Embroidery Library

I've been doing a lot of research on the net for machine embroidery. And the site that has helped me out the most has been the Embroidery Library.

Lots of great videos, tips, hints, and projects. And he'll explain how to embroider onto different fabrics. A lifesaver really!

Check out his site, it's really worth looking into when you're a beginning embroiderer.

Nice weekend...

Hope that everyone had a nice weekend. I got a few projects started and finished. One that I've been working on was the pillows for the front room. Phil's always wanted to use the window as a window seat. So I've been making pillows for it. There was some material from the bags we didn't make cause they were too thick, so I made them into pillows. I actually reused some pillows that we had in the house that were pretty flat. You just open them up and refluff the stuffing and you have pillows. :)
All weekend I've been working on the computer or in the sewing room. So the cats have been following me everywhere. This is the closest they've been to sitting next to each other in a long time. Velcro (the grey one) doesn't like Oreo very much. So this was a treat to see them so close to each other.


And of course, you can't do laundry without the cat sleeping in the laundry basket. I guess you can't leave the laundry alone for too long, or Velcro will sleep in it.

I'll post some other projects I've started when I'm finished with them. :) A bunch of embroidery stuff is coming up for me, so I'll keep you posted when I'm done.

Name Patches

I just finished a bunch of name patches. These are going to be used on football gear bags. It was my first real try at making patches, and they turned out pretty good I must say. LOL

I wondered how to make the borders on the patches, because we haven't had much real success at it looking really professional. And after getting told that I had to buy a $2,885 machine called a Merrow MG-3U, I thought there must be another way.

After searching the internet, I found this video on the Embroidery Library Projects site. It was the most helpful video ever! Check out their site for other free videos on how to make different embroidered projects.

And since we have the embroidery software, it was really easy to figure out how to do it. I'm finding that most sites won't give you info for free, but there are a few that will. It takes time to search for them, but in the end it's so very helpful!!

And my friend Kay had a great idea, she said it would be fun to put inspirational sayings on them too. I'll have to do that. :)

FGSA Logo

So I stitched out the FGSA logo. I am so happy cause it's my first logo that I created from Scratch. It's so much fun creating something and actually seeing it in the flesh. It is one of my favorite things about mechanical drawing. I loved it when the parts would come back from the manufacturers and we could actually hold it in our hands.

Last year's logo was the same, but the softball in the middle was white, not yellow. How can you have a girl's softball logo with a white ball?? :) Hopefully it will be good enough to put on the jackets. Still have to get the OK from Mr. Prez.

She liked it!

The skirt is a big hit! Alex really liked it, and it fit! Debi's going to do some hemming on it, I hope they take a picture of Alex in it. I can't wait to see her in it.

LOL Cat

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

This is just SO me! LOL

Reuse Jeans skirt

Today I spent the morning making a Skirt from an old pair of Ashley's jeans. They were hand-me-downs (or since she's younger, hand-me-ups?). Anyway, Debi G. told me that Alex needed a skirt, and she is just about my size. So I thought I'd make a skirt for her out of the pair of jeans. Above is the front of the skirt, below is the back.
I found the idea from a book called "Sew Subversive: Down and Dirty DIY for the Fabulous Fashionista" by Rannels, Alvarado, & Meng. It's a really cool book with lots of ideas on how to make your old clothes into something new and fashionable.

There's supposed to be a ruffle on the bottom, but since Alex is totally not a girlie girl, I thought I'd leave it off unless she decides she wants it on there.

What you would do is to cut the skirt to whatever length you wish, rip the inside seams open and sew down the flaps on the front. This pair of jeans had a hole in the front, so I didn't have much of a flap. Then you pretty much cut a piece of material to fit in the middle section, and sew it up.

You'd then sew a ruffle on the bottom. And the book has more detailed instructions than I am giving you. and I wanted to do more embellishing on the front. But I think I'll find another pair of jeans and do that to those.

Funny story

I wish I had taken photos of this. LOL

Today I looked outside of our sliding glass door and saw the coolest hawk sitting on the fence. I called Phil to come over to see the hawk, when he starts running to the door. Yep RUNNING to the door.

Why you may ask? Well, just a few minutes before this, we were feeding our squirrel friend peanuts. And he realized that the squirrel was still in the backyard, so he ran to the door trying to scare it off. Yep, really. And yes, he even said, "My squirrel!!"

