Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Add Machine Embroidery Designs to your Outfit

In the world of fashion, one of the best ways to transform an outfit into something spectacular is by adding embroidery designs to it. While our grandmothers painstakingly applied each stitch by hand, we have the benefit of having the art of machine embroidery designs at the tips of our fingers. The effect produced is as varied as the many professional designers out there. There’s a wide spectrum of available types of machine embroidery. Some machine embroidery is created to have a vintage or hand sewn look. Some of the most prominent are commonly referred to as redwork (but they can be stitched in any color). These are usually the most simple to produce.

Another benefit of machine embroidery is that if you enjoy appliqué designs but don’t like the work of applying it by hand or with your basic sewing machine, you can find appliqué designs already programmed and created for you. Think of little Johnny’s adorable tee-shirt with a multi-layered design of cars and trucks. This technique combines application of fabric with that of stitched out designs, so the body of the truck may be made of fabric (applied by the embroidery machine), and the wheels stitched with thread.

There are countless other styles and types of machine embroidery to choose from…from elegant to whimsical and everything in between. Most online designers offer free embroidery designs to try out something new and if you like it, there are more to match the set.

Whether you are a beginner or seasoned pro at the wonderful world of machine embroidery, you will be able to find a myriad of free embroidery and machine embroidery for purchase.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Crisp Leaves, Hot Coffee and Embroidery

Winter approaching is always a beautiful time of year. As the crisp cool air swirls around us, warm scarves and mittens find their way out of the seasonal cupboards and forgotten closet corner. Suddenly, we need to bundle up with something warm and cozy. There are many great fabric fibers that provide warmth, especially wool. Sweaters and cardigans, mufflers and mittens, socks and caps are all so colorful, stylish and beautiful. As the frost, fog and snow take hold outside, we find comfort and enjoyment in activities at home. It’s the best time of year to sew and embroider. The holidays are quickly approaching and it’s a great time to start on our gift list. We can put the time to best use by taking to embroidery and creating something new and wonderful this season.

Embroidery can improve any winter garment. A muffler for example can be made extremely beautiful and stylish by adding a few leaves, snowflakes or flowers to it. Or you can sew a pocket on the muffler near the end and use an embroidered patch on the pocket. You can choose bright colors to compliment more neutral colors or vice versa, both are equally beautiful. It is great fun to decorate socks with embroidery. You can use small embroidery designs on the ankles. Create your own unique style by personalizing your socks, scarves, mittens, mufflers and hats with machine embroidery designs.

Your sweaters can be made much more colorful and lively with just a little bit of embroidery. Embroidery designs of various sizes and colors can be used to make a boring knitted sweater fun and stylish. If it is not possible to do the embroidery directly on the garment, you can use machine embroidery design as patches.

There are many embroidery designs that are perfect for Fall and Winter home décor. A table runner or table cloth can dress up a holiday table, creating a festive mood. Holiday towels decorated with embroidery give your kitchen and bathroom a fun, holiday feel. Christmas tree skirts, warm lap quilts, “welcome” door decorations and wall mini-quilts give your home a cozy, old-fashioned atmosphere. And embroidery gives all of these things that special touch that turns ordinary items into heirlooms you can pass on through generations to come. With a little extra work (that is more fun than work) all of your clothing, accessories and decor will become much more attractive. Embroidery gives all our garments and home decorations that extra sparkle which creates one of a kind inspiring beauty, for this Winter season and beyond.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Embroidery- A Gift from Grandmother

Sweet reminisces of childhood brings the memories of home baked cookies, of puppies playing in the backyard, of frilly frocks and long walks. Childhood is beyond doubt the most innocent time of our life. And blessed are those who have had the lucky chance to share this beautiful bit of their life with their grandparents. Through our Grannies and Grampas we get a glimpse of that bygone innocent era that held everything that was pure and beautiful.

