Meringue Designs on Facebook

I finally have a Facebook page for Meringue Designs. Click here to “like” Meringue Designs.
The goal is to post photos of work in progress, coupon codes, embroidery tips, and anything fun and exciting related to sewing/embroidery.  So join me!
Pillow on the left features my Branches Monogram design. Yum.

Digitizing Peonies

If you have Bernina Designer’s Plus version 6, then I’m gonna show ya how to make my peonies design. If you don’t, you can probably make it with modified instructions in your own digitizing program……or you can buy it for $5 bucker-oos by clicking here.
Of course, this may mean nothing to you if you don’t have an embroidery machine. But if you do….and it’s 4am and you can’t sleep because you are an insomniac like myself, then you might as well get creative instead of being angry that you’re awake at 4am on a Saturday morning. A sad life indeed.


Use the icon called “Freehand Embroidery—Open Object.”

Digitize some curvy satin stitch lines—kind of look like macaroni don’t they? You’ll want to digitize satin lines .10” of an inch. Enough to fit into an imaginary slice of pie, like below. The black pie shape doesn’t really exist, I just drew it to show you what I mean.

Now you need to select all by using the standard Windows function: Ctrl+A. Then click on the wreath icon (see black arrow below) and choose the design to repeat 5 times. (You can choose more than 5, just play around. Sometimes I go up to 12.) This will duplicate your selected design(s) 5 times into a wreath pattern. Move your mouse around until your designs are close, maybe even touching, like below.

Once you have them in a pleasing pattern, click your mouse to finish the design. Looks like a peony now, doesn’t it? I am obsess with the wreath tool. So very many of my designs are digitized using it.

This next step is optional, but I think it is essential. There will be a lot of jump threads to clip unless you run the design all together. So select the entire designs (ctrl-A) and click on the “blackwork run” icon, see below. Then click anywhere in the design for your starting point. I usually try to click a central part of the design.

Save your design. Then if you want, you can duplicate the design, layer them on top of each other, and manually remove the underlying overlapped design, clicking on them and deleting them. There will still be some overlaps and that is fine. You can always choose to remove any overlaps if you want with the “Remove Overlaps” icon, but it isn’t totally necessary and this design isn’t very dense. Your double peony should look like this to the left.


I am choosing to stitch out the double peony on wool for a purse so I am going to use my jumbo hoop with my Bernina 830 for an extra large stitch out. Love, love that jumbo hoop! Here’s the work in progress for my purse, see below. As a side note: the only part I hate about making bags is making the straps. They take forever and I simply hate all the ironing and top stitching involved. Blech.

 










And here’s the finished purse. Loving it!

Single peony on zippey pouch:

Buttonhole Patches

A few years ago I started making these little patches (flowers, heart, butterflies) with buttonholes in the center. My girls love them for their headbands, backpacks, etc.  Basically, anywhere we can put a buttonhole, they’ll clip on these little patches. I now offer these little patches on my website—flowers with 5 petals, flowers with 6 petals, hearts, and circles.
Here’s how I make mine. I’ve done it two ways. The first way is to use a stabilizer specific for badges or patches. I have used Badge Master by OESD but this stuff is expensive, so now I just used two layers of a tear away stabilizer because I always that on hand. I’ve never washed these patches, so I guess if you do you might not want to use tear away as the stabilizer underneath will fray away. But I have been using 2 layers of tear away stabilizer for a few years now and all of my patches have still held up really well.

I like to squeeze as many of these patches as possible into one hooping—more bang for my buck ya know?
Here’s how to make them:
1.  Hoop two layers of crappy tear away stabilizer, like Pellon tear away. (See below photo.) This is around $2 a yard at Joanns. It’s stiff and yucky, but it’s perfect for this application. (I have also used 2 layers of Ultra Clean and Tear by OESD or Badge Master by OESD.) If you really want, you can also hoop a piece of fabric on the bottom, but since you never see the back, I never do. Your choice.


2. The rest of the steps are like most applique projects, but I’ll spell them out anyway. Stitch out your first line, called the placement line. The sewing machine stops after stitching this line, anxiously awaiting your next step…..

3. Place a piece of heavily starched cotton over the placement line—make sure all the stitching lines are covered.

4. Stitch out the next line, un-clip your hoop from the machine (do not remove the fabric/stabilizer from the hoop!!!) Carefully snip away excess fabric and replace hoop.

5. Finish stitching out the design, which may just be a satin-stitch and then buttonhole, but in this case there are some dots and then the buttonhole is stitched last. This is my ‘flower 1 patch’.