Well, before he could scare the hawk away, the squirrel takes a flying leap towards the hawk to scare it away. I couldn't believe it. A little squirrel chasing off a hawk. But then I figure, if I was a bird or cat, and I saw a rodent flying towards me, I think I'd run too. LOL

We're not so worried about the squirrel anymore. ;)

Banana Bread

Many years ago I bought a book called "Great American Favorite Brand Name Cookbook" And in it was this Banana bread recipe.

Although I do not eat the banana bread, cause I really don't like bananas, I have been told that this recipe is really very good. (From those who have ate the bread that I've baked).

Favorite Banana Bread

1 pkg. (8 oz.) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 3 medium bananas)

2 eggs

2-1/4 cups flour

1-1/2 tsp. CALUMET Baking Powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 cup chopped PLANTERS Walnut Pieces

PREHEAT oven to 350°F. Beat cream cheese, butter and sugar and butter in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Add bananas and eggs; mix well. Add combined dry ingredients; mix just until moistened. Stir in walnuts.

POUR into greased and floured 9x5-inch loaf pan.

BAKE 1 hour 10 min. or until wooden toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 5 min.; remove from pan to wire rack. Cool completely before slicing to serve. Store any leftover bread in refrigerator.

We had some bananas that were going bad, so I decided to make the bread. Sad thing is that I don't eat it, and Phil's on a diet so he's not going to eat it. But I hate seeing bananas go to waste. LOL So I think I'll make a trip over to my mom's and drop it off to her. :)

Simon's Cat

I just love this video. One of my cousins sent it to me awhile back. It was so funny, I told Tina yesterday when we were selling things at the Flea Market that my cats don't do this to me. They wait patiently for me to get up to feed them.



Boy, was I ever wrong! This morning at 5:30 am, Velcro started kneeding my neck really really hard and purring really really loud. I think it's because I got up that early the day before to go to the flea market, so she thought she'd get fed that early again. Um no! LOL. I kept thinking if I ignored her she'd go away...

NOT.

It so reminded me of the cat in the cartoon. :)

This morning I watched the BBC version of Emma. And I must say that I loved this version WAY more than the movie with Gwyeneth Paltrow. This version showed more of the relationship between Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax. I could never understand how she couldn't have been upset with him while he was pretending to like Emma. And they showed more of that in the movie.

And there weren't any of the additional scenes that the movie had added to the story. I am glad that Miss Smith and Emma both found happiness at the same time, where the movie had Miss Smith being very sad because Mr. Knightly was going to marry Emma.

And I just loved how Kate Beckinsale portrayed Emma in this version. She just seemed like she was more elite than Gwyeneth's version.

So, again, if you haven't seen this one go out and see it! :)

Anime and Comcast

So, I just discovered that Comcast on Demand has 2 anime channels on it! OMG, I LOVE anime. And it's so cool that I can watch something other than InuYasha or Ghost in the shell. I wasn't a big fan of the Comcast when we first got it. But now that I've been exploring the On Demand channel, OMG, there is so much on there to watch.

I hope they'll show the second season of School Rumble. That one is really cute.

Creative Zen

My friend Kay opened up her own etsy store, CreativeZen. I blogged about her beautiful crochet flowers last week. She does such awesome crochet work, everything I've seen her do has come out so beautiful!

Check out her etsy store. I know she'll be adding lots of other great stuff too!

My Daemon

After watching the Golden Compass, I would tell Phil that I wanted to have a Daemon following me around. And he told me that I did, his name is Oreo. LOL And yep, he spends the day following me around the house. When I'm on the computer, I find him always sleeping on the floor. So, I guess I'd better make him a pillow to lay on. :)

Andagi (Japanese Donuts)

Today I made Andagi or Malasadas or Japanese Donuts. LOL When we were kids, my mom used to make these, especially when company would come over. We really loved it when she made these! I've made them before and they were ok, but with the deep fryer, they turn out really good cause you can regulate the oil temperature. (Boy, that sounded really geeky. LOL)Here are the Andagi frying in the fryer. for some reason, some of them would explode. Not sure why. Made them look a bit funky, but they still tasted good. :)

