“Composers shouldn’t think too much – it interferes with their plagiarism.”-Howard Dietz
“I never had much interest in the piano until I realized that every time I played, a girl would appear on the piano bench to my left and another to my right.”― Duke Ellington
“If you talk bad about country music, it’s like saying bad things about my momma. Them’s fightin’ words.”-Dolly Parton
“Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end.”― Igor Stravinsky
“Beethoven tells you what it’s like to be Beethoven and Mozart tells you what it’s like to be human. Bach tells you what it’s like to be the universe.”― Douglas Adams
“I stole everything I ever heard, but mostly I stole from the horns.”— Ella Fitzgerald
Hello! I’ve been having fun and getting more confident with my embroidery machine. Oh yeah, did I say I bought one? We’re going to blame my Mother in Law as usual for most of my expensive sewing purchases. 🙂 I have wanted an embroidery machine for a while. Since my vintage green sewing machine is named Shirley, I named embroidery machine Florence. It makes me smile!
So this year, I embroidered a bunch of Christmas gifts for people. Please excuse some of them being still in the hoop. I forgot to take pictures of the final product, as between being sick, switching jobs, and the normal holiday rush, it was just not something I focused on.
This one was for the Husband. It suits him perfectly and I just need to find a good frame for it. It’s supposed to look like one of those embroidery samplers, but snarky. He has assured me not everything is for spite… but I know a few things have been. Mostly on my behalf lately, which I’m okay with. *bwhahaha
A Scandinavian deer for my parents. Isn’t it pretty! It was so fascinating to see how the machine sewed everything and I love how it turned out. The pattern is a set of Scandinavian animals, so I’m excited to use more of them in the future.
This one is from the same pack as the deer and really was one of the main reasons I bought that set of embroidery patterns. I had a grand vision of making everyone tiny little embroidered ornaments this year, but only managed a few of them. I do like them though, so maybe everyone will get them next year instead. So you know… forget I said anything if I’m in the habit of sending you presents. 😉 I did have a lot of fun trying out different color combinations with them. I do need to iron that wrinkle out and reframe it, but they came out super cute!
This mint chip ornament went to K2 because she said she liked it. Sometimes when I’m unsure of something it will go to the person who actually does like it. I did too, but I wasn’t sure if anyone else would get the mint chip theme.
Look! A bookmark! Something that I almost never use for its intended purpose. This is made of only thread and water soluble stabilizer to make free standing lace. It was one of three? four? attempts. I did not throw my very expensive embroidery machine off the house for how annoying it was to make, as it wasn’t the machine’s fault. The stabilizer was like thicker plastic cling film and it just kept shredding itself, as you put it in the hoop by itself with no fabric. It also got shoved into the needle plate at one point by the needle, causing me to have to take the needle plate completely off to get it out. There’s apparently a different kind of stabilizer I need instead that’s much easier to use and more fabric like. This stuff would work on top of thicker towels, I think, where it’s not by itself so I am going to save it for those projects. I may have a free standing lace gnome pattern for bookmarks too… 🙂
My friend K1 got another blue towel with an embroidered chicken too, but it says something rather rude and I thought I should protect my poor, innocent, and noble mother from seeing it. 😉 K1 loved it though as it fit her chickens to a tee, so I am satisfied. Fun fact, I got these towels and some other ones from the quilt expo and they are very good quality! These tea pots make my heart enormously happy and I want to make a whole apron set with all of them on it. I think I have 8 or 9 of them. it’s hard to pick a favorite, but I’m a sucker for adorable mushrooms, even if I am allergic to nettles.
Also from the quilt show tea towels were these two that I made for my mother. I completely fooled her too, she didn’t think I’d made them! Both of these designs came from the set that came installed on the machine and I was excited to use them. I fiddled with the colors on the tree. It was originally mostly red, but I wanted to have it match the green towel. I think they both came out looking very nice!
Probably my favorite and most complicated Christmas present were these dice boxes for my older brother and SIL. The blue set of dice has little tiny lutes imbedded in them, since they were for my SIL. My brother got the brown dice box and swirly dice. I also made them this towel with a funny saying on it. If you roll a 20 on these 20 sided dice in table top games, it generally means you’ve made it and whatever you’re trying to do succeeds. If you roll a 1, you’re essentially dead if it was an attack move, or fail at whatever you were trying to do.
The dice boxes were made all with the embroidery machine! They are an “in the hoop” project, meaning the entire thing was done in the embroidery hoop itself. I just cut them out after they were done. I’ll have to make more and take video because it was super cool!
I sent this kitchen towel along with the dice boxes too and it makes me giggle. I wanted to experiment with the variegated rainbow embroidery thread I bought and it came out looking really cool. The thread looks fuzzy in the lighting below, but it isn’t actually in real life.
I have some more embroidery projects too, but they were made for other things or as tests, so I’ll have to make another post and maybe show some video of the machine working. It is pretty magical!
I hope you enjoyed this glimpse of Christmas fun! I’m looking forward to showing off more projects as I get more confident. Also, if you have any ideas on what to embroider, I’ll take them! I only need so many dishtowels!
