First, I think I lost a couple of quotes. How does that happen?
I wanted to say that the birthday shirt turned out quite nicely on the new machine and the onesie ultimately turned out great, Jen. How frustrating to have gunk ruining things for you. Gets expensive!
And I have absolutely NO idea what else I was going to quote, but I'm sure it was someone's lovely creation. Hate when that happens. Of course I'm spending every 20 minutes getting a fresh ice pack for DH or taking one away. He was supposed to have simple gum surgery today, an hour procedure that turned into removal of a tooth that was deeply imbedded into his jaw. Two and a half hours later, they were finally done. He's in so much pain, I gave him another pain pill figuring it wouldn't kill him and I hated to see him so miserable. Oops, time to remove the ice. (Love the pics of the sewing spaces)
Looking for opinions.
I want an embroidery machine that does it all for me. Something that will use my computer skills but not my lack of sewing skills. Is there anything out there like that?
If so, what would you suggest for top of the line, mid range, and inexpensive?
I want to be able to put my kids names on shirts and some character pictures, etc. Put my husband's company logo on a polo shirt. Stuff like that.
Thanks!
Top of the line might be the Babylock Elisimo Gold. It has a camera in it that could take a picture of your logo and enable you to stitch it out without digitizing it. But it's in the $9,000 to $10,000 range. I agree that a Brother 770 would be able to handle everything you want to do except the logo until you can digitize it. Good luck and let us know what you decided.
jiminykrikkit, if my sewing room looked like that it would mean that someone robbed me
I've gotten a lot done on my towels and charms this week. I even had time to applique a dress for dd. The dress itself is from Kavio, who has lots of more girly styles than I've seen elsewhere. You do have to watch the weight on their stuff though since some of it is thin like tissue t's. Anyway, here it is:
Applique Close-up - it's from Bunnycup, a raggy design:
This is a shirt I did for myself a few weeks ago from Heather Sue's superhero designs after discovering that you cannot buy a Batgirl shirt in anything but Junior sizes.
The guy at the comic shop was impressed.
Hope you all have a great week!
Regards,
C.
Love that dress! You did an awesome job! And your daughter is a cutie pie! My DH always wants his things "understated", so your shirt would be perfect for him. You did a great job!
I was annoyed too with not being able to save so I contacted them about it, they said they want people to be happy so if you do buy it and decide it isn't for you, they will refund your purchase. Which, being in systems admin for more than a decade, I can tell you, software companies just don't do. But yeah, the alpha thing is awesome.
I love the batman shirt.
We are a superhero/comic nerd family so I think my kids have had batman in every size since 0-3. They had adorable onesies that were 0-3M but were HUGE on them when they were born and my husband asked every day for the almost-3-months that it took for them to fit wether they could wear them yet. When they outgrew them, we put the outfits onto stuffed animals a friend brought to the boys in the hospital when they were born, and they still sleep with them. They call them SuperMonkey and BatElephant.
I can't imagine if I had an embroidery machine back then, not that I would have had time or energy to make anything.
I have to admit seeing all your praise for how neat my sewing room was made me feel like a charlatan or something. LIES, ALL LIES! This is what the other side looked like. (and don't even get me started on the closet!)
But...
That motivated me to clean it up and now it looks like this:
Those super hero onsies are so cute and it's fun to see the boys at that age! Great idea to dress their stuffed animals with the onsies.
My sewing room is small, so I have to keep it organized and clutter-free. If it's messy, things get lost and I can't get anything accomplished. I love your space. Cluttered or not.
I have to say I don't think there is much sewing skill in embroidery, you could do it without strong sewing skill. Any of the computerized embroidery machines can put names, characters and logos (though you would have to either buy software or pay someone to digitize the logo.) I could see being able to just use the embroidery machine w/o sewing at all. The much-recommened Brother PE770 is on the lower end of the price range and I think it is a great place to start. You can find it on
Amazon for the $550-650 range but plan on spending at least another $100-200 on misc supplies like stabilizers, thread, special curved scissors if you want to do appliqués, blank shirts ( you will ruin some, I still do.) and fabric to use for the appliques. It adds up quickly. Oh, and the embroidery designs... I think my $550 PE770 quickly became $1000 once I added in all that stuff.
I am more than a little annoyed that it is ruining stuff. But I started w/ a onesie, and I think the oily gunk was getting on the neck area because it is a super small opening and it was rubbing against the presser foot. I ended up cutting the onesie in half and letting it finish, but without the flappy part it wasn't getting on the fabric. So the one I posted I did on the new machine, and I am going to try again on the little one today. I used the already-ruined onesie to wipe around the presserfoot and a TON of gunk came off, I am hoping it will help. But yeah, super annoying. My machine works great and is whisper quiet but I can't actually use it or it ruins shirts.
Here's a tutorial for a really easy way to appliqué or embroider on a onesie. Maybe it's the way you do it anyway, but thought you might want to take a look.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbRFlSMiQlI
I'm back. The new sewing machine came and I am over the moon. I have spent time time at Joanns getting my notions and stuff together. I also took advantage of the open house to sign up for 4 classes at 50% off.
I have also taken advantage of some of their great pattern sales. So far Butterick, Simplicity have both had 5 for $5 sales. I got a few. I also got a jelly roll on sale to make a jelly roll quilt top. It went ok I guess.
I still have a lot to learn but looking forward to finally doing something for me since this whole past year has been about helping my dad recover from his stroke.
In case anyone cares, I am signed up for Sewing Skills 102, Sewing Skills 103, Zipper Skills and quilting 101 with mom at Joann's.
There is another fabric store called G Street Fabrics which is 3 minutes from work. I have signed up for a pattern alteration class and a hand finishing class there. That place is more like a couture apprenticeship school, they go all the way up to pattern making there. Not ready for that quite yet but I do well in structured programs so I may check it out.
So excited.
Kim
P.S. I did start my fabric stash.
Starting a fabric stash is the easiest part!
And lots of fun. Looks like you're going to learn a lot over the next few weeks. Good for you. For myself, I have to learn something, then work on that for a while before muddying up my brain with more. At least now that I'm a bit older, that's the way it works. I'm glad you plan to utilize your machine to its fullest. Just be sure to have lots of fun with whatever you do and post lots of pictures here!
And with no further ado...
and a bonus - This one's going to be for one of our days at that other theme park in Orlando this summer.
Yay for getting to finally post pictures!
You did a great job on that dress. Yes, the sheer fabric has a mind of it's own. I usually pin it to within an inch of its life. Love the frankenpattern skills too!
I have never had a problem with any of her designs!