Here's a whole plate of them. I put them in a bag with sugar and shake shake shake them till they are covered in sugar. This works best when there is not a hole at the bottom of the bag. LOL I think I have to use sturdier bags next time, not lunch bags. ;)

Here's the recipe in case you're interested:

Andagi (Sweet Okinawan Doughnut)

Yield: 1/2 to 3 dozen doughnuts

oil for deep frying
3 cup flour
1 cup sugar
4 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 eggs, slightly beaten
1 cup milk

Heat oil to 375 F. Sift dry ingredients together. Combine eggs and
milk; add to dry ingredients. Mix thoroughly. Drop by teaspoonfuls
into heated oil. Cook about 2 minutes or until golden brown. Drain
on paper towels. Serve warm.

Can you believe it weighs this much?

OMG, we weighed one of the really large oranges, and this one weighed over 1 pound! we couldn't believe it. We were in Safeway the other day and saw that oranges were $0.98 per pound, so this one is over a dollar!! LOL

Orange picking

Today we decided to pick some of the oranges off the tree in the backyard. Ok, Phil did the picking, I did the, "EWWW, there are ants on this orange." and the ever-loving, "OMG! That was a spider!!" LOL Every year the oranges on the tree get bigger and bigger. The ones on the top of the tree were the size of grapefruits.

Here's Phil depositing the oranges on the counter in the backyard.

These things are huge!! We weighed one, and one of the larger ones was over 1 pound in weight! It is amazing that they got so big. We still have about half a tree to finish picking before they all start falling off the tree. California Sunshine. ;)

It's just the techie in me...

I've been having a hard time with drawing graphics on the computer. And I think it's just the techie in me. I have been mechanical drawing since I was in High school. Yes, with pencil and a straight-edge. I took drafting classes in college, all pre-AutoCAD. We used pencil and a drafting machine and in special cases, mylar and ink.

When AutoCAD came out oh too many years ago, it was just too way cool for me. I could draw on the computer. And of course the drawings we were doing were precise. Meaning we had tolerances of +/- .00005 when I worked for the measurement equipment company. And more lax tolerances of +/- .005. LOL

So when it comes to making drawings, it's been really tough for me. I'm so used to making the endpoints of lines snap to the ends of others. And if I want to make a straight line, the dog-gone line is straight!

So I've been having a REAL hard time adjusting to, "OH, let's just put the line here, and maybe it will come out straight, maybe not, but it looks good." What is up with that? LOL

I found a solution for me. AutoCAD will export drawings to .bmp files....YAY! And it will import .jpg files so I can draw over them. OMG, if it wasn't for that, I'd have a REAL hard time making a drawing. LOL I'm so much faster with AutoCAD than with paintshop. It's too funny.

Today I worked on this logo, and I actually made it from scratch! Amazing. LOL It is really fun getting to know the Palette software. I watched a video from Jenny's Sewing Studio and it was very helpful. And since watching the video, I've been able to figure out a couple of other things. I was a bit frustrated because I couldn't figure out how to make the red lines in the ball. But after finding out how to make the lines different thicknesses, I also figured out how to change colors on only some of the lines. Pretty neat!

My first big embroidery

This is my first draft of my first large embroidery. The hoop we have embroiders an area of 5" x 7". The embroidery Christoph wants to have done is way bigger than that. LOL So I had to split the embroidery up into 3 pieces.

Boy, was that a chore to figure out how to split the embroidery. I am using the Palette 7 Software for the Babylock ellure machine. And luckily it is a pretty simply shape to embroider.

It was a bit tough to piece together from the instructions just how to embroider a large piece. I tried using the extra-large hoop that comes with the machine. That hoop is only a few inches larger, and requires you to divide the design into 3 parts. Since my design was still larger than that, I decided to use the regular hoop and only divide the design 3 times instead of 4.

On my first attempt I designed the logo to use the extra-large hoop, not thinking that I had to split the design in that hoop 3 times. So when you write it to the card, then put the card in the sewing machine, it says it will not work.

The way to go about it is to size your custom design page first, then choose the hoop you want to use. This way it will show dashed red lines where your hoop space will be.

Then you import your .pes file into that window.

In the Tutorial section of the software, there is a great photo tutorial of how this works.

I'll post more tomorrow on my trials of hooping this. I hope that it will work out well! :)