Embroidery Archives - Angela Wolf

UPCYCLE 👗 DESIGN A SKIRT WITH EMBROIDERY

Embroidery is such a hot trend this spring! Whether you are sewing a skirt from scratch or recycling one from the back of your closet, adding a touch of embroidery can create an entirely fresh look. Keep in mind this would look great on a dress too 😊

Supplies:

I am using The Kate Skirt sewing pattern from the Angela Wolf Pattern Collection
Pacesetter Medium Weight Fusible Cut-Away Embroidery Stabilizer
Embroidery Thread

DESIGNER TIP: My skirt fabric is a linen blend, but the stabilizer I am using would work great on rayon, cotton sateen, denim, wool, and cotton blends. JUST be careful with satin, silk blends, and velvet (to name a few). You don’t want to damage the fabric from the iron when pressing on the fusible stabilizer; it’s best to test the stabilizer on a swatch of fabric first.

Determine the placement for the embroidery on the skirt. I am going to focus on one side of the front of the skirt; marking that spot with a fabric pen or tailors chalk. Press the embroidery stabilizer on the wrong side of the fabric covering the area to be embroidered.

Hoop the fabric and insert the hoop into the machine. Choose an embroidery design or add a couple of designs onto the screen. Scan the fabric in and move the embroidery design as needed. If you don’t have the scanning feature on your sewing machine, use an embroidery placement marker such as the snowman or other tools.

You can read the full blog, head over to my post as a Brother Expert Consultant on the Brother Stitching Sewcial. Be sure to share photos of embellished Kate skirt #angelawolf #brothersews

Cheers,

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DIY RESTYLE PROJECT: TURTLENECK MAKE OVER

I have a few turtlenecks that are made of beautiful fabrics, but I can’t stand the high, tight neckline. Time for another DIY recycle project to makeover this sweater! The look of see through fabric, embroidered, and embellished tulle are so trendy right now - why...

TUTORIAL: HOW TO THREAD THE BROTHER DOUBLE SIDED COVERSTITCH MACHINE CV3550

I was so excited to see this new double sided top coverstitch machine by Brother! I can think of so many applications for these decorative stitches including sportswear, decorative stitching, chainstitch, hemming knits, and so much more. I am going to...

UPCYCLE 👗 DESIGN A SKIRT WITH EMBROIDERY

DIY Tutorial: How to Design Felt Embroidered Heart Decorations

I am always looking for cute decorations for Valentine’s day, maybe it’s just that I love the color red 😊 Custom embroidered felt hearts is a fun way to share the love. This is a quick tutorial using My Design Center on the Brother sewing machine. Photo 1 Supplies:...

Shirt Dress Sewalong: Sewing the Sleeve Placket

It's Sew Easy TV's Shirt Dress Sewalong Part 4: Sewing the Placket on the Sleeve There are many ways to sew the sleeve placket and depending on your pattern you might have a one piece or two piece placket. If you have a two piece placket, you can change...

Shirt Dress Sewalong: Attaching the Collar

It's Sew Easy TV's Shirt Dress Sewalong Part 3 Attaching the Collar Sewing the collar and collar band can be intimidating, but it's easier than you might thing. The most important is the topstitching, this is what makes your shirt or shirtdress look...

Shirt Dress Sewalong: Sewing the Front Placket

How to Sew the Front Placket It's Sew Easy TV's Shirt Dress Sewalong - Part 2 Tips for Attaching Interfacing Pressing fusible interfacing to the fabric is easy if you follow these tips: Use a press cloth underneath the garment to prevent the fusible from...

Announcing the Shirt Dress Sewalong on It’s Sew Easy TV

It's Sew Easy TV's Shirt Dress Sewalong Announcing the shirt dress sewalong! This season of It’s Sew Easy I will be sewing a shirt dress from beginning to end and you can follow along each week watching each episode of It’s Sew Easy! To get started you will need to...

DIY: REFASHION A SWEATER INTO A SWEATER JACKET

I bought this sweater a few years back because the fabric is soft and fluffy, but I never wear it because the collar is too tight! I leave it in the drawer and pet it every once in a while 🙂 Even when I would attempt wear the sweater on a cold, wintry...

