A New Kind of Busy Season

Several years ago the term “busy season” caused an increased level of anxiety for me.  It meant extremely long work hours and lots of tight deadlines.    Can you guess my old profession? 

Tax Accountant.  I worked at one of the Big 4 firms in Atlanta for several years after graduating college and worked on many a tax return.  January 1 to April 15 every year was crazy busy and stressful and I think I ate more dinners at the office than at home.  And as typical accountants, we had a very efficient spreadsheet that was circulated every afternoon to place an order if you were working late.  Ha!  But somehow we always survived and met all of our deadlines.  Phew! 

Now, I have a different busy season.  It involves apples, footballs, and pumpkins.  It gets me excited and makes me want to sketch and think of different fabric and stitch combinations.   I feel like the “to do” list is longer than there are hours in a day, reminiscent of past busy seasons.  Still, every morning I am ready to tackle one or more items on that list!  With Back to School, Football, and Fall right around the corner it is busy season for sure…but in a good way. 

Over the past few weeks, I have released a mini set of Football Designs…

 Back to School Designs…

 And Pumpkin Designs.

 

And now I am about to do it all over again!  Today I am working on one more set of back-to-school designs including some more “sketch” designs as well as some preschool patches, a fun back-to-school dino and some raggy shape designs.   

Have an idea for my next set of Football or Fall designs?  Please leave a comment below!  If I use your idea you will receive that design for FREE!

Feeling a Little Sketchy...

I am all too aware that summer is flying by and it will be time to send the kiddos off to school again before we know it.  As I was thinking about what types of  "back to school" designs to offer this year, I became inspired by some rough sketches.  What is more "back to school" than designs that resemble the beginning stages of our little ones being able to express themselves with art! These designs are NOT created with straight lines. Instead I created imperfect lines on purpose that give these designs a whimsical yet accurate feel.  

Check out our Triple Crayon Sketch design below.   It is offered as both a Bean Stitch Applique design and an Embroidery only design. 



The Bean Stitch Applique design is on the right. I love this design because it is quick to stitch and you can even use ONE thread color! How is that for easy? The raglan shirt example only uses white thread. Let the solid color fabrics do the talking and the white contrast thread makes the crayons pop! However, if you would prefer to change thread color but not cut fabric, I have a solution for you too! Look at the Embroidery only design on the left. There is no fabric to cut. Simply hoop your shirt or backpack, thread your favorite colors and stitch away. I love the look of the alternating colored letters on top of these crayons. You could also add the name on the side or even rotate the crayons sideways and add a name horizontally on top. So many options...what will YOU create?

My little boys are in a color groove right now. One likes EVERYTHING blue. The other EVERYTHING green. And when I say everything, I mean blue forks, blue cups, blue shirts, etc. If there is a choice and one item has blue (or green)...that will be the winner! I am tempted to make something for them with every crayon the same color! I think they would LOVE it.

For those of you that enjoy all the colors of the rainbow...check out our ROY G. BIV design. Do you know ROY G. BIV? He is a colorful man, isn't he?



And finally, here is our brand new Art Palette design. This design also comes in Bean Stitch and Embroidery only. The color names stitch last and can easily be skipped as seen in the raglan tee example.



Next up, I have scissors, a school bus, a pencil, and possibly a school house in the works. I hope you enjoy these "sketchy" designs as much as I do. I think they feel fresh and I hope you enjoy the uniqueness of these designs.

Bunch of Pumpkins Tutorial

One of our most popular Back to School designs was this adorable Bunch of Apples design.  The design has a little bit of fill stitch, but is mostly a raggy stitch and pretty quick to stitch out.  You can use 1 fabric, 2 different fabrics, or 9 different fabrics as I did in the example below. 



I decided to create another "bunch" design...this time Pumpkins!  I am also considering bunches of footballs, ornaments, hearts, etc.  It is a great design to use up all kinds of small pieces of scrap fabric...or to really showcase one fabric that you LOVE! 

I thought it might be helpful to detail by pictures how I stitch this design.  So here goes...

First up is the instruction sheet:




(As an aside, did you know that every design you purchase from All Things Applique comes with a detailed instruction sheet similar to this one?  I hope the instructions help!)

The first step is to pick your fabrics.  I start by cutting small squares.  (Note: For the 5X7 design, each pumpkin is 1.25" x 1.4" so these are small pieces of fabric.)  Then I play with the squares to arrange them however I like.  I think I spent as much time arranging as I did stitching! Ha!  But truly...I think this design looks good no matter how you arrange your fabric. 



The first step in this design is the pumpkin stems. Simply hoop your item...make sure it is centered...thread your brown or green thread and stitch the first color.



One quick note...

I set the design to stitch as follows:
Top Row: Left to Right
Middle Row: Right to Left
Bottom Row: Left to Right

This order prevents a big jump stitch from the top right pumpkin to the middle left pumpkin. The design snakes down to create the smallest jump stitches possible.

The next step is the Placement Stitch. I like to place a large sheet of flannel or felt down that covers the entire hoop for this step. See below.



Now you are ready to stitch color 2. Note, all placement stitches will stitch in one color without stopping.

Once your placement stitch is in place...

\

It is time to stitch the tackdown stitch for all 9 pumpkins. You have a couple of choices here. You can lay one fabric down at a time and add the next fabric at each color stop on the machine. Or, you can lay all 9 fabrics down at once and then just go through the 9 tackdown stitches without having to remove your hoop or lay down any fabric in between stops. See below for an example.



If you choose the latter, you will need to make sure that your scrap fabrics pieces do not overlap at all or the tackdown stitches might grab the wrong fabric. Either way is fine...just do what is most comfortable for you!

After all of the tackdown stitches are complete, you are ready for the final step...the redwork/detail stitches. These will all stitch in one step. Again, the order snakes down the design...top row is left to right, middle row is right to left, and bottom row is left to right.



Once all stitching is done, remove your item from the hoop and carefully trim away the excess fabric and enjoy your beautiful work!



What other "bunch" designs would you like to see?