Friday, November 27, 2009

Christmas Ornaments and other Mishaps

It’s been a while since I’ve updated, too long really, I have been far too busy getting sick this month to get much done. I have however begun work on a pile of Christmas ornaments that I need to make for the 19th of December and beyond. I worked out that I need about 60+ of these little ornaments which at a running time of 25 minutes each a few days of nonstop work. I try to set the embroidery machine up on weekends when my boyfriend is over playing video games, but lately that not been the case, I’ve spent my nights and weekends sleeping to fight off the flu. I do however have a decent pile started, but 50 or more to finish. I bought 4 large King cones of Robison-Anton rayon embroidery thread for this project in evergreen, gold, red and white, the king cones last longer and are more economical than the mini-kings.
The project idea was borrowed from Embroidery Library. Its two layers of organza and one layer of water soluble stabilizer with a design embroidered onto the organza. This was sort of the first time I did a large scale project with my embroidery machine in its new home, so it was quite exciting. My mother even came down to see it up and running permanently.













Designs shown are from embroidery library as well, they’re the set of Symbol Snowflakes.

I also tried another embroidery design, this time on sweatshirt fleece. I’d like to put this one on some hoodies for my sister and I. We both love playing Dungeons and Dragons so this design speaks greatly to us. I think it’s a lot smarter and intelligent than some of the other d20 designs and slogans out there. Unfortunately the tension on my machine was to high when testing this out, but it’s a good thing I stitched the full design out or I would not have seen how much It needed adjusting, the larger “mistakes” are further in the design. It’s a good test; I love how it looks stitched out and how it will once the tension mistake has been corrected. This design is from Urban Threads.



The other project I have been working on is Burda 108-7-07, which are skinny jeans, in a dark navy blue. I actually discovered while trying them on that the denim is very slightly elastine, maybe 2% at the most, it’s slight, but they’re going to fit very well. There has been a few mishaps as these are my first pair of jeans but, I’m pleased with how they’re turning out even if has meant getting creative with my sewing skills. They’re about half done and I expect that I shall be finishing them up right away before I tackle my boyfriends western style shirt for the holidays.

Tonight is cutting out squares for a quilt or working on the jeans. I ran out of embroidery needles and need to pick some up before I can continue with the ornaments.