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!
Filed Under: How To, Products | Tagged: Tagged With: ,

Thread and Hoops!

Posted by on January 3, 2011
I hope this doesn’t look too gross? Yesterday was New Year’s Day. In the SOUTH, we take the ham bone from the ham we’ve been eating every other meal for the past week, throw it in a pot and throw in a bag of BLACK EYED PEAS!! We don’t/didn’t do the “greens”, but hopefully the BEP’s will bring us good luck in 2011! If this picture didn’t make you shut down my blog, then read on…
Today I “organized” my thread on the floor. I have both 1000M spools and 5000M spools. I’m working on a thread order so I had to sort all the colors and figure out what I needed. I use mostly Poly X thread from www.kenssewingcenter.com (and I have a gift certificate to use) and also Isacord from www.sewingmachine.com (most of my 5000M spools are Isacord). I like both brands and my machine seems to like them too. I have REAL thread charts for both brands with real thread samples, so it makes ordering very easy. I’m trying to build up my collection of 5000M spools, especially on the colors I use most.
Isn’t thread fun??
Tonight I made a Walmart run for diapers (Mal still sleeps in them unfortunately) and a dust pan. I came out with diapers, a dust pan, an 8 pack of paper towels, a pack of hot dogs, a pack of Oreos, a turtleneck for Mallory, a sippy cup and this super duper soft fleece pullover for G. I didn’t even have a buggy so the dust pan was literally hanging from my finger and I had stuff tucked under every part of me that would bend. You know exactly what I’m talking about!! Anyway… this fleece top was $5.00. This is why I love what I do! I can add a monogram to a $5.00 fleece top and I have a cute soft warm fleece for my G! The stitching is all light blue.
And now we come to my new best friend, the 9×9 HOOP!
http://www.allbrands.com/products/abp26773.html
This hoop is from Allbrands and if you have a 6 needle Brother machine, then this hoop is a must! It’s not made by Brother, but rather by Durkee and is compatible with several Brother and Babylock machines (see listing). This is a photo of the hoop on my machine. As you can see, my arm is expanded as wide as it’ll go just about ~ this hoop is probably as wide as the XL hoop that comes with the machine. It clips on just like any of the other hoops.

Here is a picture of the hoop hooped onto a size 4T turtleneck. It actually works great for smaller sizes too. I use medium cutaway and the 15″ x 25 yard roll from sewingmachine.com is great for this hoop!

Here is the 5×7 hoop on top as a comparison. The 9×9 hoop is about the same width b/c the 5×7 hoop is also 9″ wide. But, as you can see, it gives you more room vertically. Even though the 5×7 hoop is really 9″ wide, your machine will only allow you to use 7″ horizontally. With the 9×9 hoop, your machine recognizes it as the XL hoop so while you have to watch your boundaries like you do with Fast Frames, it gives you more than 7″ to work with across the shirt.
Here is a picture of my needle position as far up as it’ll go. The top of my design will be here and the needle will not hit the hoop.
Here is the finished shirt. I did not put a name on this shirt, but as you can see, there is plenty of room below the cross to put a name. Had I wanted a name on the shirt below the cross with a 5×7 hoop, I would have had to hoop vertically which would mean my shirt would be sideways on the machine! We all know this is a pain!
I was turned on to this hoop by some friends on Facebook, finally ordered it and use it all the time! As my friend HBS says, it’ll make your 5×7 hoop jealous!
Filed Under: How To, Shopping | Tagged: Tagged With: , ,
« Previous Page