Pages

Friday, January 27, 2012

Another Wedding Throw

Back in May, a good friend of mine got married and I made her a wedding throw. She loves everything Disney (she had the cutest Cinderella invitations) and she loves butterflies. So I decided to combine those into a throw for her using the embroidery and fabric.

These embroidery designs are from the set here at Embroidery Library. Now let me tell you, these designs are INTENSE! First off, I did not like the color combinations they used because they were not like colors used in the movies. So I went in to edit the colors and it turns out when they used a color, they combined it with all the other items they made in that color (which makes sense to avoid unnecessary color changes). But unfortunately, I wanted the dress in a different color and then all of the sudden it would change the birds too! Because they had set the colors up to make the dress and birds blue. But I wanted a pink dress and blue birds. Argh!

I had to spend hours separating colors and designs and making new color stops in the designs so that I could make them perfect. So what started out as designs that had maybe 27-30 color changes, now morphed into designs with 40+ color changes! Yikes! So you can imagine how long these took to stitch out. Not only that, choosing the colors for each design took awhile and then keeping them in order while they stitched. Each design took easily around 3 hours to stitch. So if you plan on using these designs, keep that in mind. Would I do it differently? No way! These designs are absolutely gorgeous!!  (Make sure to use a heavyweight stablizer--these are stitch intensive)

Here are some close ups.

Snow White

Alice in Wonderland

Cinderella (I did some major sparkle work on that slipper...its beautiful)

Sleeping Beauty

Anyone know who this is? Random princess and prince?


Lastly, here is a good look at the label I made for the quilt.


I don't know if the pictures do this quilt justice. Can you see the pretty fabrics? They are sparkly! And the butterfly I embroidered in the center of each star block? You will just have to take my word for it! And the best part?? She loved it!

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

A Year's Break.....and yet another Professional Tote!

I'm back! I know I took a break for a year but I'm back and going to try to be more regular on posting my projects and also posting reviews on patternreview.com.  The reasons I left for so long, first I got engaged, then married, then honeymoon, then new job....it was all so crazy and blogging fell by the wayside!  I had a Halloween themed wedding on October 29, 2011 and it was incredible! I will post pictures periodically of things we did because it was sooo hard to find Halloween wedding resources and ideas. So if mine can help someone, that is great!


 Anyone who has read my blog from before knows my love of the Professional Tote (see here, here, and here) and I had already made two! Well I made a third last year for my brother to give to his girlfriend on Valentines Day. This one was my favorite of them all.
front
back

I used notions from the Creative Thimble's website (the designer of the pattern) for this bag. I also used her purse feet which work extremely well for this pattern seeing as it is a travel bag and is frequently set on the ground. I also used her cording in lime green, the cord stops in lime green, and the special zipper. This zipper is far more heavy duty and works much better to close up the top of the bag.
heavy duty zipper and decorative stitching
I also used decorative stitching on many of the pieces to add a bit more pizazz!  (As though the fabric was not pizazzy enough already!)
inside view
Everyone who I have made this bag for (myself, mother, and brother's girlfriend) have loved it to death and we use it every time we travel. Or for me, I use it when I go to shows as well to carry all my purchases!  As an update on the one I made well over a year ago--I still use it all the time and it has held up well. No problems whatsoever. Oh wait I lied. There is one problem. I did my embroidery on the front of mine with my initials. Only problem is, I since got married and now have new initials! Guess I have to make another one...... :)

On the next one I make, I intend to try to use this new product instead of the regular Decorbond interfacing. It is called Soft and Stable and I think will alleviate the problem of the fabric separating from the fusible decor bond around the top. (It is hardly noticeable but if I am making another...I may as well try to improve!)

I will also be posting a tutorial soon on how I do the hang ties on the zippers of all my bags so stay tuned!

You can see my review of this pattern here.
Locations of Site Visitors