Vintage or Simple Stitch Designs

First of all, I seem to have this thing with taking photos of stuff tilted to the right!? I guess straight on can be boring sometimes. Second of all, the new Friends of Applique Cafe Facebook Group is going great! We are up to about 775 members, and I can tell already that creating a group was the right move! Someone commented on my last post that FB PAGES are more for ME to post what’s going on, but other than that, there is not much interaction if no one likes or comments. Basically, you see what I post IF it shows up in your news feed. You rarely actually visit someone’s Facebook page unless you are looking for something. On the other hand, with a group, it’s more like a community. The people in the group are seeing what you post and are actually *liking*, commenting, etc. Very refreshing!!

So… these “vintage” simple stitch (aka redwork) designs are pretty popular right now. I though I would share what stabilizers I use for these, since the first one I did didn’t turn out perfectly. Below are several that we have listed at Applique Cafe, and they can all be found under the Zig Zag | Vintage | Raggy category. I also just sampled a new one which is Stitch the Dog. We haven’t done anything with Stitch in a WHILE. It’ll be listed in the next day or two! vintage

I have found {by trial and error} that Solvy (water soluble) stabilizer should be used on top with these designs. You can’t really see it in the below picture, but I hooped medium cutaway stabilizer underneath the shirt and solvy on top. I am a hooper btw… This is an old Monag shirt someone gave me to sample on and their shirts are pretty thick, so I went with medium cutaway. On a thinner shirt, you might use a thinner cutaway such as polymesh or no show mesh cutaway that won’t show through.  IMG_9505

The stitch time on our new Stitch the Dog is 2 MINUTES. These designs are super fast! IMG_9506

The solvy on top helps prevent the stitches from a) sinking and b) puckering the shirt. IMG_9507

This is the back of the design and you can see the big piece of medium cutaway. I trim around the design when I’m done, getting close to the stitching. For this shirt I also trimmed in between the front and back legs, as well as around the tail. IMG_9508

I had someone ask how you remove the solvy without pulling the stitches. I haven’t really noticed a problem, but for this post I did wet a couple of Q-tips and went over the stitching/outline of the design on the solvy. Since it’s water soluble, the wet Q-tip helps loosen up the solvy so it’s a little easier to pull away.

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There were a few stray pieces of the solvy sort of underneath some of the stitching. You can either pull it off, or squirt some water on it from your iron and it should dissolve. IMG_9511

Here is the finished product! Again, this is a thick cotton shirt so you can’t see the medium cutaway stabilizer through the shirt at all. The red gingham ruffle shorts are from EllieO. These vintage/simple stitch designs are great with simple gingham bottoms! IMG_9512

So here is the first designs I did of this type and I DID NOT use solvy on top. It’s sort of hard to see in the pictures, but there was some definite puckering. I added solvy on the next one and it stitched MUCH better! No puckering and the design and shirt lays flat. The arrows point to the pucker/wrinkles.IMG_9513

You can see the little dimples in the loops. USE SOLVY! IMG_9514

As you can see on the Stitch shirt, the design lays flat with no puckering! IMG_9516 IMG_9517

Here are several of our other designs in this style. The Turkey was done on a Monag shirt as well, so thick cotton and I used medium cutaway and solvy on top. It lays flat perfectly!IMG_9521

The church… I did this one on a flour sack dish towel, which is rather thin. Since it’s a towel, I didn’t want cutaway stabilizer left on the back of the towel, so I used waffle weave tearaway with solvy on top for this one, then removed ALL of the stabilizer. IMG_9522

I did our Pumpkin on another thick cotton Just Blanks shirt I had laying around. I used medium cutaway again as well as solvy. IMG_9523

For thinner cotton shirts, you might try polymesh or no show mesh cutaway such as below. Some people use this type all the time with all shirts. I got mine from Sewingmachine.com and it’s on a big roll. The medium cutaway I use is Sulky Cutaway Plus, or the commercial cutaway from Sewingmachine.com. I recommend 2.2 oz or no more than 2.5 oz for the commercial. More than that is pretty thick. IMG_9525

I also love the waffle weave tearaway that I used on the flour sack towel! IMG_9526

I hope this helps! I think the quality of your shirt also plays a part. The String of Fish design I did above was on a much thinner shirt, but I think the solvy on top would have added a little extra support for the stitches!

Try our Golf Green 2 {vintage/simple stitch} design now for $1.50 ~ our new Digitizer’s Pick!

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Stabilizer Savvy

Happy Monday! I’m excited to share with you ANOTHER great video class on Craftsy that I just watched! This one is on STABILIZER and is perfect for beginners, but still great for the experienced embroiderer like me. I took 4+ pages of notes!