DIY Tutorial: How to Design Felt Embroidered Heart Decorations

Supplies: felt, tearaway embroidery stabilizer, water soluble topper, embroidery thread, scissors

Start by going into MY DESIGN CENTER in the Brother Embroidery Machine. Choose the hoop size you plan on using. I am using the 14” x 9 /2” so I can embroider a lot of hearts at the same time.

Click on the SHAPE. You will find a heart shape on the first page, but if you have the upgrades or THE Dream Machine 2 click on the icon for additional shapes.

On this page you will find a few different heart shapes, choose you favorite.

Alter the size of the heart if you want it larger or smaller. Send the design to embroidery, but before you set the design check the stitches. There are five options. I choose the satin stitch, but there are other fun one’s too.

I decided to widen the ZIGZAG WIDTH. Save the design if you want to quickly access it later and click SET.

Click on ADD and choose a font.

Type in your “Valentine Message” and remember you can make the letters large, medium, or small and there are options for capital and lower case letters. Photo 26

To read the full blog, head over to my post as a Brother Expert Consultant on the Brother Stitching Sewcial. Be sure to share photos of your bags #angleawolf #brothersews

Happy Valentine’s Day ♥

Cheers,

DIY RESTYLE PROJECT: TURTLENECK MAKE OVER

by Angela Wolf

TUTORIAL: HOW TO THREAD THE BROTHER DOUBLE SIDED COVERSTITCH MACHINE CV3550

by Angela Wolf

UPCYCLE 👗 DESIGN A SKIRT WITH EMBROIDERY

by Angela Wolf

DIY Tutorial: How to Design Felt Embroidered Heart Decorations

by Angela Wolf

Shirt Dress Sewalong: Sewing the Sleeve Placket

by Angela Wolf

Shirt Dress Sewalong: Attaching the Collar

by Angela Wolf

DIY PROJECT: EMBROIDERY & APPLIQUE HAT & MITTENS

Customizing pieces of your winter wardrobe has never been easier. This project will show you how to use embroidery and appliqué to embellish a knitted hat and mittens. Great gift idea!

Supplies

Hat & Mittens , 10” x 4” Gold or Silver Lame Fabric, Brother Embroidery Thread, Brother Metallic Thread, Pacesetter Medium Weight Tear-away Adhesive Stabilizer, ScanNCut —– tack adhesive fabric support sheet, piece of plastic (dry cleaner bags work great!), Brother Embroidery Machine

Step 1: Visit www.ibroidery.com and search through the snowflake designs, I choose design #BR-fp116 (link to design http://www.ibroidery.com/sitesearch.aspx?SC=fp116 ) Periwinkle Snowflake. Download the design to a USB stick. Insert the USB stick into the embroidery machine and open the file.

Step 2: Open the snowflake design and click on EDIT. Click on the APPLIQUE ICON. Click on MEMORY and save the design back to the USB stick. We have now turn this design into an applique design that can be transferred to the Brother ScanNcut.

Step 3: Insert the USB stick into the Brothers ScanNCut and retrieve the file. You will then see the appliqué outline. Change the number of designs to cut to 3.

Step 4: Prepare the cutting mat by layering a piece of —— tack adhesive fabric support sheet. Place your fabric onto the mat and smooth out any wrinkles. Scan in the mat so you can see where the fabric is located and move the three designs around so they are all located on the fabric.

To read the full blog and learn how to design your own bowl cover, head over to my post as a Brother Expert Consultant on the Brother Stitching Sewcial. This is such a quick way to customize any bowl, I can’t wait to try different fabrics for the holiday season!

Cheers,

Embellishing – Fabricate with Applique!

Fab-ri-cate (from dictionary.com unabridged – based on the Random House Dictionary)

To make by art or skill and labor; construct
To make by assembling parts or sections
To devise or invent
To fake; forge

That definition pretty much leaves the door open for ultimate creativity, wouldn’t you say? One idea includes designing your own fabric or altering a fabric into something totally different, which is what I did with the above jacket.

The fabric used for the applique trimming is a polyester / satin. A lightweight fabric with fabulous drape, perfect for a blouse or lining (both of which I plan to add to jacket). That fabric, if left alone, would be a nightmare to create appliques or cut-outs, so I fabricated – sounds like a bad word 🙂 !