Now hopefully you are like me and live your life by the mantra: minimum effort, maximum output. If so, then hopefully you packed in as many of these little designs into one hooping as possible. If so, then you’ll repeat steps 2-4 until it looks like this:

Skip this paragraph as it has nothing to do with this tutorial: Here’s a little side note: notice the heart buttonhole in the very first photo of this blog post—see how a ton of the underneath white bobbin thread has pulled up to the top? See how crappy that looks? This is my one complaint about the Bernina 830. When the machine needs to be oiled, this is what happens—there is no warning whatsoever, it just happens. Once I oiled the bobbin area, no more bobbin thread showed on my buttonhole patches, but still a-n-n-o-y-i-n-g.
5. Remove your stabilizer from the hoop and carefully tear away or cut away the excess stabilizer from each patch. If you choose to tear away the stabilizer you might still have paper “fuzzys” leftover on each edge. Carefully cut away the fuzzies. If you accidentally snip some of the stitching, no problem, put a big glop of ‘fray check’ on it and that will keep the stitching from falling apart. Cut each buttonhole open, and you are done!
Button these cuties in layers on headbands. (There are a million blogs out there that will teach you how to make these fabric headbands. Here’s one blog with a super fast tutorial.

These patches also give a nice 3-D effect on totes and purses:

And super cute on pillows as well:

I hope you found this helpful! Now go make some patches.

How to Add Piping to a Pillow

(left photo courtesy of Creative Little Daisy)
This will be the easiest tutorial ever for me to write. Why? Because I didn’t have to write it! Autumn over at Creative Little Daisy wrote this tutorial on piping for Sew Mama Sew.  And I surely give her technique my Cynthia Seal of Approval. Ok, so there is no such thing as my seal of approval. Even if there was, it means diddly-squat (where did that darn phrase come from anyway?) but this is 100% exactly how I make piping for pillows as well.
The best part? Autumn used some of my machine embroidery designs to adorn her pillow. I am loving the black and white. Fresh and modern. I was wondering if any of my customers used the simple outlines I try to include in many of my design packs. I guess Autumn answered that for me!
Fiver years later I am still loving my chocolate brown piped white pillow shams on my bed. It’s all about the dark and light fabrics when doing piping, in my opinion, which again, means diddly squat.

How to Make Roman Shades part 1

I’ve been making roman shades for at least 7 years now. I started making them for my own house and then started making them for clients. (Gave that up a while ago.) Truly, they are my favorite way to dress a window. I’m not a big fan of mini blinds, so to me, roman shades are the answer whenever possible. (I do have just one set of mini blinds in my home because the window is gigantic and it has a southern exposure that without diffused light would easily sun bleach all my furniture and carpet.)
Over the years, I’ve made plenty. Here’s a sample of different roman shades:
These were the first ones I ever made. This is my old house back in 2005. They are white canvas with a green border around the entire shade. Gotta love the tacky swing set pictured in our back yard. (I made those slipcovers as well on the chairs and ottomon…those items are now off to a better life with someone else.)

The side curtains in the picture below are inside mount on the side windows and the french doors (which are magnetic) also have roman shades…although you gotta get creative with those. See part 2 of this post for modifications for magnetic doors.) Sadly, I decided I didn’t love the traditional floral and those are now gone and replaced with simple white ones again. I guess I like what I like. And that traditional light fixture? Gone, thank goodness.

These are also inside mount ones I made for my sister law when she lived in Spokane. She lived there maybe 5 minutes so who knows if these are still alive and kicking.  (Name that song.) We put crystal trim along the bottom. Yummy.

More shades with pink crystal trim:

These (below) are pom-pom trimmed (hard to see in the light). I made these back in 2005, sadly my sweet little girl is growing up and is no longer this adorable 4 year old. (She’s an adorable 10 year old now.)

For the purposes of this tutorial, I am going to show you how to make an outside mount roman shade. Outside mount means that it is mounted on the outside of the window (as opposed to inside the frame of the window, which would be inside mount) The fabric is from Ikea and the lining is just come leftover white poly-cotton canvas. Ok, everything is from Ikea—the sofa is from their Karlstad line with a $20 blue slipcover (clearance) and the matching Karlstad ottoman also has a clearance $9 cover. Score. The side lamp is Ikea and the white x-back chair.

Here’s the hardware you will need: staple gun, 2 1/2” screws, nylon cording, screw eyes, plastic rings (I recommend using copper or metal rings if your window faces west as the sun will surely rot the plastic rings…ask me how I know), window cleat, and wall anchors (if you can’t drill into the studs). Not pictured: a wooden dowel is also needed.

Wall anchors are neeed as well. (I mounted my shade into my ceiling, so I had to use anchors.)

Cutting your fabric and lining: Measure the inside of your window and add 4 inches. This will give you a nice 2-inch over hang on the sides of the window. I forgot to do this for this project and only added 2” (dumb Cynthia), but they still worked. My window is 41” so the width I should’ve cut is 45”. As for the length, measure where the shade will be mounted  down to the window apron and add  2”.  I need 90” of length so I cut the fabric and lining 92”.

Sew around the two sides and bottom with a 1/2” to 1” seam allowance, turn right sides out, gently push out seams, and press. How happy do I look ironing? Good grief.

At this point the top is still open and raw, that’s fine for now. Next step is to fold the sides over to the back 1” and pin in place and sew, as seen below.