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This one is called Stabilizer Savvy with Terri Hanson, and it’s 9 lessons and took me about an hour to watch. I skipped through a few parts and you can also go back and watch different lessons or skip around.

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Here are the lesson topics:

1) Intro

2) Storage, Labeling & Other Basics – this lesson gave a couple of cool ideas for storing your stabilizer and labeling it to know what is what! She also went over hooping and basics of stabilizer (stabilizer = SUPPORT for your garment or item).

3) Cut-Away Stabilizer – medium weight vs. mesh which doesn’t show through as much

4) Tear-Away Stabilizer – great for more stable fabrics like denim, towels, canvas, etc., she also goes over “floating” tearaway stabilizer underneath

5) Sticky Stabilizer – true sticky stabilizer vs. spray adhesive + cutaway, what to do about sticky residue

6) Water Soluble Stabilizer – wash away vs. film topper and when you need them (she discussed free-standing lace designs and patch-looking designs)

7) Fusible Fleece (I skipped this one but will watch later)

8) Fuse & Stick Stabilizer (such as Heat N Bond Lite or Wonder Under) – in this lesson she goes through the applique process step by step also which might be helpful for beginners

9) Toppings & Cloud Cover (aka Solvy & Comfort Cover) – WHEN do you use these and how to remove it

I tried doing a video once using my Iphone and ended up posting like 9 snippets of video of me trying to applique and show you how to use my machine! 😛 What I love about the Craftsy videos is that they are professionally done (in a real studio) and super easy to understand. There are Questions & Answers on the right side of your screen with real people asking questions and Terri and others answering. You can also check out the Q & A’s under the Discussions tab when you are done. There’s also a spot at the bottom to type NOTES while you are watching that you can look at later (or you can hand write them like me!)  Also, when you purchase the class, you can watch it as many times as you’d like and you are given materials you can download like a sample design that Terri used and a Resources & Templates download which is like a cheat sheet with short notes on which stabilizer to use with what (for this particular class).

Here are a few of my take-aways for this class:

Stabilizer is used to SUPPORT the item you are monogramming, embroidering or appliqueing! She goes over hooping and stabilizer and how to avoid gaps in fill stitch designs, distorted designs and puckering which are usually all stabilizer issues! When all else fails, test your design first on a similar fabric to make sure your stabilizer is right!

If you missed my last post, it was another awesome video ~ How to Start a Machine Embroidery Business.

All designs are on sale at Applique Cafe til the 28th!

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Fast Frames and Backpacks!

School is back in session! My kids started back on the 14th of August and it’s been a blur since then. Everyone said “Ohhhhh they will all be at the same school this year {my youngest started Kindergarten}! It’ll be SOOOO much easier and you will have more time!!!!” I don’t know if I agree with this? I feel crazier than ever. As my M-I-L says, I meet myself coming and going. Throw a puppy in the mix and it’s a recipe for chaos! Did I mention I will be 29 41 this month? I have found that if I don’t write it down, it is NOT getting done. Is this ADD? Old age? Yesterday at Target I picked up this handy dandy “NOTES” notebook for 3 bucks. I might go back and stock up. Today I neatly wrote down everything on my to do list, and low and behold it all got done in a timely matter! Success!!

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Which leads me to this post…. I took all of these great pictures back on August 9th during my back-to-school-backpack-a-thon. Today is September 5th and I am JUST now sitting down to share them. Sorry school is back in session and you needed this info a month ago. Tuck it away for next year. Or as they say on Pinterest, Pin Now, Read Later.

Here is a backpack I’m going to monogram. The perfect place to monogram it is on the front pocket, and as you can see below I’ve marked (after measuring) my center with my handy dandy air erasable pen.

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I have a Brother PR650 6 needle machine and Fast Frames, so that’s what I’m going to use (no hooping required). If you have a single needle machine and no fast frames, you could still follow along but hoop a piece of sticky stabilizer instead. Here I have cut a piece of sticky stabilizer a little bigger than my frame. p.s. I buy my sticky stabilizer from sewingmachine.com (commercial backing).

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As you can see here, I wrote “UP” on the top of my fast frame. I don’t know about you, but I have to figure out which way is up or down every single time. There is a science to which way is up which you will see later. Here I have also pulled off the paper side of the sticky stabilizer and I’m going to now stick the stabilizer to the frame from the bottom.

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I’ve stuck the stabilizer to the frame and wrapped the excess around the top loosely. No need to smooth it down! Doesn’t have to be perfect or neat either. Don’t worry, it’s not going anywhere! p.s. I put my initials on my frame too so no one steals it from my sewing room. No really I take these to classes sometimes.

