Quick Post…

Posted by on January 30, 2011
I’ve gotten TONS of response from the HNBL post and I’d like to follow up on some questions (quickly, before I head to church). I can go in to more detail later if need be!
Mainly, “what kind of stabilizer do you use?”
Answer: MEDIUM CUTAWAY

You can check out this post to see where I went over HOOPING:
http://rosemarygulledge.blogspot.com/2010/02/hooping-101.html
I use medium cutaway on all shirts and I hoop all shirts. Well, I did use a fast frame, sticky stabilizer and added medium cutaway on ONE SHIRT recently, but that’s a different post. 99.9% of the time I HOOP. Shirts, that is. I buy my cutaway from www.sewingmachine.com – 2.2 or 2.0 oz precut squares and the 15″ x 25 yard roll. They call these type stabilizers “commercial” and they are super cheap! I highly recommend checking them out!
The other main question was on the Comfort Cover. There are several brands of them and I included links in my post last week. I USE Comfort Cover from www.Sewingmachine.com. I have used Floriani Dreamweave before too, and Sulky makes a version of it too. It’s basically a protective add-on to your shirt. It protects the thread and it protects sensitive skin from the back of the applique and thread. You’ve probably seen it on the back of Carter’s clothing with appliques and I noticed it on a J. Khaki (Belk) dress Mallory has that has an applique on it. It does come off in the wash sometimes, or it does come loose I should say. But… I think it’s a nice touch and it has come off of my Carter’s stuff before, so I think it’s just the nature of the product and your washing machine! Not that it comes off every time and is a waste of your time and money, but I have heard that it eventually comes off and that’s fine. It’s really personal preference as to whether or not you want to use it. I’m sure if you had a heat press you could fuse it on there better than my Shark iron!!
We showed our house this week (for the umpeenth time) and I took a picture.
This is our dining room when I’m in the thick of WORK:
This is our dining room when the house is shown! The machine stays, but the rest of the thread, iron, ironing board, fabric, stabilizers, trash can, computer, pens, scissors, shirts, football?, etc etc etc is PUT AWAY!! You can imagine how old this gets!
For this reason I’m not doing a whole lot of customer work right now. It’s really a matter of timing and if I happen to have a little bit of work to do and I think it’s possible to take more in (when you call). Right now I have 4 shirts to do for this week and I’ve had a couple of  people ask about bringing stuff. My goal is to NOT let 50 shirts pile up. A, I have no place to put them (my closet is full), and B, that is added stress with the house for sale AND if for some reason it sells and I’ve got 50 shirts piled up to do. When we do sell the house I would imagine I’ll be out of commission for a while!
If I continue to get Q’s about the stabilizer and such I’ll try to do a better post! I enjoy all the comments and have gotten tons of comments and questions on Facebook!
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The SECRET to a Better Applique!

Posted by on January 26, 2011
I’m calling this a SECRET because I see and hear every day that there are people out there, embroidery people nonetheless, who don’t know about this product.
It’s called HEAT N’ BOND LITE!! Add it to your get-it list!! It will change the way you do applique and rock your world! It will IMPROVE your applique and make all the difference in a good looking shirt, and maybe a so-so looking shirt. (I’m not an employee of Therm-O-Web nor do they pay me to promote this product. I get nothing from this product but great looking appliques!)
Did I mention I love this product? That’s why I have a drawer full of it friends (see below)! I buy mine at Joann (without an ‘s’). When they have SEWING NOTIONS at 50% off, I go in and stock up. I also get 50% off coupons all the time in the mail and on my phone (Iphone App is available) so I always take advantage and stock up! You can also buy it at some Walmart stores (although I have never seen any in ours), and by the yard at Hancock Fabrics. They may sell it off the bolt at Joann but I’ve honestly never asked or looked for it. I’ve also talked to Steve at www.Sewingmachine.com about this product and I used it when I did my little class there in October. They will hopefully be selling it soon. Anyway….
It comes in this package and is simply a roll ~ one side is paper and one side is shiny and a little textured.
Make sure you get LITE and not ULTRAHOLD. I’ve been using HNBL for a long long long time and it has never gummed up my needle.

First… you’ve sewn your marking stitch for the applique you are working on. Mine is the zig zag tiara. HNBL works especially well with zig zag designs because without it, your fabric will most likely fray.
I cut my piece of fabric large enough to cover the design.

I iron my piece of fabric. Notice my iron is on about medium heat.

