Craftsy Class Event

Happy Spring Break! We went to the beach for a few days last weekend (Perdido Key, FL) for “spring break”. Basically we had 1 rain day, 1 sunny beach day, and then a couple of freezing cold windy days. We visited Pensacola Sunday and ate a late lunch at a place called Hub Stacey’s, which was very cool. It was an interesting mix of people and the food was great! Funny story…. as Jeff was paying the bill, I somehow noticed a guy walking by the restaurant outside that looked familiar. I literally saw his head for like a half a second. I didn’t say anything, and then G asked “IS THAT BRUCE PEARL?” For Auburn fans, you know who Bruce Pearl is. For non Auburn fans, he is the Auburn head basketball coach. Anywho, the kids and I quickly walked outside and watched as he walked across the park. We still weren’t sure if it was him, so all 5 of us jumped in our car and then stalked tried to find him to see if it was him. We rode around a couple of blocks until we finally found him heading our way, and saw that it was in fact Bruce Pearl! We may or may not have startled him when we jumped out of the car and requested a photo with the kids. He was with his wife and walking their dog, and graciously obliged! College coaches are somewhat famous around these parts, so the kids loved this (and Jeff and I were pretty excited to). Totally random!! Luckily one of our kids had Auburn gear on. Thanks Bruce!!

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Our real reason for visiting Pensacola was to attend our first ever ICE HOCKEY GAME! It was SO.MUCH.FUN!! Other than the guy behind us yelling “YOU SUCK RUBIN” the whole time, and people waving real life brooms (the sweeping kind) at the opponents, and the lady who blew confetti all over our section every time the Ice Flyers scored, and the other lady who screamed at the opposing team the whole time.. something about splinters in their behinds, it was SO FUN! I highly recommend attending a game if you have ice hockey in your area. The fans are quite interesting! The players really do slam each other in to the glass too. The Ice Flyers won, and every time they scored the crowd went C-R-A-Z-Y!! As you can see below the kids got in to it too!

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Very fun (and fascinating)!!

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Good news for my fellow Craftsy Fans… Craftsy is saying a sweet farewell to National Craft Month by offering you the chance to get any online class for $19.99! Check out all the classes on sale before the offer ends on Monday, March 28. Click the photo below, or HERE, to check out available classes. They have lots of EMBROIDERY classes and also cooking, *photography* and other classes.

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Be sure to follow us on Instagram to see what’s new, what’s on sale, and what’s going on! https://www.instagram.com/appliquecafe/ The Ice Cream Cone and Vintage Strawberry are coming soon!

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Monogramming Towels & Textured Materials

Happy Friday Friends! As a work update, I’ve been back for 3 weeks and am loving it! The 3 days I work are jam packed from 5:50 AM until bedtime, but then I have a 4 day weekend and time to catch up on other things and rest a little. I love working with the people (aka adults) I worked with before, and the structure of a schedule for 3 days has helped me to be super organized and I’m getting a lot more done around the house and with Applique Cafe!

You may or may not know that I am an Affiliate of Craftsy.com, which means I get to review some of their videos from time to time and then share with you. I’ve reviewed a couple in the past (search Craftsy on my blog) and have a new one for you today.

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This morning I got to spend a couple of hours {in my pajamas} learning about Machine Embroidery with Terrycloth & More, by Deborah Jones! You may wonder why I would be interested in this video after I’ve been doing embroidery (and monogramming my share of towels) since 1997. I was interested because I think we can all agree, towels are a popular item to monogram, and not always the easiest thing to monogram. Plus, this class is about monogramming towels, wool, velvet, corduroy, waffle weave, fluffy stockings, minky and other textured materials. 

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This class will help you *perfect* your technique in monogramming all of the above mentioned fabric types. Deborah shows you how to adjust the density, boldness or pull compensation & underlay settings of your fonts to avoid your towel peaking through your beautiful monogram.**The end goal is for your monogrammed towel to look great AFTER your stabilizers and toppers (water soluble is the most used) are removed and AFTER laundry.**

She also goes over what type of fonts work and which ones don’t. Think thicker vs thinner fonts. A lot of time is spent on all the different types of stabilizers used in each project, and believe me, there are a lot of options!! Deborah also doesn’t hoop the majority of projects she goes over, so she shows you which stabilizers to use and how to get the job done without hooping. Personally, I hoop most everything, but her techniques are great too and probably a little faster than my hooping techniques.

Another tip that I hadn’t thought of, was that she used matching bobbin thread when monogramming towels. I think this depends on your machine and which type bobbins you use. It made sense when monogramming a towel or blanket where the back of the monogram would also be visible!

Deborah also uses a spray bottle after the embroidery is done to help remove water soluble stabilizers. Her solution – 1 part FABRIC SOFTENER to 12 parts water. Adding that to my Target list….

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Watch the video to also see how she uses coffee filters or paper towels to help remove water soluble topper!

Deborah also goes over using “background frames” when monogramming towels, bath mats, bibs and other fluffy items. Background frames are light density fill stitch frames used behind a monogram. They are hardly noticeable and look like part of the design when finished, and really make the monogram *POP*. There are a few frames included in the cost of her class. Here is an example she showed and this is a bath mat. You don’t use a top stabilizer when using a background frame, and use a color thread that “goes” with the item you are monogramming. On this white bath mat she used white thread for the background frame, and it makes the terrycloth lie down, which is the goal. It really makes the monogram stand out!

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She also discusses monogramming the different types of corduroy – baby or pin wale, regular wale or wide wale. Deborah also demonstrates techniques in monogramming ridged surfaces like a ridged place mat. Waffle weave is another surface that can cause your monogram to be “bumpy” or “uneven” if you don’t do it the right way.

The 8th lesson in the class was on monogramming Christmas stockings, which we all know can be a PAIN to monogram! Deborah shows how to get the monogram on the cuff correctly and also how to monogram FAKE FUR like you might see on a stocking or Santa hat! The last lesson was on monogramming stuffed animals. I found this lesson interesting because I haven’t monogrammed many stuffed animals in my tenure.

If you are interested in learning how to better monogram towels and the other items mentioned, then this is a great class to get in on! It’s 1/2 off through next Friday, February 26th for my Applique Cafe readers! It took me about 1 1/2 hours to go through the class while taking notes this morning, and with all Craftsy classes, you can go back anytime and re-watch lessons. There is also a DISCUSSION tab where you can ask questions and see questions others have asked that have been answered. You can check out the discussions by lesson, and there are 9 lessons within this class.

Let me know if you have any questions! Again, this class is $19.99 for the next week! You can click HERE to check it out! I hope to test out a “background frame” this weekend and will let you know how it goes! 🙂

Craftsy Classes

It’s less than a week until Christmas! I had a monogram-a-thon last Thursday and have several more items to finish up for customers this week. I haven’t posted about Craftsy in a while and got an email that all of their classes are on sale through 12/26/15. Search “Craftsy” on my blog to see which classes I’ve posted about, including Embroidery and Photography classes. Click on the photo below to see if there are any classes you might be interested in. Once you buy a class you can watch it any time, as many times as you’d like. The Jewelry class looks fun to me! 🙂 affiliate_1200x1200_collage1

Applique Cafe is an affiliate of Craftsy!