Valentine Table Decorations

Happy Valentine's Day!

I like to decorate my table even if no one sits down for a fancy dinner!  To be honest, I decorate my house for every holiday and I have since my kids were little.  Now my grandchildren enjoy each holiday and I am happy to celebrate with them as long as I can!

I love Kimberbell designs and stitch them often.  This collection includes the traditional cutwork technique and can be completed in no time with purchased napkins.

Last fall I taught this class using a Thanksgiving theme and it is so versatile, it is perfect for any holiday. So I switched up the fabric and designs and added a cutwork napkin to create a whole new look.

It was quite easy to stitch out two of these in the 200 x 200mm Quilters Hoop.  I hooped Cut Away stabilizer and stitched out the first step with the napkin outline and the heart decoration.  Be sure to use Rayon thread in both the top and bobbin!  Trim the extra fabric and then add the backing and stitched the outline again.  Trim out the back as well (not shown).

After completing the stitch out for both napkin holders, I then used a heat tool to trim close to the edge of the stabilizer.  If you use Polyester thread, it will melt the thread.

I love adding my buttonholes in embroidery and I can say I have never used the manual button attachment.

Stitching the cutwork design was quite easy following Kimberbell's directions.

The design collection contains both a pumpkin and holly and berry designs.

I am always excited when our customers share their projects and Melanie's photo sharing her Valentine stitching with us is perfect.

I found this cute Valentine cross stitch design on the Aurifil site.  I no longer cross stitch by hand but in my Premier+2 software!  Download your free pattern here and have fun.

I hoped you enjoyed this SEW special Valentine event and if you are ever in the Tampa Bay area, please visit us.

Director of Design and Creativity

Felting on my Pfaff - it may become an addiction!

This month at our Sewing Sisters event, I featured adding Fiber Arts to our designs.  In a previous post I shared the felted bag that I had designed and created.  

Sandy K shared a project that she has felted with fleece and that inspired me to make one of my own.  Her project was an Embroidery Club project from 2014 and perhaps some of you may have actually made this knitting basket.

Since I was busy doing other projects at that time, I missed an excellent opportunity.  So I decided to take advantage of this new found project and make my own.  The original project was made with felt but I loved Sandy's project so much that I decided to use fleece instead.

Since I didn't have the directions at the time, I decided to 'wing' it!  The  first step was to hoop a layer of Aqua Magic in my 360 x 260 mm hoop. I placed my white fleece right side down and then the pink fleece right side down. 

I pinned another layer of Aqua Magic to the 3 layers to hold it in place.

I selected my design on my icon, but this is an sample from the Endless Felting collection #487 from Pfaff.

I duplicated it and lined them up precisely using the X and Y coordinates on the machine.  I sent it to the software to make sure it was lined up accurately.

I then stitched it out and it was quite large, over 45,000 stitches and I slowed the machine down and it seemed to take forever to finish.  I removed most of the stabilizer, rinsed it completely and dried it in the dryer.

Then Sandy's email arrived with the directions! LOL!  Apparently I needed one more design as this basket required 3 repeats to make the basket.  SO this time I followed the directions and used my 180 x 130 mm metal hoop and NO stabilizer.  I used Precise Positioning and was able to line it up perfectly!

I then followed the directions to finish it, albeit not quite exactly what the directions said.  Sadly, I am not 100% happy with my project, so next time I will read the directions first!  I filled my fleece felted basket with some yarn and two projects I am going to work on for my grands who live in colder climates.

Did I tell you that I am addicted to the felting technique? No?... well I am!  Expect to see more projects from me with this fabulous embroidery set.

Director of Designs and Creativity

XOXO Love Part 2

Part 2 - Cutting your Appliqué Creator designs.  

I actually cut the designs which match the placement files exactly.  I was surprised in that the satin stitching was wide enough to cover the edge as this doesn't always happen with some appliqué designs.

Once I removed all of the layers, the design was very faint and hard to see.  So I changed the line color to black and 1.0 in width.

Once I did that I noticed that I had an open path and so I closed it using the 'Edit nodes' function. Terri Johnson Creates blog has an excellent post here to help you understand more clearly this process.

Once I deleted the red dot, it closed the path and I was able to fill it with my colors.  I like to arrange and group my designs together and in this way I can make them separate colors.  I followed Terri's directions and added a 1.0 mm offset to the design.

I deleted the internal designs and now I am ready to cut my design.  I have a Cameo 2 and so the software looks different than the Cameo 3.

I sprayed my fabric with Terial magic, let dry and press.  I then ironed Heat and Bond Lite to the back of the fabric and placed it on the mat.  Be sure to use a brayer or a scraper to make sure it is tight to the mat.

Nice clean, crisp cuts.

This was a very popular class and several of the ladies finished their projects in time for the holiday.

                        

Melanie L was ambitious and made two plus napkins and napkin holders for her table.

Janet F finished hers and made another with a Salsa theme

Carol's design is not quite finished but I like the color combination.

These looked too nice to actually use them!  But this project sure had my creative juices spinning again!

Director of Design and Creativity

XOXO means I am in love!

Yes, truly I am in love with the new updates to my Pfaff icon!  The new updates to both the machine and the Premier+2 software now enable me to send a design from my machine directly to my software via the 'paper airplane' icon!

Here is a class that I taught in January in which I was able to use this technique that I am featuring today.

I created the XOXO design in Appliqué Creator on my machine and sent it off to my software.  Do you see the paper airplane next to the butterflies?   That is how I sent it to the software. 

When I sent it, it arrived quickly in my software.

Unfortunately the Silhouette Designer Edition + software does not recognize vp3, so I saved the design as a dst.

I was then able to load it into the Silhouette Designer Edition + software.  The Designer Edition loads SVG files but the Designer Edition + loads embroidery format files- a real bonus!

I then pull off the layers to reveal the placement, the final layer of the design.

The placement stitch is what I send to the Silhouette to be cut.

Tomorrow's lesson will be cutting the design on the Silhouette Cameo and I hope you return to see how easily you can do this!

Director of Design and Creativity

Scrap & Sew

Lutz, FL

Lots of Love

Some days I just spend my time looking for cute ideas.  Even though some might consider this a waste of time, one idea can lead to several for me.  Here are some of the cute Valentine Day projects I found which may lead to others for me.


I found this super cute pillow from the Dritz site.  You can find the link here.

Here is the perfect project for your Valentine fabric scraps.  You can find the link here.

How about another Valentine Mug Rug?  The link is here.

 One of my favorite sites for free designs is Kreative Kiwi Embroidery Designs. When I need inspiration I always return to this site and you can find it here.  They offer several free designs and I loved the "Love " bubble and the In the Hoop Koru Heart.

What a clever project using the three heart sizes.

Check out the video they have to help you embroidery the In the Hoop Koru Heart.

I made this super cute wallhanging a few years ago with a Janine Babich design.  Ask your local dealer to order the pattern for you.

I fell in love with this project from the Girls in the Garden web site.  These valentine leggings are a perfect match for any little girl.

She designed the files in the Appliqué Creator function of the icon.  You can find the blog post here.

I hope you are able to make something festive for Valentine's Day and are inspired by these ideas.

Director of Design and Creativity

Scrap & Sew 

Lutz, FL