On the fly

Hello everyone, hope you are enjoying this month’s embroidery club project. Well I am off for a short vacation to St. Lucia. We’re leaving tomorrow afternoon. And, yes I am all packed. Well except for a few sticky notes with things to pack at the last minute.

Do you recognize this bag??

You should. It’s the Appliquéd Messenger Bag, without the appliqué. Kind-a hard to tell, but I have also added a zipper to the top, instead of the magnetic snap. Nice addition, I have to say. Love the extra security of a zipper. The best part is the weight, or lack there of. It’s made of nylon and it is super light. Fabric handbags are always lighter than leather ones, but nylon rocks. So amazing for shopping. I was so inspired that I purchased more nylon. Now I can hardly wait to come back from vacation to make another one. OK, I didn’t believe that either. I can wait, but I am really excited about the nylon bag. Anyway, that’s it for now. Talk to you after St. Lucia.

Warm and Cozy

It’s that time of the month for my retail embroidery club members. Time to download the February embroidery club project and designs, click here to get to the download page.

This month it’s a cozy hot water bottle cover. It’s embellished with embroidery designs from the coordinating design set Folk Art Appliqué Embroidery Designs #sc042d. This appliqué technique is very different from the satin stitch appliqué. I really hope you enjoy the embroidery process. Patricia from Sault Ste Marie used polar fleece for her hot water bottle cover. With the polar fleece background she found that the stems sunk into the pile, so she stitched over them once more and liked the results. So if you plan to use polar fleece, try this technique. Have fun and let me know how your club members feel.

Wrapping it up

Happy New Year! Been a little under the weather between Christmas and New Year, but feeling better now. Thank God, I’ve got lots of sewing to do. I did finish up my Christmas presents and took a few pics to show. I made a fun little art tote for my great nice Alexa. There are lots of these around, from crayon rolls to little tote bags, this is my version. It has a pocket for a pad of paper and slots for the crayons.

I created a pocket on the side for odds and ends.

When it’s closed, it looks like a tote.

Alexa loves it. She’s been carrying it around with her everywhere they have gone, over the holidays. More importantly her mom, Erica, loves it cause it keeps Alexa busy on the road. Actually I needed to make the tote just a bit larger, enough to fit a standard sized coloring book. I think I made it 9” square, or so. Trying to make it small enough for a three year old to carry and large enough to fit stuff is difficult. Erica also mentioned that she would have liked it to have some kind of a closure. Anyway, I will work out these little changes and it will likely wind up as an embroidery club project.
I also made a couple of these neck warmers. You just slip them over the head and scrunch up to keep your neck warm. You can also pull it up over your ears. Soo easy to make. It’s just a strip sewn into a tube with a hem at both ends. A serger makes it neat, but since fleece does not fray a sewing machine works just as well.