The most cherished memories of childhood are comprised of little, minute details that so often get lost in the maze of the complicated life we create for ourselves. My most treasured memories of childhood are of me sitting beside my Grandma and watch her do her embroidery . In the dusk of her life her embroidery was her refuge and her embroidery designs were her cohort. It was a sort of tradition that twice a year she used to embroider beautiful articles exclusively for grandfather. In honor of him, this tradition continued and he kept living on in her designs and colors.

With decades of experience and hoards of passion she fervently took to embroidery and started creating small miracles with needle and threads. Hand embroidery had always been pleasurable, but at the advent of machine embroidery, a whole new world was opened for her. Machine embroidery offered much more variety and ease. There was now a scope for ample experimentation. Machine embroidery designs were more vibrant and quick and were much more fun to work with. This passion passed on from my dear Grandma was inherited by my Mother and now by me.

My most prized possessions include hand embroidered artifacts from my Grandmother and Mother. And now that this hobby that has been imbibed in me, I make the most out of it. I play around with colors, fabrics and designs and availability of designs online make it all the more pleasurable. There are a number of sites and online clubs that bring you a good variety of designs and ideas for embroidery. You can log in at anytime and browse through all the wonderful designs they offer. What’s more, you can even upload your own designs and share with other embroidery lovers.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Embroidery

Embroidery is like watching the stars. You can create anything out of your fancy. Every resource is at your disposal and it’s up to you what you make. Like a million stars in the galaxy, embroidery designs are countless. The passion for embroidery seeps in us like a plant absorbing water, to nurture it. Embroidery becomes a mode to express our thoughts, our ideas and our feelings. It is just not a hobby or a way to spend your idle time; it is much more than that. When the thread goes into needle, and goes through your chosen fabric it creates a magic beyond anything expressible in words. We don’t give it much thought, but is no less than magic how a thread, a needle and a cloth come together to create something so beautiful and colorful and delightful. Kept separate these three are any other ordinary objects of ordinary life. As soon as they interweave, they create finesse. As very intelligently said by W. G. Paulson Townsend, Embroidery is a very personal art, its charm lies in the individuality expressed by the worker. It holds in itself the calm and comfort of a rocking chair in the nursery. It becomes a fine recluse from the busy and fast paced world of today. The embroidery on the fabric collects in itself the wandering, scattering thoughts. It becomes a tree where the fluttering humming birds of thoughts take shelter. Embroidery and embroidery designs hold in them the very basic philosophy of life. A rose comes by and by with the patient labor of the needle and the thread. Similarly life is progresses with one stitch at a time, patiently, and the ultimate pattern reveals itself finally when the right time comes. Your labors of love will speak for themselves.

Monday, September 6, 2010

Best Out Of Threads

Embroidery is a beautiful art. An art that is lively and colorful yet patient and calm. A woman can find a whole new world in her embroidery. A person who loves embroidery will always look for ways and means to get the best out of the thread and fabric at their disposal. Although there is no one sure shot solution to produce a beautiful piece of embroidery, one can always take care of small details here and there, which will beautify their work.

For one, you can choose the base fabric that will enhance your embroidery. The fabric should be so that it should bring out the design in the best possible way. Hand painted and hand dyed fabrics make for really good background fabrics. Fabrics that are colored in a slightly mottled way also are a good option. Embroidery patterns that take a lot of time should be done on a fabric that is strong and durable. Cotton, linen, silk and wool are the conventional fabrics for embroidery though now many synthetic blends are also available that are also turning out to be good options.

Another point to take into consideration is that if you are making a garment out of the embroidered fabric, it is best to finish most of the embroidery before you sew the garment. This will free you from the inconvenience of embroidering on a stitched garment. Care should be taken to leave ample space for the seams and stitches when marking placement for the embroidery design. You can use a fabric pen to draw the embroidery pattern on the fabric, keeping in mind the edges and loose ends.

You should also choose the threads carefully. The market is full of embroidery threads with different characteristics, which each have their own advantages. The threads available now are colorfast and strong and also come in many beautiful colors. The multiple choices available in colors and types of threads allow for a lot of experimentation. It is very important to keep your threads and fabric neat and clean to bring out the best of your embroidery. Always make sure that your hands are clean before you touch your materials. Do not pass on the work to too many hands unnecessarily. Keep your work area free of debris and dust. Keeping these few things in mind can make a huge difference in the quality of your embroidery and sewing.