The trick – Heat N Bond, now available from my favorite place WAWAK Sewing and comes in 5 yard and 35 yard pieces. At first I wasn’t too sure about this stuff, but basically you iron it to the back of the fabric and it makes it easier for you to cut out an applique – especially if you are using the Brother Scan-n-Cut

This is how easy an applique can be:

Choose a design – for the sleeve I enlarged a design already in the scan-n-cut memory.
Place the bonded fabric onto the cutting mat (the paper backing on the heat –n-bond makes it easy to stick)
Press the start button (told you it was easy!)

Peel off the backing and place the appliques on the garment.

Once you have the perfect placement, use a press cloth and press the applique in place. Notice I attach the appliques before sewing the sleeve together.

Even though the cut of the scan-n-cut prevents the fabric edges from fraying, I still stitch the applique in place. I choose the blanket stitch and stitched around each applique. That took some time, but it looks great. Almost looks like leather!

I followed all those steps for the jacket front and again used a blanket stitch.

Of course I could cut these appliques by hand, but I really like the fact that all the front pieces are exactly the same! By the way, don’t look too closely at my studio – can you tell I have been working 🙂

Well, that’s one fun way to fabricate. Have you ever tried appliqueing apparel?

Cheers,

Embroidery Embellishment and Congrats to Serger Class Winner!

Getting new samples ready for It’s Sew Easy TV season 6 taping, I am finishing designing new dresses and experimenting with embellishing with embroidery. I have had this purple raw silk for years and really like the color, but it’s SO bright by itself! I will probably color block with black for one of the designs, but for this one I wanted to try adding a touch of embellishment. This is the start (obviously I have not pressed out the embroidery hoop marking) …

I found this flower in the Brother Quattro sewing machine. The flower was originally a medium size, so I tried to make it as large as possible for one of the flowers and as small as possible for the other. This was so easy to do! Using the touch screen I was able to enlarge the flower and move the design to the top left of the screen, which will embroider in the top left part of the hoop.

You can see below how the first larger flower is embroidering on the top left side of the hoop.

First flower looks great!

For the second flower – I turned the shape upside down, made the flower as small and narrow as possible, and moved the shape to the bottom right side of the hoop.

Looks pretty good!!!!! I used a silver metallic thread, although you can’t see that very well from the photo’s – clean and simple.

As far as designing, I cut the bottom of the dress to allow for a straight skirt or adding darts or pleats to the waistband. I am definitely adding the darts 🙂 I will post photos when the dress is finished.

Congratulations Wilma Coats the winner of my Creative Serging Class on Craftsy! Again, here is a coupon if you would like to join us in a fun, creative online class.

Princess Embroidery on Silk

First off, thanks so much for the embroidery tips! I started with simply adding letters on sueded silk, just trying to get a grip on rotating the word and changing the overall size. I am happy to announce, embroidering letters is much easier than I thought.

I choose a font from the Brother Dreamweaver XE and all you have to do is push the letters on the touch screen. Changing from upper case to lower case is a breeze. Then another push of the button and the entire word rotated directions. (I know I said no monogram towels for Christmas gifts, but I think I changed my mind – this is way too much fun! Now I just need the machine to offer spell check :))

So here is where I screwed up … I was in a hurry and grabbed a bobbin that was 1/3 full. Instead of taking all that thread off the bobbin and starting fresh, I added more thread to that bobbin. Not a big deal, unless you run out of bobbin thread! This sewing machine has an automatic sensor that tells you when you are going to run out of thread. Very cool feature, unless the machine doesn’t know you are going to run out of thread, which is exactly what happened here. I was lucky the thread ran out at the end of my first “S”, but I still had to line up another “S” or change my idea to Princes (on pink fabric). I played around with the laser light and found that I could tell the machine where to start the last letter. Not too shabby!

I have big design ideas for my newly found passion for embroidery, but for the first few tests I am going to work on small pieces of fabric and share with those of you that are as much a novice as I am on this.

A few emails rolled in about how exactly to embroidery the jeans and I thought this photo might help. Remember there were 3 hoopings on each leg. The front pockets were already attached and the back was finished, except for the back pocket. I waited to add the back pocket because I was worried the fabric would be too thick under the embroidery hoop. You can see how the design started large near the hip, then smaller, and then even smaller at the ankle.

I am off to buy more embroidery thread and needles. Thanks to many of you for your advice, I think this is going to be fun. In the next post I will show you what the Princess is for and add more texture to the fabric. Have a great week! Cheers 🙂 Angela