Sulky Embroidery Club
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Mother’s Day Embroidery Club Round-up
Mother’s day is just around the corner and the Sulky Embroidery Club has some great designs to jump start your creativity. Here are a few ways I came up with to use these great designs: Tote bag – Who doesn’t like a nice tote bag! You can put the design on a regular store-bought bag and then put a great gift inside as well. Maybe a gift certificate to her favorite store or nail salon. A Card – Did you know that you can embroider on paper? When we see embroidery designs we automatically think they need to go on fabric but many of these designs would look great on the front…
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The Stabilizer Basics – How do I get started?
When I first started doing machine embroidery I did it all wrong. I used the wrong stabilizer, I used the wrong size hoop, and I used the wrong needle! The only thing I did right was use Sulky Rayon Thread. I ruined a great deal of fabric and spent a lot of time spinning my wheels. I didn’t want to call and ask my friends who did embroidery every time I wanted to put a silly letter on something (letters were all I did for the first year or so!). Does this sound like you? You have the machine, and you may have even taken a class on how to…
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The Stabilizer Basics – Water Solubles and Heat-Away
The Stabilizer Basics Water Solubles and Heat-Away In today’s Stabilizer Basics I am going to chat with you about Water Soluble (Solvy’s) and Heat- Away™ stabilizers. These are both temporary stabilizers that started out with a couple simple applications, but, because you guys are so creative, you have discovered a million really cool uses for these amazing stabilizers! Water Soluble Stabilizers Water Soluble Stabilizers are just that, they dissolve in water. The number 1 use for the lightest weight Solvy is as a topper on napped fabrics, like towels, to keep the loops or pile from poking through the stitching; to prevent stitches from getting lost in the fabric; and/or…
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The Stabilizer Series – More Questions Answered
I mentioned that you guys sent in a ton of great questions, right? Well here is the second installment of the Q and A. I have learned so much from finding the answers to these questions! I have also learned that there is not one right way. The things that I suggest in these answers may not be your go-to way to solve an embroidery problem. If you would do it differently, please let us know by putting it in the comments below. The best way to learn is when we all share what works for us. I used a sticky stabilizer once and it was too hard to get off.…
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The Stabilizer Series – Your Questions Answered
I am so excited about the response we have gotten to this series! I was going to wait and do Q and A at the end of it, but we have had so many questions already, I thought I would do a couple posts in the middle of this series with answers to your specific questions. (If you want to catch up, you can read the first post here and the second post in the series here) So here are your questions and answers: Tell me what stabilizers to use for Terry Bath Towels, please. This is a huge challenge to me! Most often for bath towels, I use 1…
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Free Martin Luther King Jr. Embroidery Design
Martin Luther King Jr. Embroidery Design To honor Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we have this free downloadable embroidery design with one of his many amazing quotes. I hope this blesses you as it has me. Growing up in the Atlanta area meant that I had the privilege of learning about the great work that Martin Luther King, Jr., did for civil rights first hand. I remember my amazing mama taking me to the Magnolia Room and explaining to me that Dr. King had been arrested in this very restaurant just because of the color of his skin. I have had the honor to go to Ebenezer Baptist Church and explore the…
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The Stabilizer Basics – Cut Away and Tear Away Stabilizers
Note: This is the second in a series about stabilizers. You can read the first installment here. When I started doing research for this series, the more I uncovered, and the more I realized there was to learn! One of my first questions was “How many stabilizers are there?!?!” It can feel like there are 4 million different kinds and they all seemed to have a very specific use. There are basically four different types of stabilizer: Cut-Away, Tear-Away, Wash-Away and Heat-Away. All of our stabilizers are color-coded, too. In this post, I will give you the basics and primary (most common) uses for Cut-Away (purple packaging) and Tear-Away (green packaging) stabilizers.…
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The Stabilizer Basics – Series
I have a confession to make. Although I have been sewing since I was a child, I am very very new to machine embroidery. The truth is, when I started this job with Sulky the most complex thing I could do on an embroidery machine is use the alphabet that is built in the machine in order to put a name or letter onto a towel. Don’t get me wrong, I owned all the right stuff. I had all the stabilizers, I had books, I even had friends who knew what they were doing and they were willing to answer any question that I had. The problem is, I had no idea…
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My Favorite Sites For Hand Embroidery Patterns & A Giveaway!
Hand Embroidery is one of my favorite things to do. I love the act of stitching, especially with Sulky Cotton Petites™ & Sulky Sticky Fabri-Solvy™ (You can read why I love these products for hand embroidery here), but I also love that there are so many new designs these days. No longer is hand embroidery just red work, traditional or heirloom. No matter what your personal style, you can find hand embroidery patterns just for you. There are tons of great sites with fantastic patterns, but here are a few of my favorites. HINT: I am doing a giveaway at the end of this blog (Like the monster at the end…
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Make Your Own Award Ribbons With Your Embroidery Machine
Recently my quilt guild had our bi-annual Quilt Show. This year we had a new division: The Young Quilters’ division. Since this is not a juried show, we normally only give one award, the Peoples’ Choice award, but I just couldn’t in good conscience let the Young Quilters go away from our show without a ribbon. Confession time, I procrastinated and never got real ribbons ordered. So there I was sitting in my sewing studio the day before the Quilt Show was to open and I needed 4 ribbons to go on the four precious quilts that were entered in our Young Quilters division. I looked in my drawer and saw…