Christmas Stocking for a Mermaid

It's that time of year when crafters of all types contemplate holiday themed projects.  I got a request for a really cool Christmas stocking, which some kind of ocean or water theme.  A fairly conventional approach might be a stocking embroidered with any of the Santa enjoying the ocean or tropics designs.  I decided to be a but more creative and ask
"What sort of a stocking might a mermaid have?"  Surely not the usual sock, since she has fins, not feet.  Also, not something fuzzy, since few creatures of the sea have fur.   With a little help from my embroidery design software, Floriani Total Control, I came up with this idea.

The embroidery design was fairly simple to put together.  There's an outline, some scales, all similar arcs, some lines for the tail and an initial.  It was designed to be the maximum possible size for my 260x360 mm hoop.

I wanted a fabric that was shiny of glittery for this project.  I also needed something opaque and strong.  I decided not to meet all the requirements with a single fabric and opted for a shiny translucent organza over an ordinary polyester-cotton broadcloth.  The broadcloth is a staple of my stash, so I had it in variety of colors.  Since this stocking is for a little girl just celebrating her second Christmas, I chose pink.  Here's the fabrics hooped together before sewing.

When all the embroidery is done, I have a fishtail with a seam line.

Since this is a three dimensional fabric, I need a second piece for a back.  I can't make a mirror reverse, like for the fleece fish.  The initial E would be backwards.  Instead, the outline is symmetrical, so I can sew two identical sides and sew them together.

 With the front and back of the stocking sewn together, all I needed to do was hem it at the top.  I added a shiny ribbon trim at the top, complete with a loop so it could be hung by the chimney with care.

I actually made a set of these for the whole family.  Mom and Dad's stockings are Christmas red and green.   I used the same organza for all, but different shades of broadcloth.

Come back week for more fun with a sewing machine!

Tree Skirt

Need a quick, last-minute addition to your Christmas decor?  This tree skirt could be just the thing.

It's made of plain polyester cotton fabric in festive red.  There's no pattern, just a circle on the outside and a circle on the inside.  I folded the fabric in quarters before cutting it.  The slit in the back makes it much easier to get around the base of the tree.

I dressed up the tree skirt with some quick stitching Christmas designs from Embroidery Library.

Some of the colors has to be modified to work on red, so the poinsettias are white instead of red.

 The outer edge is finished with a built-in decorative stitch in the shape of flowers.

Have a wonderful holiday and come back next week for more fun with a sewing machine.