{"id":34932,"date":"2015-10-31T02:21:28","date_gmt":"2015-10-31T06:21:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/?p=34932"},"modified":"2015-12-06T23:09:08","modified_gmt":"2015-12-07T04:09:08","slug":"thanks-to-blanks-quick-gifts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/2015\/10\/31\/thanks-to-blanks-quick-gifts\/","title":{"rendered":"Thanks to Blanks–Quick Gifts"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"From<\/a>

From ho-hum plain to sweet with the help of machine embroidery and spaghetti bias.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lately, I’ve been in need of a variety of really fast projects, for a baby, a bride, a guy, a little girl and a young lady.\u00c2\u00a0 I know of nothing faster than starting with ready-made blank items.<\/p>\n

I started with the baby gift.\u00c2\u00a0 Years ago I bought several of these blank bibs, bonnets and caps made of Aida cloth or with Aida cloth inserts. \u00c2\u00a0 You know how a technique strikes you suddenly.\u00c2\u00a0 Machine embroidered cross stitch–yup!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"plain<\/a><\/p>\n

The plan was to embroider all of these bibs, bonnets and baby baseball caps. \u00c2\u00a0 But that didn’t happen.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, I did embroider several for the pregnancy center our church supports.\u00c2\u00a0 But I sold most of them for a pittance.<\/p>\n

When the needs rolled in for these in-a-New York-minute projects,\u00c2\u00a0 only one plain white one bib was left, though I’d rather have had one with blue gingham binding.\u00c2\u00a0 Why does it always happen that you have things lying around for years, then once they are gone you need them ASAP?\u00c2\u00a0 Who knows?<\/p>\n

Even with the cross stitch embroidery, the white bib was boring.\u00c2\u00a0 So I pulled out some spaghetti bias from my stash and stitched it right on top of the white bias binding.\u00c2\u00a0 I was generally pleased with this little gift.<\/p>\n

It seems to me that cotton thread makes machine cross stitch look more like hand stitching.\u00c2\u00a0 So the bib was stitched with 50 wt. DMC machine embroidery thread.\u00c2\u00a0 I really like that thread.<\/p>\n

Then I moved on to something for the bride.\u00c2\u00a0 A new but vintage handkerchief from my collection was just what I needed for a second project. \u00c2\u00a0 The linen, hand crocheted edging and hemstitching fit the bill for “something old, something new, something borrowed (well, it COULD be loaned), and something blue.”\u00c2\u00a0 This was reeeeeally fast.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"a<\/a>

a simple little gift for a bride, embroidered with 50 wt. DMC cotton t hread<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

For the little girl gift on my to-do list, again, All About Blanks<\/a> had just what I needed.\u00c2\u00a0 This is my go-to source for ready-mades.\u00c2\u00a0 The product assortment is huge, the quality always great and the customer service is as good as it gets.<\/p>\n

A pair of terry cloth slippers with brightly colored embroidery was just the thing for this little gal.\u00c2\u00a0 With the toe flap open, they are sooooo easy to embroider.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"slippers2xx\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For the young lady, this cosmetic bag from All About Blanks<\/a>,\u00c2\u00a0 was just what was needed.<\/p>\n

The blue and white seersucker looks so fresh and clean. A colorful embroidery design and a monogram makes it a nice, but not over-the-top gift for a young lady.\u00c2\u00a0 Sometimes, the gift needs to be small so the recipient doesn’t feel beholden.\u00c2\u00a0 Other times, beholden is not such a bad thing \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"cosmetic<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

While this was fairly quick to embroider, it required being turned inside out and stitched “in a cave.”\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve learned that when embroidering inside out, it is best to place the design as high as possible without looking out of place.<\/p>\n

This same technique <\/a>was used on several larger bags which was much more challenging.\u00c2\u00a0 Stitching this gift has me yearning for the new Brother Persona<\/a>, a free-arm, single needle embroidery machine.\u00c2\u00a0 That would make embroidering bags, onesies and so many other items much easier to stitch.\u00c2\u00a0 Hmmmmm….<\/p>\n

But it’s not all<\/strong><\/em> about the girls.\u00c2\u00a0 My quickie guy gift is a black jute koozie, again from All About Blanks.\u00c2\u00a0 Like the slippers, the koozie opens flat making for easy\u00c2\u00a0 embroidery and then closes with velcro.\u00c2\u00a0 Canned or bottled drinks stay cooler longer and hands don’t get so cold.\u00c2\u00a0 Of course, it’s football season (YEAH!!) so that guided my choice of designs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"kooziexx\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The design was smaller than needed for the koozie, so it was nicely resized much larger on\u00c2\u00a0 my Brother Dream Machine.<\/p>\n

What quick gifts have you made?\u00c2\u00a0 With Christmas around the corner, we could all use some new ideas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Lately, I’ve been in need of a variety of really fast projects, for a baby, a bride, a guy, a little girl and a young lady.\u00c2\u00a0 I know of nothing faster than starting with ready-made blank items. I started … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":34943,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[956,16,9,35,18,34,38],"tags":[1020,1018,1019,651,1021],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34932"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34932"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34932\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35045,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34932\/revisions\/35045"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}