A tee-shirt and 2 half-yard lengths of fabric can make a quick and easy flouncy dress. After digitizing, the original Cowboy Flamingo artwork, which were all redwork style, I decided to remake them as filled version.

I did have to shrink the design somewhat to fit this tee-shirt style. This set comes in the standard machine file formats plus EMB, which is the best format for resizing and editing. If you have Hatch Embroidery (or other Wilcom product, including TrueSizer) you’ll be able to modify them exactly as I did.

Credits

Designed and made by Lindee Goodall (6/9/2019)

Products Used

• (lgs109) Redwork Cowboy Flamingos Bundle
• (lgs117) Flamingo Cowboys (Filled)

Related Articles

• How to Make a Flouncy T-Shirt Dress

More sewing humor created by combining text from various BX alphabets with a design from my library and stitched on a sweatshirt.

Credits

Designed and made by Lindee Goodall (3/21/2015)

Products Used

• (lgs047) Sew You Say

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• What’s Your Addiction?

Remember the monogrammed sweater sets back in the 1950’s? OK, maybe not…Monogrammed sweaters and really, monogrammed anything is HOT!

Even better, with an embroidery machine and the proliferation of monograms and fonts available you can find a style and size that suits any item. Monograms are quick and easy ways to personalize a gift.

Shown here are three items I snagged at the Goodwill store (great place to get practice garments!) and monogrammed:

1. Upper left: Deep maroon knitted vest, monogrammed with 2 initials (mine of course!) from Eccentric Standard.
2. Upper right: Beige fleece jacket monogrammed with 2 initials from Zelda. This set has a “regular” italic script and then 5 additional “fancy letter” styles.
3. Bottom center: Light purple cardigan with oversized decorative monogram from Renaissance Fleurs. This is a 3-color design I stitched in two colors.

Credits

Designed and made by Lindee Goodall (3/13/2015)

Products Used

• (lgm001) Renaissance Fleur Monogram
• (ESF-1) Eccentric Std. Font
• (ZSF-1) Zelda Script Font

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• How to Get Perfect Monograms on Terry Cloth Towels
• Turning Thrift Store Finds into a Fashion Statement

Craftsy classes are filmed in Denver, so for my second class, 20 Things Every Machine Embroiderer Should Know, I chose to embellish this denim jacket with their state flower, the Columbine, and combine it with some butterflies.

These designs are included with the class downloads and are not otherwise available. Since Craftsy likes to appeal to all embroiderers, this jacket design is composed of multiple “small hoop” designs. I show how to do that in the class.

The advantage of working with elements is that they can be used on their own or combined in other ways. You’ll find lots of combinable designs in the shop.

Stitching on denim may seem like the ideal “canvas” for embroidery but it actually isn’t. I’ll tell you why in the class!

20 Things Every Machine Embroiderer Should Know is a great class and covers a broad range of vitally important topics. Obviously, I don’t go too deeply into any one of them and if you’re a relatively new embroiderer, this is a great started class. Even if you’re not so new, you may pick up a few new tips!

Plus, the advantage of Craftsy classes is you can ask me questions. If you read through the questions and answers in the sidebar, you’ll get even more out of the class!… Read the rest

This blouse is simply and subtly embellished with some outline butterflies on the front collar points. Sometimes all you want is small touch.

For example, compare this blouse with another green sleeveless summer shirt with white butterflies from Winged Jewels. This one has more “wow” power and because of that, it’s much more memorable and less versatile.

The simpler version does present some hooping dilemmas. You’ve got to secure a small collar point in the hoop somehow for stitching and of course, you’ve got to make sure your design is aligned properly. I actually stitched both collar points in one hooping.

Having a digitizing program is certainly helpful for projects like this and all you have to know is how to draw a line around your designs and apply a running stitch to it to create a customized basting shape.

Built-in basting functions only add a rectangle defined by the bounding box of the design. Such a basting would not adequately secure the collar points to the stabilizer and the foot can catch on the edge of the fabric causing the project to shift.

These designs are included with my second Craftsy class, 20 Things Every Machine Embroiderer Should Know and are not currently otherwise available.… Read the rest

This little fleece jacket demonstrates the use of heavier, thicker acrylic/wool thread. The sample was created for my Craftsy class, Thread Savvy. Register for the class and get this design as part of the set included with the class.