I cut my piece of HNBL so that it’s about the same size as my fabric. As you can see mine hangs over a bit which is why my ironing board looks the way it does. Notice the HNBL is paper side up.

Iron the HNBL light with the shiny side down. Again, you are ironing on the paper side.

Peel the paper away, and your fabric will now have the HNBL on it. Throw the paper away! It now appears shiny and is like a coating on the fabric which the camera didn’t quite capture.

I lay the fabric shiny side down on the marking stitch and now you’re ready for the tackdown stitch. (I do not use any type of spray adhesive to stick the fabric to the shirt at this point. Some people do but I do not.)

Now it’s time to trim around the tackdown stitch. You might be able to see in this picture that the fabric underside is shiny. That’s the HNBL. It also helps in this trimming process ~ there aren’t any loose threads, as the HNBL is like a coating on your fabric. (Notice my Gingher 4″ curved embroidery scissors – love them!)
The applique is ready for the final stitch, and in this case it’s zig zag! As you can see the cut is very clean!

Here is the applique after the zz stitch. You might notice the fabric is a little bubbled up. I’m not done yet…

Again, the applique is finished, but now it’s time to FUSE the applique.
Iron over the applique. I keep my iron on medium heat. I iron over the applique and also let it sit on it for a second or two. If the applique fabric doesn’t seem like it’s fusing (still bubbly), I spray it with the iron water and then iron over it again. The applique fabric will “harden” a tad and you will be able to tell that the fabric is “set”.
You might see a difference here ~ the applique is FLAT. The fabric is fused to the garment.
Lastly, I finish the back side of my applique with Comfort Cover, aka Floriani Dreamweave (there are a variety of different brands of this product, including Sulky).
Here is your finished product!
Does your applique look like this??
I recommend this product all the time to people and no, I am not getting paid to do so! I have found it works great so I recommend it whenever possible! If you’re appliques are bubbly, you need this! If your appliques sometimes come loose after washing, you need this! EVERYONE NEEDS THIS!! Get some if you don’t have some and see how much better your appliques turn out!
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Merry week of Christmas!!

Posted by on December 21, 2010
Here is my very small stack of “to-do” for this week. I’m down to 5 shirts! These were some I had agreed to do a week or two ago and am just now getting around to them. Hopefully I can finish these tomorrow and enjoy some time off to wrap presents (I haven’t wrapped a single one yet) and do some other stuff around the house and with the kids! Jeff is off for a while over Christmas too so I’m sure we’ll find something to do ~ probably do some new AC designs!?
We all went to Target last night and I bought this cute little travel iron. I had a craft iron on my list but could never find one, so I saw this one in/on the luggage aisle and decided it would do – probably gets a little hotter too? My plan is to use it on my applique fabric AFTER the tackdown stitch and AFTER I’ve trimmed, but BEFORE the satin stitches. With my Heat N Bond Lite, I think it’ll fuse the fabric better to my garment before the final satin stitch. Note: add a new ironing board to my list ~ this one looks horrible! Lots of HNBL residue built up on it.
This weekend we went to a (HILARIOUS) Christmas Vacation party. Jeff & I are not the dress up type (I think we’ve dressed up once since we’ve been together over the past 12 or so years). He went as Cousin Eddie (black dickie and all) and I went as Audrey. There were lots of Eddie’s at the party, a couple of Clarks, an Ellen, several Catherines and even Aunt Bethany and Uncle Louis. Lots of fun!!
Here is a pic of Audrey from the movie. My hair wasn’t as kinky but I had the pink headband!
Here is Cousin Eddie. I think his pants are green and of course, the black dickie.
Jeff actually wore one of MY shirts!

Here is a family photo from the movie. I think everyone was just about covered!
If you’re friends with me on Facebook then you can look on there to see the rest!
I had a visit from my friend the other day, AGAIN! I don’t know if he’s coming in with the mail or what? He seems to like it amongst my sewing stuff!!

It’s almost CHRISTMAS! While we’ve been done with shopping for a week, not a present has been wrapped yet! I guess we’ll get it done! Applique Cafe ~ all “Christmas & Holiday Stuff” designs are 50% off, everything else is 25% off and you get $5 off your purchase of $20 or more through the end of this month! We’ve already put up 4 new Valentine designs for the upcoming year and also several Mardi Gras designs! We’ll work on more over the next week or two including EASTER!
Have a great week!
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