Now you are going to fold up the bottom for the dowel pocket about 1”, and iron in place. Do not sew yet!! It’s better to sew on the rings and then sew the hem in place after. This is where your dowel will be inserted so it has to remain ‘free’ of stitching on the inside.

Now you are ready to do the layout for the rings. I like large pleats so I space my rows 10” apart, lengthwise. As for how many rows you’ll need, that’s up to you. For narrow curtains like my french doors seen at the top of this post, I use 3 columns. For these shades I did 5 columns, evenly spaced across.
Using a water soluble marker, make a dot everywhere you’ll need to sew a ring. Your first row of rings will go on the bottom inch that you just ironed. You can see that I used a safety pin near each blue dot. This is essential! When you go to sew on your rings your lining and main fabric will shift. The safety pin ensures that your rings will be sewn at just the right spot. You’ll see that my rings don’t go all the way to the top (raw edge) of my curtain. (In picture below the shade is upside down.) I like to leave 12-18” free at the top without rings. That’s about as high as I’d ever pull up these shades for such a loooong window. But if you want to pull up your shades higher, extend the rings almost to the top, within 6 inches maybe.

Now you are ready to either sew on your rings by hand or machine. I choose to do this by machine. Lower your feed dogs and choose a narrow satin stitch with a length of nearly zero. If you have an open embroidery foot, use that. I am using a button sew on foot, but that’s optional. (On my Bernina 830 there is a button sew on program so I didn’t have to lower the feed dogs or choose a satin stitch. The machine automatically does that when I choose to sew on the buttons. Loooove that!)
Beginning at the bottom, unfold the hem you ironed in space, and sew on your rings. The bottom row is the only row that will have the rings sewn to the right side of the fabric.

Thre rest of the rings will be sewn on the wrong side, lining side up. Go slowly….sewing on all these blasted rings takes a while, probably an hour. A real snoozer, but it’s better than doing it by hand. Remove the safety pins as you go along.

Bring threads to the back and knot if desired. Sometimes I even put a dot of Fray Check on the inside threads of each ring, just to make sure nothing unravels.
Fold back up the 1” hem on the bottom and sew in place with a straight stitch, see below. If you have a walking foot (or dual feed like on the Bernina 830), use that. Huh? What’s a walking foot you ask? Nevermind, you’ll be fine with out it.

Now you can sew shut the top either with a serger or a regular sewing machine. Nobody will see this part so it doesn’t need to be pretty. Alright, you are done with the sewing part. So turn off your machine!
Cut a 1”x2” pine board to 1” shorter than your shade. My shade is now 42” so I cut my pine board 41”. (The hardware store can do this for you if needed.) Staple leftover fabric around you board. This step is optional for inside mount but essential for outside mount because you will see the edges of the board! Attach screw eyes to bottom of board by first drilling pilot holes then screw in the little screw eyes. You might have to snip the fabric to drill the holes.

Staple the top of your shade to the top of your board, wrapping it around about 1” to the top of the board. (You might want to remove the screw eyes if this is difficult for you.) Notice how lazy I was and used the burgandy thread that was already in my serger to finish off the top? But guess what…nobody will see!

Decide if you want your shade strings to pull up on the right side or the left side of the window. I wanted the right side, so I inserted all my strings to the left. Make sense? Tie your first nylon cord to the bottom most ring (see black arrow below), string up to the top through each ring, then through the screw eyes going to the left. Sorry, the cording is white, the lining is white, lousy photo so I drew in the black lines to represent the cording.

Now your shade is all ‘strung’ up and probably seems like a mess. We’ll fix that later.
Here is a close up of how it will look. All of the cording will be strung through the upper left screw eye as the final step in ‘threading’ the shade..

Ok, now we are on the home stretch. Insert your dowel in the bottom, no picture of that, sorry.
I am mounting my shade in the ceiling. Why? Because this window is northern facing and I want as much sun in here as possible. So…when my shade is pulled up I want it to barely cover my window. If this was a really sunny room I would mountain inside because diffusing light might be a good thing. Does that make sense? Mounting shades all the way to the ceiling also gives the illusion of taller windows. :)
Here I am installing the anchors. If you are drilling into the wall, just use a stud finder, drill your board into the studs with 2-3 screws, and skip this step. (Argh…I still gotta putty those holes leftover from my old drapes.)

Using a cordless drill, attach your board to the wall/ceiling/window frame! You’ll need a second pair of hands to hold the shade away from you.
Pull up your cording to make sure everything works. I like to make a series of knots, tieing all 5 cords together once they exit the last screw eye. This keeps then from tangling and it’s safer if you have small children in the house.  (In this photo below I am beginning to wonder why I chose to mount all the way to my 9-ft ceilings. I feel like I’m gonna fall off the ladder this high up!)
 
Attach your wall cleat.

Enjoy your roman shade for years to come!

I hope you found this helpful. Stay tuned for part 2 which will have variations for inside mount as well as french door roman shades.
I also like my new pillows….so fresh and spring-like. Dang that stupid snow still on the front lawn. Curse evil snow!

Stay tuned for part 2 where I will talk about the other variations for french doors and inside mount.