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I am now ready to stick my backpack front pocket to the sticky-stabilized-fast-frame. As you can see below, the backpack pocket flap is “stuck” to the sticky stabilizer, but I also pin it in place INSIDE the inner frame of the fast frame. This keeps the backpack in place AND it shows me where my inside borders are. If my monogram goes outside the pins, it is likely to hit the frame which is NOT good. So… stay within the pins! As you can see below my center mark is not exactly in the center of the frame, but it’s close and I will have plenty of room for my monogram. You just need to make sure it’s straight on the frame!

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Here is the science behind the frame and how it attaches. As you can see there is a small dip where the frame attaches, therefore everything is level on the machine. If you attach it upside down, the frame will be tilted up and you’ll know it b/c it will bounce around more and it’ll be louder than usual.

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Now… I’ve attached the fast frame on to my machine. My machine thinks this is my largest hoop, so it doesn’t know how much space I have. These machines don’t recognize Durkee hoops or Fast Frames, so it’s up to you to test your boundaries before you sew anything.

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Before I test my boundaries I need to make sure my monogram is going to be centered on my backpack. The way I do that is to line up my CENTER NEEDLE with the center spot (remember the air erasable pen mark) on my backpack. This is confusing to some people! Your center needle is the needle to the LEFT of the needle threader apparatus. It also lines up with the bobbin arm on the machine. After you’ve done your editing (assigning colors, adjusting size, rotating, etc) and you hit EDIT END on the machine, then you will use the arrows to line up your center needle with the center on the item/garment.

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Those arrows are shown below. If you need to start over, just hit the center dot on the machine (in the middle of the arrows). As you can see here, I have moved the design (Elle + 3 Seahorses) up to line the center needle up with the center on the backpack. The red + on the screen is the center of the “hoop”, but don’t think too much about that b/c it’s too confusing.

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Most of the time you can eyeball it to see if it’s centered.

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You can also pull the needle bar down to make sure it’s centered. The needle will only come down so far, BUT, if you turn the knob on the very back of the machine, the needle will come all the way down and you will be able to tell if it’s centered.

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So your needle is centered which will center your design. NOW you need to check your boundaries to be sure that while stitching, the needle is NOT going to hit any of the edges of your fast frame. This is super important!! If your needle hits an edge of your fast frame, it CAN and WILL mess up your machine. Below is the button to check your boundaries.

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Press the edges and your needle will move around to show you where the edges of the design are. Another option is to press the button (up above) to the right of the check-your-boundaries button. It will trace the design for you and you can see where the needle will hit. Either way will work!

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Below I have hit the left side button and it is showing me where the left of my design will hit. I’m within the pins so I’m good. Another reason the pins come in handy! As you can see, I have plenty of room!

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If you are confused as to which needle is the center needle, as I said earlier, your center needle is to the immediate left of the needle threader thing and also it LINES UP WITH THE BOBBIN ARM. I’m sure there is a more technical name for the arm? As you can see below, needle 2 is currently my center needle. This can change to needle 1, 3, and so on and so forth depending on which needle you threaded or used last.

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I have sewn my design, which is our Mini Seahorse Embroidery Design X 3 and “Elle” done in Monogram Wizard Plus “Library” font. The design fit well within my pins with room to spare.

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Almost done! Once I remove the straight pins and fast frame with sticky stabilizer from the flap of the backpack, you can see I have a little excess sticky stabilizer. No problem! I peel it all off. Use scissors to get it started inside those holes if you need to. Just be careful not to puncture anything.

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While it’s not necessary to remove all of the stabilizer, I always do and it looks a little neater. Again, I use sticky stabilizer from Sewingmachine.com and it comes off with ease.

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Finished backpack! The pinks don’t appear to match, but they do!

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When you’re done, you also need to remove all the sticky stabilizer from the fast frame. The kind I use is not excessively sticky and peels right off.

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One more quick example! Mark my center.

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Pin it in place on to the sticky-stabilizer-fast-frame.

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Monogram. Remove pins.

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Peel away excess stabilizer.

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Here is my table-o-backpacks and a few other things! I was busy that week before school started and I think I actually did about 16 backpacks in a matter of a few days! Some were just monogrammed and some were appliqued. Mini embroidery designs are great too!

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Again, sorry this is coming to you AFTER school has started! File it away for next year! Please comment with any questions! Have a great weekend!

Last p.s….. Applique Cafe fans ~ our site is 30% off through Tuesday, September 10th! We will be adding 4 new designs hopefully tomorrow!