Adventures in Embroidery

For those of you who follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you may have seen some new things popping up in my feed lately. I recently got a Brother se400 embroidery machine, and I have quickly developed a slight obession for machine embroidery. I received the machine as a gift for my birthday and in the less than 3 months I've had it, I have been pleasantly surprised by not only how easy it is to get started but how much fun it is! ***This point contains affiliate links****

At face value, the idea of getting into machine embroidery looks daunting. So many different settings, stabilizers and threads! Craftsy has some great classes to get you started on your way to machine embroidering like a pro. There is a great class to cover the basics as you get started: 20 Things Every Machine Embroider should know. It covers the essentials to give you a solid foundation as you learn. 

Keyfobs are a quick and easy project, that I can't seem to stop making. There are hundreds of files available and each pattern costs only a few dollars. 

 

These are great to use up all the small vinyl scraps I have left over from bags that are too small for bag making. 



I've also had fun making some personalized trick or treat bags:

                   



Towels are also a super fun project, and now I want to make some for all the holidays! You can pick up a pack of kitchen towels for a great price on Amazon or even at Target. I picked these up for 3.99 for a 4 Pack in the kitchen section. 

The Brother Se400 was recently on Amazon for less than 200 on prime day, rumor has it that it drops again around Black Friday so it may be worth keeping an eye on if you have been thinking about one for a while. It's definitely been a lot of fun to use, and I am looking forward to trying new projects. 

Happy Sewing (or embroidering)!

Wicked Blog Hop

I'm super excited to be participating in Sew We Quilt's Wicked Blog hop!

I LOVE Halloween, it's such a fun holiday to decorate for and celebrate. I knew that I wanted to make something functional for this hop...what;s more functional than a treat basket?! Urban Threads had an awesome sale on embroidery patterns, and I went a little nuts and loaded up on the Halloween designs. I found this one and knew it would be perfect for a treat basket!

Besides who doesn't have a need for more baskets?!

I found an awesome purple and black batik and some skeletons at JoAnn's that were exactly what I was looking for. I used one of my new faves:

it's a water soluble stabilizer that you can run through your printer to print your pattern directly on. I used some decor bond and some fusible fleece on both the exterior and the lining to give it some structure and made a very basic basket to hold some goodies!

If you've never made a fabric basket, it's super duper easy! Just make sure that the lining and exterior fabrics are the width that you want the diameter of the basket to be and the length is about 6 inches or so longer than you want the height of the basket to be (to accommodate for boxed corners at the bottom and a fold over at the top).

Sew the bottom and side of the basket lining and exterior (leaving part of the lining bottom open to turn later).

Once they are sewn, box your corners by about 2 inches, then put your exterior (right side out) inside your lining (inside out)...right sides should be facing. Then sew around the top, flip the basket through the hole you left and top stitch the hole in the lining.


Press the basket well and top stitch the top edge if you like. Ta-da....new basket, easy peasy.

Please stop by and check out the other awesome bloggers participating today and see what wicked projects they made:

Grammie Q's

Stitchin By The Lake

Quilted Delights

Buzzing and Bumbling

Vroomans Quilts

Life in the Scrapatch

The Quilted Cat

Meadowbrook

Patchouli Moon Studio

Sew Incredibly Crazy