How to Embroider Holiday Towels - Part 2

Hey look at that! I'm finally getting back to the blog to finish this tutorial. Yeesh! This will be fairly picture heavy, so brace yourself.

Okay! You just learned how to transfer your designs with Hot Iron Transfers and hoop your flour sack towel fabric correctly. Now you're ready for Part 2: embroidering!

First, there's a bit of personal preference in embroidery - you can use all 6 strands of the embroidery floss or you can separate them into 2 strands, 3 strands, 4 strands, etc. depending on how thick you want your embroidery line. Second, there are close to 100 different embroidery stitches! However, there are just a handful that you should know for basic embroidery... and I just used 3 different stitches on my towels here.

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EMBROIDERY REVIEW:  THREE BASIC STITCHES
These three stitches were scanned from my super hokey, but super handy Reader's Digest "Complete Guide to Needlework" book.

1. Back Stitch: this is an excellent outlining stitch. The key is to make each stitch even with the next.

2. Seeding Stitch: this is my favorite scattered, random fill stitch.

3. French Knot: this is a fun way to make little balls on the surface of your fabric.

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EMBROIDERING THE TOWELS
Think of embroidering as "drawing with thread." I draw outlines with the Back Stitch, I fill areas with the Seeding Stitch, and I make dots with the French Knots.

A Couple of Helpful Hints:

• I find it helpful to color in the lines on a copy of the transfer image in case I get goofy in the brains and forget what my color idea was for each design. I make a dark copy of the backside of the transfer and use colored pencils to color in.

• I use a piece of cardboard, an index card, or something sturdy to wrap my extra threads around like this:

That way I can keep the embroidery threads that I've separated in order and they're easy to use again when I need them.

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I used 3 strands of red for the names to make them bold / stand out more (see below); and I used 2 strands of embroidery thread for the rest; sooooo....

1. Let's start with outlining "Dasher" using 3 red embroidery strands. Thread your needle and make a knot at the end. Working from the backside of the embroidery hoop, pokey the needle at the bottom of the "D" and work your way around the letter using the Back Stitch.

2. Tie off the back with a knot, trim about 1/2" away from the fabric. Keep working your way around all the lines in this manner for the rest of the letters.

3. Next I moved on to outlining the deer body in brown thread, using 2 strands. Thread the needle, knot the end, and begin working around the body with the Back Stitch.

4. Keep working your way around all the lines for the deer and bow, changing colors as needed.

5. Time to fill the green ribbon with Seeding Stitch to make it stand out rather than just having a line drawing of colored threads. Adds a little texture and visual interest, methinks.

6. Give a last look-see to decide if you want to add anything else... why not a few gold French Knots for sass and pizzazz?

7. DONE! Loosen the hoop, remove the fabric, give it a good ironing on the backside to release the hoop marks and get ready to finish the back if you so choose.

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FINISHING THE TOWELS

Because the back of the towels are full of threads and knots, I want to cover them up so that the flour sack towels can be two sided AND actually used to dry dishes without messing up the embroidery. Nothing makes me happier than making useful things! So I found some cute Kumari Garden Holiday fabric by Dena Fishbein to back the towels with.

I cut a 9" x 30" (width of towel) piece of fabric out, folded the edges in by 1/2", ironed & pinned in place. Then I lined the printed fabric up with the bottom edge of my embroidered flour sack towel, back-to-back, and did a straight stitch close to the edge all the way around using white thread. I also added a custom embroidered label honoring my Grandma Jane, since it was she who inspired this whole project!

Wah-lah! Pretty embroidered holiday flour sack towels! In all, I made NINE of these darn things! Each aunt and cousin on my father's side of the family received one - it was a huge hit! Dasher is mine - can't wait to use it!

I get to keep this one for me!

the other 8 towels that went to family as gifts

O Christmas Tree

My parents are hosting a yummy holiday dinner tonight and then Santy Claus comes for Parker! He swears he's been good. At 4.5 he's REALLY into spreading holiday cheer which makes it that much more fun for all of us.

Hoping you have a warm and cozy festive holiday!

(PS: I promise to finish my flour sack towel tutorial ... I fell behind since I'm hosting my in-laws for 8 days and I keep having Braxton Hicks contractions forcing me to take it easier than I care to!)

