Happy Valentine’s Day!
My husband and my son. My two favorite people to love. Happy Valentine’s Day!
Feb 14
5 Places To Find and Download Free Machine Embroidery Designs Instantly!
1. Embroider This! has over 200 free embroidery designs to choose from and if you are already a member you can go directly to their Free embroidery designs page and enter your name and e-mail. If you haven’t been to the site before you may need to create an account to log-in. They also have free project ideas with complete instructions and templates.
2. Embroidery Designs.com has many free machine embroidery designs available for download plus offers a huge library of search-able designs. You will need to log-in to your existing account or create a new account with EmbroideryDesigns.com to download your free designs.
3. Husqvarna Viking website has many free designs with project instructions. Note that these designs are only available in the .vp3 or .hus formats.
4. Urban Threads has a few free designs for download. Their freebies change periodically so you will need to check in from time to time to see what’s new there.
5. Designs In Machine Embroidery magazine has a few free designs to choose from often in conjunction to their latest magazines which is great because you can see the project designs and instructions in detail. These are usually only available for a limited time so grab them while you can.
These are just a few of my favorites. If you haven’t downloaded designs from any of these websites before make sure you read their terms carefully and check to make sure you are downloading the correct file type for your embroidery machine.
8 Pretty Ideas for Fabric Scraps Storage
Every project I sew no matter how big or small always has little scraps that end up in pile on one corner of my cutting table. And each sewing project I complete grows this pile into a little mountain of color. Once it starts to interfere with my work space I move the mound into a big storage bin never to be seen again.
Here are some great storage solutions that keep your scraps organized and in plain view for endless inspiration.
(Directions to construct the fabric bucket & the embroidery designs can be found here.)
Great idea to fold scraps and display them in an apothecary jar. Check it out at Prudent Baby.
Large glass jars of fabric scraps by your sewing machine can help inspire new projects. Check out the studio tour at A Happy Nest.
Great way to organize these beautiful fabric scraps and save self space in your sewing room.
Love this simple vintage wire basket for fabric scraps storage.
Fill up a wonderful vintage suitcase with scraps or fat quarters.
Store scraps in a lovely vintage enamelware casserole dish.
Organize scraps in these cute drawstring bags and hang them on the wall for display. Blogged here.
Easy DIY Dinosaur Halloween Costume
This was such an easy dinosaur costume to put together! I love this idea from the DIYcostumes shop on Etsy. And, the best part is that you can easily take all the embellishments off the sweat suit so your child can wear it after all the trick or treating is done. DIYcostumes also has a great hand sewing tutorial for this costume online but I always prefer to use a sewing machine whenever possible. The whole project only took about an hour to finish.
1. Basic hooded sweatshirt.
2. Cut your squares and a triangle from craft felt.
3. Layout your pattern on the back of the sweatshirt. I used an air erasable pen to make a straight line down the back of the sweatshirt.
4. Sew on all the spikes and tail.
5. Sew the felt on to the front for the belly of the dinosaur.
Here’s what I used to make the costume (costume size is 3T).
Materials:
3 – 8 1/2″ X 11″ craft felt pieces
Cut the squares for the spikes:
1 – 5″ X 5″ square
3 – 4″ x 4″ squares
1 – 3″ X 3″ square
1 – 2″ X 2″ square
1 – 5″ X 7″ Triangle for the tail
For the front I cut out two 3″ X 7″ rectangles and rounded the corners using a plate from my kitchen.
To sew on the spikes I used a wide zig zag stitch to attach them to the sweatshirt and the same stitch on the top and bottom of the spikes to make them stand up. To sew on the tail and the belly pieces I used a machine basting stitch. All of these stitches should be pretty easy to remove once we are done using the sweatshirt as a costume.
Happy Trick or Treating!
Downtown Festivals with the Family Today! {Raleigh, NC}
Today we decided to brave the drizzle and cooler temperatures to join in all the fun in downtown Raleigh. With jackets on and umbrellas handy we went downtown to check out SPARKcon, Bug Fest at North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and the Fish Market Student Gallery. We had a great time this afternoon despite the rain. And, no melt downs from our three year old made it an enjoyable family outing!
Sparkcon photo by shamsandcoverups
My boys!
Fish Market Student Gallery
Fish Market Student Gallery
Fish Market Student Gallery
Hurricane Irene: Yard Clean Up!
Yard clean up is now in progress at our house from Hurricane Irene. The first wind and rain bands started at our house in Raleigh on Friday afternoon and lasted until about 6:00 p.m. Saturday evening. We are about two hours inland from the North Carolina coast. I was truly amazed at how large the storm was and how strong the hurricane winds were this far inland.
So far, we’ve only been able to clean up the front yard. The back yard will probably take several weekends to finish clean up. Thankfully, we had no damage to our house and did not lose power during the duration of the storm. I hope we don’t see a storm like that again anytime soon!
Tree limbs from our yard and the neighbor's yard
We ran out of bins for the tree limbs!
