Baptism Towels Redesigned

Choose the Right Theme

I redesigned my baptism towels to go along with the 2012 Primary theme.

Here are some of the towels I have been working on.

I really like the new design, and I love the two overlapping colors.

The towels are more vibrant!

No longer disillusioned

I have been working overtime, but haven't had anything to show for my efforts.

Here's the story:

I was approached by a neighbor a couple of weeks ago and asked if I would embroider about 30 handkerchiefs. After asking some basic questions, I told her I would look around and see if I could find an appropriate embroidery design for purchase. I couldn't find one, but consistent with my nature, I also couldn't say no.

I broke down and agreed to do it. I have spent hours, days, and yes, more days working on drawing a design and then re-sequencing it in the bernina embroidery software program. I will be the first to admit that I naively thought embroidering was just so simple. I mean how hard could it be? You tell the machine what to do, hoop it, and let it go right? WRONG!!! Well, that is mostly true for embroidering just letters, but not with anything else. I don't think it is even possible to adequately describe how time consuming and tedious it can be to draw the design and get it to stitch out properly in the first place. Then, there are always adjustments to be made on where to start and stop the needle, so that it is in closer proximity to the next position for stitching. The material and stabilizer has to be put into the hoop aligned just right because they all have to look the same. Finally, you get it all set-up, then realize how long it is going to take to stitch out the design. Wow! If I take the time it takes to stitch one design and multiply that by 30....ummmm that isn't going to work! I guess I will have to re-edit the design because I don't have that kind of time to sit and watch the machine stitch. Yes, I could walk away and hope that it stitches everything out without a problem, but experience has shown that when the thread breaks, the bobbin runs out, or the needle catches on another stitch, the machine does not always stop. So, when I come back thinking the design is finished, it could be that the design is not finished, or worse, it is ruined!

When I finally get the handkerchiefs embroidered, my work is not done. I cut away the excess stabilizer, then the real work begins. I spend the next several hours, or a half of a day, in this case, cutting all of the little connecting threads of the design where the needle had to move to reposition. Lastly, I remove all of the markings I made on the fabric, iron, and lint roll them all. Exhausted, yet? Well, I am!!

In short, here is one of the Salt Lake Temple embroidered handkerchiefs that has

taken me way too long to finish!

They look so simple, don't they?

Do you ever feel this way at the end of a project?

More Embroidered Towels

I am a little behind posting this, but here are some more towels I embroidered for some younger kids in our neighborhood that were baptized on Saturday. The towels were for two brothers and one of their sisters.

I decided to change it up a bit from the towels I embroidered last year that looked like this...

 

 

 

On the new towels, I included the baptism date.

 

We were experiencing a crafty rushed weekend!

My friend, Krista, made 20 very cute drawstring backpacks for Girl's camp.

She is packing them with water bottles, T-shirts, etc...

I embroidered the girls/leaders' names on the front of the bags.

Then, Krista made the camp flag.

The girls chose purple and green as their colors, and wanted a penguin as their mascot.

So, this is what Krista came up with....

Krista is going to put some letters in the middle of the purple,
but it was late Saturday night/Sunday morning by the time we reached this point.

I helped a little bit, by sewing on the ric rac, and quilting the flag.

Although I have the equipment to do it, I don't machine quilt very often. 

I figured I would use the flag as practice!

Long-Sleeved Tee and Burp Cloth

Some of our dearest friends recently had their fourth boy. This is to celebrate the arrival of Thomas.

We like to tease them about having their own basketball team.

Burp cloth front...

and reverse.

Preschooler's Request

My little preschooler has been so excited to start school. We looked at LOTS of backpacks in preparation for the big day. I liked the print ones and she liked them as well, but really wanted a "Tinkerbell Backpack." After looking at how poorly made most of the backpacks are (especially the children's backpacks), and how expensive the other backpacks are. I told her we would simply make her a backpack. The quest began for adequate fabric in cute colors and all of the accessories like nylon straps and buckles, etc. I mean we don't want it to look like we made it, right? Anyway, after her fabric selection, I went about trying to see if we could negotiate on the Tinkerbell part. I mean I have nothing against Tinkerbell, per se. I just don't love having everything we own have some type of princess or fairy character on it (not that we do). Well, I pretty persuasively presented my perspective about how cute the backpack would be without anything on it, or maybe a simple flower. I let her look at various options and she thought other things were cute, but her mind was absolutely already made up. So, Tinkerbell Backpack it is.

Since I have not yet learned my lesson, I took a clip art picture of Tinkerbell (that she picked out) digitized it into an embroidery design and super-imposed it onto a flower. All of this occurring while the backpack is half finished because I was waiting to embroider her name on the inside of the back panel and Tinkerbell on the front pocket. Then the trial run and refining process began. After too many hours of playing with the design, I finally decided it was ready to embroider and began. Well, after the flower was stitched and part of Tinkerbell, I stopped the process and did some time consuming revisions. All of this because I was too cheap to justify purchasing an embroidery design that I new I would only use once. Luckily, I had enough fabric to make a new pocket panel and began all over. Due to the embroidering delays and my busy work schedule lately, the backpack did not make it to the first or second day of school (not that she really needed it), but I finished it in time for her third day of school today. Hooray!! The best things about this situation were she was very forgiving, understanding, more than willing to wait, AND just as excited to have it today as she would have been if she had had it for the first day of school. Yep, kids really are the best!

While making the backpack she requested a regular pocket on the side in addition to the pens/pencils pocket I put on the other side. "Why?" I asked. "For my phone," she stated. "What phone?" I questioned, thinking maybe a toy phone. "My cell phone, in case I need to call you," came the reply. Then, we had a discussion about how she is not getting a cell phone because she does not need one. She came to understand why a cell phone could be considered unnecessary, however, she still wanted a pocket on the other side.

I used canvas to line the inside and outdoor awning fabric for the outside. I purchased all of the fabric and accessories like backpack zippers, nylon straps, and strap clips from my local JoAnn store.

Welcome to Embroidery!

Wow! I have just entered the embroidery world and this is my first real project. I took a clip-art graphic used the fabulous Bernina Embroidery Design Plus Software, and digitized. Digitize = a few days work and lots of editing and such for a really simple graphic. The program runs kind of like Adobe Photoshop. So, once you get some shortcut keys and stuff down it gets a little easier. Since this is my first graphic conversion, I had a large learning curve. I am by no means well skilled in embroidering. The first lesson I learned, and luckily learned correctly, is that you always to a test run of the design on scrap fabric first. I think for as much $ as this software is, it ought to be more compatible with Windows Vista and come with some type of instruction manual. The training CD is a joke. Bernina does offer free classes, I just need to find time to attend. I am going to upgrade to the brand new version 6 and hope some of the bugs are worked out and life is better.

Well, this was "one of those" projects that went right down to the last minute and caused some stress. But, it got finished in time and all was well. I learned a lot and it needs some tweaking, but I don't think it turned out all that bad for my first time. This towel went to my neighbor, Lexi, in honor of her baptism on Saturday.