The Sewing Mom

Almost ten years ago, my husband gave me the watch I currently wear as a Christmas gift. I turned 47 years old today and this is only the second watch I’ve ever owned. Considering that my husband is a watch collector, this is probably a bit unusual.

Last summer I started thinking about getting another watch. I absolutely love the watch I have, but it’s a dress watch. I’d like to get something sportier, particularly when I’m doing things outside. The watch I currently wear has a leather band, something I don’t like when it’s hot and 95% humidity in the summer!

My very first watch was a Seiko Watch and I wouldn’t mind having another one. At bluedial.com I was able to look at over 70 ladies watches available and made by Seiko. They’re prices are awesome too, some are less than half the retail price! These are not used or previously repaired watches, but brand new watches. They’re not imitation either.

I don’t have a clock in my sewing room, so I definitely have to wear my watch when I’m working. My leather band tends to make my arm sweat when the temperatures are warmer, so I like the idea of a metal band. bluedial.com offers free resizing (a small fee if links have to be added) and free two day shipping. I might just have to buy myself a birthday gift!

After creating the designs for the t-shirts, I had to download them and then use the d-card I pictured two posts down to tell my sewing machine which design to embroider. I do this simply by placing the d-card in the side of my machine. Instead of a d-card, some sewing machines use a USB memory stick, or some use a floppy disk (older machines). I would personally love to upgrade my machine to the USB, but it’s cost is several thousand more dollars than I all ready have invested, so don’t think that will be happening any time soon!

Before placing the fabric (t-shirt) in the sewing machine, I have to place stabilizer in the hoop. In the case of a t-shirt, because it’s a stretchy fabric, I use a sticky stabilizer. The stabilizer goes into the hoop and the fabric gets laid on top and “stuck” in place. The hoop then gets attached to the embroidery arm which has all ready been attached to the sewing machine.

This first picture is the fabric or t-shirt as it’s been placed on the hoop. The hoop can’t be seen because of the excess t-shirt fabric and the wet look is the moisture coming through the fabric from the dampened stabilizer. The second photo is after the hoop has been attached to the sewing machine.

Now that Destination Imagination is over for us for this season, I can finally get back to my sewing! I have several projects that sort of got left in the middle of being worked on and am anxious to get back to them.

While I haven’t been sewing over the past few weeks (except for embroidering the team shirts), I haven’t stopped thinking of ideas to promote my sewing business. A few weeks ago I ordered business cards and return address labels from Vistaprint.com. I am very pleased with what I got. I was able to design the business cards myself and I found a template on their website that was spools of thread, perfect for sewing! The cards and labels were delivered in less than a week, very quick service.

While I was ordering the business cards, I saw that they also offer refrigerator magnets which I could have made with the same design as my business cards. If I wanted something larger, the magnets come in different sizes and, no matter what the size, they make an excellent marketing tool. Right now I can get 25 small magnets free simply by using coupon code “Blog25FreeMag”.

I think what I like the most about VistaPrint.com is that I’m able to customize my own design and the speedy service. Feel free to use the coupon code to order your own magnets!

Last week I spent the entire week creating t-shirts for my Destination Imagination team which consists of 6 girls.  They had made a rough design telling me what they wanted and picked their shirt color and I went from there.

The team had named themselves the Kandy Kueens and their entire skit was centered around the “Kandy Kingdom” game they had designed.  Their set consisted of, among other things, a rather larger Kandy Kastle.  Amazingly, I actually found a candy castle design that I purchased while at an embroidery class and then used that as the center of the design on the fronts of their shirts.  I then designed the lettering using my Viking 3D Studio Embroidery software on my computer.  From there, I download my completed designs onto what is called a “d-card” and then insert that card into my sewing machine.  That is how my sewing machine knows what I want it to do.

Here are a few pictures of the process.  The first is the design being created on my computer.  The second is transferring a completed design to the d-card software.  Finally, a picture of the d-card and the d-card reader that attaches to my computer.