Miscellaneous Embroidery

After returning from visiting the kids in England, I embroidered a key fob for all my quilting friends, but completely forgot to take photos.  After asking on the group, one of them did respond and send me a photo.  The design is from Beyond the frame embroidery and are available for free once you register on their site.

Whilst in the UK my daughter ordered the tassels for me from Amazon and the hardware for the Key Fob is from Fabric8.

After responding to one of my adverts on Marketplace, I embroidered two spit cloths for a client.  She ordered bunnies and chose these two from the Morehead Collection called Bountiful Bunnies.  You can find it here.

A few months back gym instructor Beryl, asked me to cover the logo of Postbank on two golf shirts with any embroidery designs suitable for a man.  I decided to do two big cats, a lion and a tiger.  With the logo being 7cm wide, I had to choose designs wide and dense enough for this task. She was overjoyed with the result and me just happy to finish as it was so thick, the thread kept on snapping. 

The original logo

and the two big cats I embroidered.

Once again, I forgot to take photos, but luckily with Embird software, I was able to save images from the designs used.  I had these designs since I bought my first embroidery machine back in 2000.

Embroidered sewing machines for friends

Nothing much happening around here craft wise.  I am helping my son setting up a buy and sell business which is keeping us pretty busy.  The only embroidery being done are 3 applique sewing machines for quilting friends attending a sew away hosted by the local Pfaff/Husqvarna vendor.

The first two are for co-quilter Frances.  The design is from Smartneedle 

which I edited with Embird software and are available here .

I received a photo of above design and low and behold, when I searched through my designs, I had the exact same one!  I had to split the stitching on the applique to be able to embroider that in a different color but with Embird, that was quickly done.  I have no idea where this design originates from.

Sew Happy BOM

I had seriously fallen behind with this quilt between visiting the kids and being ill.  Block 3 and 4 is done and I am busy with the borders.  I am however having trouble getting a coordinating navy fabric for the outside border as I had only a fat quarter.  Never new there are so many shades of navy until you start looking for a particular one...

Sport towels for bowls

My son was chosen to represent the Southern Free State bowls under/30 team at the inter districts tournament held in Klerksdorp.  As part of their outfit, they needed towels to keep the bowls clean.

I embroidered one for each of the 4 team members adding their SFS numbers as well.  

And this what it looked like.

They four young men representing their province.

From left to right:  Mardian Bezuidenhout, Pieter Kleynhans, Phillip Schoon and Trevor Geel JR

Online shopping at Fabricstore

Earlier this year I asked for help to obtain a certain fabric line from the Facebook community and was told about this store and I was absolutely blown away by their variety and prices.  But being a pensioner, I had to bide my time until was I able to shop till I dropped.  You know, you have to buy enough to justify the courier costs, or well, that's my excuse.  Great was my husband's astonishment when he arrived last night after lawn bowls, and it was just fabric everywhere.  And now I am in need of cupboard space as I literally don't have any space.

10 pieces of 0.5m x 1.50m striped pieces (bought for quilt bindings)

Cotton thread

A closeup of two of the offcut bundles, 100% cotton.

7m precuts of 1m x 1m.

Mixed prints for boys consisting of 10 x 0.5m x 1.5m pieces.

Mixed prints for girls consisting of 10 x 0.5m x 1.5m pieces.

Another offcut bundle.

White polar fleece.

Black Faux Leather

Winnie the Pooh Bunting

Mickey Mouse Bunting - 1m x 1.5m for R15 - I mean, really?

Various offcut bundles/remnants - softshell, cotton fleece, 100% cotton bundle, cotton knit (always handy when machine embroidering as you don't need large pieces)

20m roll of bias binding for only R10

Various lace pieces.

10m set for babies

Solid colors consisting of 10 x 0.5m x 1.5m pieces.

It's like having your own birthday party opening up all the packages.

Bubble puff quilt

I received an order for another puff quilt 3 weeks ago and as we are almost going on holiday, I started ASAP.  It was the first time I had to stitch one according to measurements (cot size 140 x 70cm) and had a bit of trouble getting it to exact size as it reduces in size when the puffs are stuffed.

The order was for grey and white with blue and yellow.  As I had the animal print already, I send a photo of it to the client, and she immediately gave the go ahead.

After adding an extra row to the top and bottom (which are quite difficult to do with all the puffs already stuffed) the quilt was still not the correct size.  I then added a 2-inch grey border all around and finished with a blue binding.

Another extremely happy client who will take the quilt with for their new grandson when they travel to the Netherlands at the end of the month.

Biscornu and Scissor cases

After embroidering a biscornu and scissor pockets for my friend's birthday, the other members of our quilting group, the Rotary Cutters, expressed their interest in obtaining similar sets.  I told them it's fine, I will do the embroidery as long as they do the hand stitching themselves as I am not big on doing hand stitching.  Luckily only one ordered the complete set with the biscornu included, so I decided to finish sewing everything.  Each ordered in their favorite colors, so after combining the various parts and pieces in the largest frame my Brother Innovis 4000 uses, I started embroidering.  And I must say, they did look gorgeous.

Marietjie loves red and green which was embroidered on a light ivory Chintz fabric.

Angeline chose grey, turquoise and magenta and I stitched this on white Chintz.

After friend Aletta saw Angeline's set, she also ordered one.

(Updated 1 October 2023)

Elsa requested black and red which was also stitched on white.

and Frances chose the rich bible colors of purple, fuchsia, scarlet etc. also stitched on white.

The designs are the Biscornu 2 set from Artistic designs available here. 

Friend Magda got a set for her birthday done in orange and green on the ivory Chintz.

Whilst embroidering al the sets, I kept everyone's bits and pieces in separate marked bags with the colors used as not to get confused.

All that remains now is to put all the thread used away in the handy steel drawer system I use to keep my threads organized by color and number.

Over the 23 years since starting to embroider, I managed to collect the whole catalogue of Marathon Thread of 399 cones as well as a few other brands.

Each one is wrapped with a plastic sleeve which are kept in place with a small elastic band to protect it from dust.