Grandchildren Sewing

My three grandchildren, and their parents, are visiting for 10 days. The kids always want to do a sewing project or two with grandma. So I thought a quick project would be machine embroidery on a "blank", something they put a design on and it's finished. My blanks are from All About Blanks, a great source for neat items!

I had some blank, cute kitchen towels they could stitch on and give to their Mom. Kids always like to make gifts for their parents. And they like sewing...they especially like watching the embroidery machine stitch away on the design they've chosen. Admittedly, my machine is old technology, and that's okay. It still works and it's enough for what I want to do. My old technology consists of embroidery cards that you stick in the machine and select the design, size, etc. from that card. So I let the kids each go through my collection of cards and pick a design.

They loved choosing the thread colors from my new thread rack on the wall...so many colors to chose from!!

Then one by one, we stitched the designs onto their chosen towels. After stitching, they trimmed away loose threads, removed the stabilizer and pressed the towel so it would look pretty for their Mom. Here are two of my wonderful grandchildren at the machine.

So what did they learn?
They learned to thread the machine correctly, set the tension disks when threading, keep their fingers away from the stitching area ("The machine doesn't know the difference between fabric and a finger."), matching a color to the color band on the towel, what type of thread is good for machine embroidery on a cotton towel, that machine embroidery needs some sort of stabilizer, and most importantly, sewing and stitching is fun!

Quick Gratification

I love handmade clothing and hand embroidered things. But every now and then I just need to let loose and let the embroidery machine do all the work. I've had a bunch of really nice cotton kitchen towel "blanks", courtesy of All About Blanks, sitting around my sewing room for months. Today I decided was the day to play with the embroidery machine (it's hot outside), select some designs I haven't used and stitch them up....all 6 of the towels.

My machine is definitely not the latest and greatest. I have two 7570 Pfaffs that I dearly love and both of them come with their own embroidery units. Love it!! I am limited on what I can stitch to what's on the embroidery cards (remember those things?). But it's still fun to do. I can just sit and watch that needle go up and down all day while it stitches the designs. Nothing beats quick gratification to make you feel like you've really accomplished something! A grape leaf wreath looks good with the green borders of these two towels.

Instead of being mesmerized by the machine I do try to stay busy removing stabilizer and tacking threads on each towel while the next one is stitching away. I "mark the spot" with blue washout marker, iron on some tear-away stabilizer to prepare each new kitchen towel to be embroidered. So much fun and fast! I used a Christmas design with black outlines on this black edged towel.

Here's the result of my "effort". Six kitchen towels, each design a little different in cotton threads, including two topiary ones in multi colors to match the band. Not bad for a a hot, humid day here in Tidewater Virginia.