Back to School

Posted by on August 15, 2012

My boys started back to school this morning! Browder is now in 3rd grade and Garrison is in Kindergarten! They were both giddy this morning and were still giddy when they got in the car after school. That’ll wear off in about a week when I have to lock Browder in the kids’ “office” to do his homework (in tears because it’s SOOOOOO hard). Overall I think they are excited and I think Browder is a little pumped that Garrison is now “in the trenches” with him! Mallory still has a couple of weeks before she goes back to preschool. Anywho it’s been a super busy week or two getting ready for school. It’ll take another week or two for reality to hit that we are BACK IN SCHOOL! 

Once again, I’m loving the Monogram Wizard Plus Facebook Group. I’ve learned so many tips and tricks! One thing I read was in regards to monogramming towels. Here are a couple of towels I did last week and they turned out great (better than usual)! I adjusted the BOLDNESS to 120, selected FILL and UNDERLAY for the font. This is Embroidery-Boutique’s Dotty font. Applique Cafe doesn’t sell ANY fonts BTW. I use this one a lot because it shows a lot of fabric. It also matches my Monogram Wizard Plus Kim Single font. With towels, I use iron on tearaway stabilizer on the back and solvy on top and I hoop it all together. Fabric for the L ~ Windam Fabrics Shadow Flower.

 Here’s another towel with MWP Kim Single font. It looks thicker and better to me with the increased boldness and underlay! I like to use “fill stitch” on towels versus “satin stitch”. It lays the pile of the towel down and won’t “pick” like satin stitch might. I also use fill stitch on most bags and backpacks. Speaking of backpacks, I have gotten my moneys worth out of my Fast Frames in the past couple of weeks. I’ve monogrammed A TON of bags and backpacks!

 I had a few people ask me (and I see it asked all the time) what MWP fonts are good to buy. Here’s a list of the ones I’ve bought and I’ll put a * by the ones I use A LOT. Some of these I got on the website store and some are from Alpha Pak disks that you used to have to buy before the downloadable fonts were available. This list may or may not be 100% accurate as some of the fonts I’ve had forever and can’t remember if they came w/ the software or if I bought them. Arabesque, Cotillion (dressy boy font), *Kim Multi/Single*, *Library*, *Master Circle* (my go-to girl scripty font), MC Center, Party Time (aka Curlz), Playground, Rascal, Recess, *Specs*, Stretch, Worms, Tipsy, Sunny, Penpal. I used to use Tipsy a lot for boys but now I use Library the most. Check out the store to find all of these “extra” alphabets. Some of these came as a set (disks) and I think you can buy them all individually now. There are a few more I’d love to have and will look out for the next Needleheads sale ~ Camp is cute (cowboy-ish), Empire is a great one similar to Master Circle, Silly is cute, Blackboard, Pendant is pretty, and Techie. These fonts are a little pricier than other fonts you buy and merge, but, they are totally scalable and adjustable in MWP and if it’s a font you’ll use a lot (like I use Library and Master Circle every other day), it’s well worth a few extra bucks!

We went to the lake this past weekend with 4 other couples and their families. We had 10 adults and 12 kids and this was our 7th year. We always have fun! Anyway, I came home Sunday and checked Facebook Sunday night. I was going to remind everyone about our sale ending today. Low and behold, I looked and we had an even 10,000 Facebook fans! I was taken aback a little. I try not to take too much stock in that number because of course not all 10,000 fans have embroidery machines. There are other embroidery sites who have 15,000 or even double what we have. HOWEVER, it’s fun and thrilling that 10,000 people *like* our page! That’s a lot of people! We’re already at 10,059 and the number grows every single day! Thanks to all of you who support our little business!

Our 50% off sale ends today, which means it’ll be taken down first thing in the morning! You still have plenty of time ~ www.appliquecafe.com!

 

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More on Fast Frames

Posted by on August 6, 2012

Yay another post! Today has been a crazy day! Some days I get sucked in to Facebook and then it takes me all day to keep up with all the comments and replies. Today has been one of those days. I managed to monogram a backpack (not the one in this post) and edit these pics for a new blog post on Fast Frames. I also have a great new post on Monogram Wizard Plus but will save that one for tomorrow or another day this week.

This, my friends, is a backpack (duh). You may be able to tell that my friend who sent this to me to monogram took the tag off (right above my straight pin). Her daughter is going in to 4th grade (I think??) so she said do her name, and that she’s in to peace signs! Sounds like a call for MINI DESIGNS! First I pinned my center of the top part of the front pocket (flap, we’ll call it). 

 I got my name together merged with a couple of cute mini designs. The peace sign is from Embroidery-Boutique and the Flower is from Applique Momma (it also has a peace sign in the middle). I used Monogram Wizard Plus Specs font. I love the font and it’s great for initials, but names are tricky. It spaces out rather strangely. I will explain all that in my next MWP post this week, but in the meantime you can see that I layered this name together IN Monogram Wizard Plus so that it all lined up and/or was spaced correctly. Layer 1 – A, Layer 2 – nn, Layer 3 – a. I then saved it and merged it in to my Sew What Pro. I added the mini designs, centered the whole thing and then saved it to my machine. I saved this in a 5×7 hoop space but will use my Fast Frames.