Credits

Designed and made by Lindee Goodall (4/14/2014)… Read the rest

When you fully construct your own garments, it’s much easier to embroider collars and cuff. First of all, you can do the embroidery before you cut out the pieces, which ensures that you have a large enough piece of fabric to hoop evenly.

Secondly, since you aren’t stitching through a collar or cuff on a ready-made item, the backside of the design is hidden.

Collars and cuffs on finished garments will need to be floated and only the bottom layer will be attached to the stabilizer. The top layer can still shift if you don’t take extra measures to secure it.

Credits

Designed and made by Lindee Goodall (4/14/2014)

Products Used

• (lgs013) Royal Filigree

I stitched designs from Deco Flowers Redwork in a medium-dark gray on this white sleeveless blouse. For this project I used the “half” versions, arranging a pair on the front and then again on the back yoke.

The designs were then colored with Tsukineko inks. The colors are much softer here because these inks tend to wash out on synthetic fibers. Although they faded out much more than I anticipated, I decided I liked the look.

Credits

Designed and made by Lindee Goodall (10/8/2013)

Products Used

• (lgs027) Deco Flowers Redwork

Related Videos

• How to Color Machine Embroidery Designs with Tsukineko Inks

Quick and easy little girl’s dress using a tee-shirt!

Starting with a purchased tee-shirt and adding flounces for a skirt it an easy way to make a quick dress. I combined designs from Delicate Roses Building Blocks for the embroidery around the neckline.

The flounces are made from a width of fabric that is gathered and then stitched between “slices” of the tee-shirt. Trim off the selvedges and stitch the side seam using 1/4″ seam allowance.

For the hem on my flounces, I clean-finished the bottom hem edge and then folded it up about an inch and half, right sides together, then stitched a scalloped edge about 1/4″ from the folded edge. I used a decorative stitch on my sewing machine (straight stitch not satin) for this step.

Now comes the most time-consuming part of the whole project—trimming and turning all those scallops! If you’re not up for that, you can just turn under the hem allowance and use a plain or decorative stitch to sew it in place.

A fun thing to do: let your little girl help “design” her dress by choosing colors, fabrics, and designs!

Credits

Designed and made by Lindee Goodall (03/05/2012)

Products Used

• (lgb006) Delicate Roses Building Blocks
• (lgb00601) Delicate Roses Leaves
• (lgb00606) Delicate Roses Rose 5
• (lgb00609) Delicate Roses Rose 8

Related Articles

• Customizing: Making New Designs from Readymade Ones
• How to Create Your Own Embroidery Designs without Digitizing

For this sleeveless knit summer shirt, I decided I wanted a lower sheen thread than polyester or rayon embroidery thread so I chose cotton embroidery thread. Cotton is more widely available in 30wt, which is thicker than standard thread and 60wt, which is thinner.

These butterfly designs are somewhat open but they do have areas of satins that were digitized with 40wt thread in mind. Switching to a thinner thread might not cover well while a heavier one might be too bulky.

This shirt is a knit so in the sense of fabric distortion, it can be more forgiving than a woven so I went with the 30wt.

Because I digitized these designs, I could have edited them to reduce the density. However, when I make samples, I try not to make changes that couldn’t be done reasonable software with a stitch file. The result is that the designs are a little on the bulky side but they’re still acceptable.

The original designs are multicolor and I chose to stitch them in all white and arrange them diagonally across the shirt, rotating them individually for interest.

No resizing was done so even if you only have the most basic of embroidery machines and no software at all, you could still reproduce this sample.… Read the rest

Building block designs are perfect for creating logos. Building Blocks are designed for Generations and you’ll get the best results resizing designs there because the all the designs in this series are native Generations files.

Another program that works well for combining and resizing is Essentials. This program can drop out stitches when designs are stacked over each other, such as placing the baseball over the mitt.

Text is easy to add in most any customizing program. If you’re using BX fonts in Essentials, start with a font that’s close to the finished size of your design for best results.

Generations doesn’t have built-in predigitized fonts so you’ll have to use the True Type Tool. For small text, choose a simple clean font for best results.

Credits

Designed and made by Lindee Goodall (5/23/2011)

Products Used

• (lgb003) Sports 1 Building Blocks
• (ESS) Embrilliance Essentials