As I’m planning on making a few more of these towels as gifts, I thought I would describe the process.

I like to use a sans-serif font. Less fiddly when you come to sew the letters on! My favourite at the moment is Verdana.

I use a combination of Paint, Scansoft PC (an old Janome Package) and Embird to create my letters.

In Paint I set the image size to 400 by 380 (that’s the size scansoft can take). I then use the Text tool (set to Verdana, Bold, size 200) to create one letter.

Of course, you can use whatever size and font you like. I then save the letter as a monochrome bitmap - it’s one of the options on the Save As panel. Once again, I do this because Scansoft will only take monochrome images (it’s very old software, but cheap!).

I then open Scansoft and import my letter.

The software traces all of the lines.

I select the Line tool (the cursor is pointing to it in the image below)

I then select (on the panel that pops up) the width of the satin stitching.

At this stage I don’t worry too much about the colour - you can use whatever colour you like when you sewing it out.

I want to embroider all of the lines, so I select the All Lines button (see image below).

The image is highlighted.

I then select the Register button to make the embroidery.

The following panel appears

I select the Make button (the Cursor is point to it in the above image). The following panel appears …

I select OK and the letter is created.

I then save the letter in .sew format.

As I have a Janome MC350e, I need to convert from the .sew format to .jef format. I do this in Embird. See this tutorial for information about converting files in Embird.

I also like to use Embird to combine a few letters into one hoop (see image below for an example). I’ll create a whole new post later about combining designs in Embird.

I then save the designs onto my USB stick and stitch them out.

Next post: stitching out the letters and attaching them to the object.

Check out my new etsy store…

There is also a link in the sidebar.

I’ve been working on more T-Shirts…

One of these is an order for my shop and the other are christmas presents - I hope to get some into my shop soon …

I’ve been working on some things for my store.

and

I’m pleased with how the Elephant T-Shirt turned out. I have more of this fabric with different coloured animals and I plan to make a few of these T-Shirts with circles as well as hearts.

Feel free to email me (info@excessivelydiverted.com) if you’re interested in one (it will take me a while to update my store).

I’m making embroidered towels for a friend (see my store for other stuff).

The font is verdana. I digitised it using a very old piece of software called Scansoft (I picked it out of the discount bin at my local Janome store). It creates designs in the old .sew format, so I converted to .jef in Embird and combined the letters for each name into one design.

I then put the designs on my USB stick, transfer to my sewing machine and sew them out.

I then cut out the letters.

And finally attach the letters.

I use a basting spray to hold the letters in place temporarily and the purple masking tape to create a straight line.

I love the look of cross stitch, but simply don’t have the time (or patience) to make them by hand. I made the one above using my Janome 350e. I used a cross stitch design program to make the design (it’s one that saves into machine format) and Embird to convert the design into the Janome jef format.

The base fabric is calico and I used an iron-on pellon as the stabiliser. The finished size is 107.4mm by 155mm. I’m very pleased with the results.

I plan to add them to my store. I can alter the name and date easily. I will swap the pink text and border with blue for boys.

I was motivated by the team at SewMamaSew! to attempt an apron from a tea towel. It is part of their 30 Days of Gifts to Sew.

The original idea for the apron is from Randi (i have to say ) - there is a tutorial and everything.

As the T-Towel is enormous (it’s one from Ikea), this is more of an adult apron. I used my bias maker for the first time to make double fold bias tape…

Once I worked out how to use it, I was really pleased with the results - no more bought binding for me.

I finished the summer top. I’m pretty pleased with how it turned  out - the sleeves are a bit dodgy and next time I would make my own bias binding rather than using a shop bought version.