Now it’s time to pick out the right sized Fast Frame. This one measures 7″ x 8″.

I very loosely cut my sticky stabilizer (from Sewingmachine.com). You want to cut it bigger than your frame so that it’ll overlap the edges of your frame.

Peel the paper side off to reveal the sticky side.

 Stick it to the bottom side of your frame (see photo down below which illustrates a little better what the “bottom” is). Hint: Your frame should slope down from where you attach it.

Wrap the edges around the frame. Doesn’t have to be all neat and perfect.

I then “stick” the backpack flap to the sticky paper on my fast frame. I usually line the top of the flap up with the top of the frame and then pin it in place with straight pins. This also shows me my borders. Since multi needle machines don’t technically recognize fast frames, you have to check the outer border of your design to make sure the needle won’t hit the edges of your frame.

Here is how your fast frame should attach to the frame ~ it slopes down. That’s how you know what the bottom of your fast frame is to attach the sticky paper (believe me, I have stuck it on there upside down and backwards).

 Blah blah blah sew the design AFTER testing your borders and here’s the outcome! I use FILL STITCH instead of satin stitch. Since this is a backpack I wouldn’t want the satin stitch to get snagged or pulled.

 I peel the sticky stabilizer/fast frame off the flap and as you can see it leaves a little inside the letters. You can peel that away easily. Get under it w/ scissors if need be. The sewingmachine.com sticky stabilizer is just sticky enough and comes off great!

I then peel the sticky paper off my frame. As you can see it comes off very easily with no residue left on the frame.

Here is my finished backpack!

Again, stay tuned for my next post on another Monogram Wizard Plus trick.

Followup to my last post on MWP ~ here is a link to the Facebook Page – click HERE. As far as the Yahoo Group I mentioned… I am not a member of it. I just heard about it on the Facebook page. Evidently it’s a private closed group and they are currently not accepting new members! Check out the Facebook page! So far I’ve seen a few great tips on there!

We are celebrating 3 years of Applique Cafe, so all designs are 1/2 off through next Wednesday, August 15th!

 

 

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Summertime 2012

Posted by on June 29, 2012

I’m sad to report that summer is almost halfway over. Well, I guess we have a little over a month until we’ll be back to the grind. Homework, schedules, carpool, etc begin again for us on August 15th. In the past I’ve had at least 1 if not 2 of my kids in summer school and this time last year we were about to move. This year, no summer school (which has been a lot of fun). A year later in our house, I have so so so so much to do! So much to do that I wake up every day overwhelmed and don’t do anything. That’s the story of my life and I’m sure there is a named condition for it. Anyway… we are enjoying our summer and have spent a lot of time this week at the pool (because it is too hot to do anything else).

Here is a cute beach towel and tote combo I picked up at Target yesterday for one of Mallory’s friend’s birthday party tomorrow. I love the colors! The font I used is “Kim Single” (as opposed to Kim Multi) in Monogram Wizard Plus.

 We spent last week down at the beach with my family (12 of us total). This was our 7th year (Browder was 2 when we started) and this year we ventured down 30-A closer to Alys Beach, Seacrest Beach and Rosemary Beach. Our first 6 years we stayed in Seagrove. It was FABULOUS! Seagrove is fabulous too, but we loved our new house so much my mom rented it already for next year! We took our bikes and rode down to those “beaches” for a concert, ice cream and treats in the afternoon and to go eat. We hit La Cocina TWICE (I highly recommend the crab nachos which were recommended to us)! I absolutely love 30A!! Here are several pics of the kiddos…

I think this was the first day or two on the beach. These 2 are 21 months apart.

My handsome 9 year old! Browder was 2 when we started this family beach trip tradition!! Yes, his eyes are that dark.

Here are all 3 kids working hard on a sand castle.

 

That’s Browder and his cousin Lucas in the background. They rode tubes down the beach 128 times a day.

Our house had a great pool.

You all remember how much fun you can have with 5 tubes!

 I threw some clothes on the kids one afternoon and ordered them down on the beach for a very fast impromptu photo session as the sun was literally going down. That usually works best versus a planned out we-are-going-to-take-pictures-on-this-night kind of thing. Today I ordered 16×20 canvases from Cafepress (use promo code FBCANVAS for a great deal through June 30). These are the photos I used and hopefully they will all “go” together!

This cute little crooked smile is sooooo “G”!!!!

I had a couple of other great closeup pics of Mallory but ordered this one since it matched the others. Here cute outfit is from Stitched & Smocked!

 Lastly, this was the most fabulous porch swing I have ever seen! It had about 6 pillows across the back (which were probably inside due to rain) and I spent several early mornings laying on it reading before the kids got up! If I had the same beach breeze with the ocean sound in the background at my house, this would be there too!

 I hope you all are having a great summer too! I have to say I have really enjoyed not working so much and am rather enjoying my kids instead! Sissy is learning to swim and the boys are doing tennis clinics and yesterday we had a “watermelon party” with several of the neighborhood kids. That’s what summer is all about!

We are working on FALL designs at Applique Cafe and our patriotic designs are currently on sale. We added 3 new ones today as well, so if you like football, golf or trains carrying apples, check them out! Have a great weekend and Happy 4th of JULY!

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