Friday, August 27, 2010

Tools for Designing

Embroidery is the love of designs and colors. Coupled with the right aesthetics and there you have that perfect design that flashed in your thoughts. Love for embroidering becomes a lot more appealing with sewing machines. Sewing machines considerably reduce the effort that goes into the art and also comes up with excellent results which at times hand embroidery cannot yield. Blessed be the technology that came up with such a tool to make this lovely art all the more fun.

If you really love the threads and the beautiful patterns they create, what you need is a sewing machine. Since many years people have been using manual sewing machines. With the progress of technology they have lost their place to computerized sewing machines. The latter comes with definite advantages. It is simple to use and can create much more complex designs that can be done with the manual ones. Machines definitely add perfection and beauty to anything that you stitch or sew.

Before you decide to buy a sewing machine for yourself, you need to know the types of machines that are available and choose accordingly. Sewing machines are available from a range of $300 to about $8000 depending on the features the machine carries. You can choose an only embroidery machine that will help you with the basic stitches and most of your embroidery designs. But if you want more then there are machines that offer you many features combined together. The choice of your machine also depends on the scale of your embroidery. If you sew and embroider as a hobby, you can opt for a low or medium budget machine that will help you with the basics. But if you take up embroidery as a profession, then you need a better machine that works for many kinds of stitches and is multipurpose. They might be a little expensive, but they sure are good investments as they perform all your functions of embroidery and stitching all together.

Computerized sewing machines are a great way to work on highly complex and complicated designs. They work with extreme precision and convenience and give you extra neat and beautiful results. Embroidery sewing machines are a must have as they can create textile art and embellishments on fabric that are extremely attractive and appealing. The machines can be used for built in stitching or you can manually create your designs with these machines. Computerized embroidery sewing machines often come with a special software program that gives you several digitized beautiful designs that can be automatically read and embroidered directly unto the material by the machine. So, there will be less hassle for you and you will definitely save time by going with embroidery sewing machines.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Machine Embroidered Designs- Thoughts in threads

Technically Embroidery is the art or handicraft of decorating fabric or other materials with needle and thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as metal strips, pearls, beads, quills, and sequins. But to a woman or any embroidery lover it is much more than that. Embroidery for a woman is the expression of her personality; it is the embodiment of her thoughts. She not only uses the fabric and embroidery designs to make it into some adorable creation but for her it is the canvas to give color and shape to her fancies.

Designs speak, trust me they do. The initials you sew on your lover’s muffler spell love. The kitten covered mittens speak of the tenderness of the mother. Embroidery designs can be as soft as the baby’s skin and as expressive as a lover’s kiss. The right design embroidered on the right fabric in the right colors can create beauty beyond words. The magic of woman’s heart can never be better expressed than on a fabric in form of threads. Colors, designs, sequins, threads, wool, silk, brocade, cotton, zari, satin, laces, beads, linen, these are just not materials, these are the flowers in a garden, a woman chooses in the right combination’s to make that perfect bouquet. As an expression of thoughts and feelings, embroidery serves to be a perfect platform. It serves to unleash the creativity, to vent sentiments, and a tool for creation. Designs embroidered on different objects make great gifts. Not only they are usable but they also are personalized.

Different patterns and designs help in creating different effects. Initials of a name made into monogrammed embroidery look good on handkerchiefs, mufflers, and robes etc. Floral designs are good for tea-cozies, table runners, table covers, table mats, towels etc. Geometric designs work well on cardigans, tee-shirts, etc. Whatever the design or fabric may be, what matters is the feeling and care that goes into the work. But when a person has enough patience to sew a scene on a fabric, they must have the most amiable heart. Time is under heavy constraints these days. With long working hours, one can hardly find time to sit and sew. But with the advent of machine embroidery on the internet, time is no longer a hindrance. One can get as many designs on various sites and can easily get the work done according to their convenience.