Sometime last year I wrote about using a small tabletopper as an easy, casual cover for sewing machines. My sewing room collects dust like crazy and I know it's not good for the machines. Over the last few months, I have thoroughly enjoyed walking into my sewing room and being greeted by the pretty monograms and designs I stitched on those tabletoppers. So much so, that I was thinking of ways I could have something different for each month of the year. Using a tabletopper would not be practical as far as my wallet goes, so I was thinking of other ways I could make one for each month. Another thing I always have to consider is time. I have to keep my projects to about a hour or two and no more. If I don't get something done in that time frame, it may never get done. If it gets set aside to work on later, I might never get back to it---I might find a new quilt kit between now and then that just begs to be opened and cut into. So once I sit down to make an easy project, I have to get it done then! So with those two important factors in mind, I thought maybe a kitchen tea towel would be just the thing---and it worked beautifully! Here's a photo of the two I completed this afternoon:
All I did was take a tea towel (found here) and place it over the sewing machine. I printed a paper template of my design and used the paper template to determine where I want to put the design on the towel to be visually appealing. Complete the stitching and finish it out how you like. Here's some helpful hints for you:
About SusanMars
In the late nineties my husband surprised me with one of the new “fancy” sewing machines that also did embroidery. I think he was more impressed with it than I was in the beginning! I was very intimidated by the technology and really didn’t sew my first embroidery stitch until 8 months after I got the machine. But once I did, I never looked back! Suddenly a whole new world of sewing opened up to me! I was monogramming anything that would sit still long enough!
The only problem? I couldn’t find enough things to monogram on. I wanted a place where I could go to shop for lots of embroidery blanks! Up to this point my corporate job was in the buying office of a large department store and I knew some sources that offered beautiful linen pieces that were perfect for embroidering. I started thinking that if I were looking for items like this, maybe other embroiderers were looking for the same thing.
All I can say is you never know what you’ll be doing. On a whim I signed up to be a vendor at an embroidery-related conference and hoped other embroiderers like all my pretty linen products. I showed up at the conference and nervously started taking my wares out of the boxes. What if no one wanted it? Guess what---they did! I couldn’t get the product out of the boxes fast enough. I can remember thinking that my life just changed and started heading in a different direction.
I ran back home and put together the website that has become “AllAboutBlanks.com”. I’ve spent the last six years taking the business from my living room into a “real” office, and trying to find a balance between work and family and sewing---I think that’s something we all share in common.
Everyone in the office uses the embroidery machines for personal use and we are still REAL embroidery enthusiasts. The items we choose to sell on our website are the items we like to embroider on ourselves! We strive to treat the customer the way we want to be treated and really we just want the home embroiderer to enjoy the hobby as much as we do.
After 10 years of loving my embroidery machine, I still find I have as much passion and love for the hobby as I did on that first day when I stared at the machine and wondered what to do next. Who knew that 10 years down the road I’d be helping so many others enjoy the hobby too!