Custom Children's Blankets

I love making custom children's blankets - especially for kids that I know! A mother from Parker's preschool asked me to make all 3 of her children (2 boys, 1 girl) a cotton-minky snuggle blanket for Christmas that included their initial on the front. She picked the fabric designs that fit their personalities and I think they turned out Super Duper Pooper Scooper! (translation: FANTASTIC!) Each is approx. 42" x 52" - perfect to drag around the house, snuggle with, and take a nap under, wrapped up all cozy-cozy.

FABRIC: Lauri Wisbrun "Big Trucks" in spring for Robert Kaufman

FABRIC: Lesley Grainger "Rockets" in black for Robert Kaufman

FABRIC: Patricia Bravo "Rhapsody" in night for Art Gallery

  I hope they love them and get years of use out of their fancy new blankies! 

Merry Christmas!

How to Embroider Holiday Towels - Part 1

THANKS for all the blog love that's been coming my way through the blog-waves. So cool! As Ellen would say, "back at'cha!"

Now on to a fun two-part holiday tutorial! I took on the project of finishing 9 embroidered holiday flour sack towels (we call them "dish drying towels") that my Grandmother didn't get a chance to complete before she passed away. It's done by using Iron-on Transfers - a method that's been around for years, but it's a little old school so I thought I'd do a little tutorial on them since some people may not be familiar.

Supplies:

• 1 packet of hot iron transfers (there are hundred's to choose from!)
• 1 package of 100% cotton flour sack towels (any size)
• embroidery floss in colors of your choosing (I use DMC brand)
• embroidery needle
• embroidery hoop - 6" or 7" is fine (I loooove the Clover brand thick plastic kind)
• scissors & a few pins
• iron & ironing board
• good lighting!
• (optional: colored pencils to color your image lines for reference)

PART 1: TRANSFERRING & HOOPIN'

Directions for Transferring:

1. Wash and dry your flour sack towels first to remove the coating of sizing they put on the fabric. It will help the design transfer better.

2. Cut out each design you'd like to "stamp" or transfer onto each towel. Any outside marks will transfer so cut closely to your design.

2. Turn your iron on to "high" / no steam, and iron the towel where you want the transfer to go.

3. Place your iron-on design face down (it will look backwards) onto the flour sack towel and pin in place. Be sure to put a scrap piece of fabric underneath because sometimes the carbon will transfer through onto your ironing board. Also, be sure to leave about 2" from the edge so that you have room to hoop your towel onto the embroidery hoop without interferring with the design. (if you're embroidering towels, it's best to place the design in one corner or centered in the middle along one edge of the towel)

4. Iron the backside of the iron-on design into the towel for 5 seconds or so - check to see if the transfer is dark enough and iron a little more to make sure it fully transferred.

5. Done! Now it's time to hoop your fabric!

Directions for Hoopin':

1. Separate your inner and outer hoop pieces.

2. Place your towel over the smaller, inner hoop so that the transferred design is centered

3. Place the larger, outer hoop on top and slightly tighten the hoop screw. So the order should go inner hoop - towel on top - outer hoop over both.

4. Evenly tug the towel around the hoop circle while holding the inner/outer hoop pieces together and making sure the design is still centered. (If you tug too hard, the fabric will pop the inner and outer hoops apart)

centered image on the hoop

backside of the hoop

side outer edge of the hoop

5. Tighten the screw even more, check the fabric tension all the way around again and tug it tighter where needed, being careful to not warp the design image.  You want the fabric to be stretched like a drum. The tighter it is, the easier it is to embroider the fabric. Look very closely at the direction of the fabric weave - try to make the threads straight up and down, as well as across.

6. Good! Now you're ready to embroider!

Next, I'll go over a few stitches with you. Once you get into the rhythm of embroidering, it really is quite fun, interesting, and relaxing. It feels like you're drawing with thread, which is kinda neat!

Memory Quilts

I've been trying and trying to get to 2 tutorials for the blog but had to prioritize my projects after I threw my back out for a week. (Tip: don't try to pick up a crying 4-year old when you're hugely pregnant).

My first priority was to finish these 3 memory quilts for a friend who lost her 25 year old brother a few months ago. She's giving one to her sister, one to her mother and keeping one for herself.

My friend gave me 3 bags of t-shirts (one bag for each quilt) and a huge trash bag of her brother's old oxford shirts to work with (seen in the striped sections on the front). I used some coordinating flannel fabric for the back and sandwiched some batting in the center so that the blankets would be cozy-cozy warm. I also included an embroidered label on the back with his name.

I have 3 more custom children blankets to do, too, but might be able to sneak in that embroidery tutorial real-quick like in the next few days! Fingers crossed!

Happy sewing!