The old and the new!

 Gone is another year. Just like that all of my kids are a year older and I started getting grays. 

I had better just throw in the towel now huh?

 We celebrated the last birthday of the year with our little princess. She was touch and go in utero. I remember praying and praying for this little one. Well, God certainly knows what he is doing. She is the most active and "into everything" little child I have, and that's saying a lot since my first walked at nine months!

But, each time I leave one room after just cleaning up a mess only to arrive in another room to clean up another of her messes, I remember how I was on my knees praying for her safe arrival. It's humbling each and every time.

My little princess loves pink, princesses, and ponies. I made her a special shirt with all three :)

Happy Birthday to my little peanut!

 Since I can't say  "no" to my last born, I also made her a pink pony castle cake. 

It was the first time I've used fondant so be nice ;)

Recipe for fondant was from here: http://www.thebakingbeauties.com/2010/10/homemade-fondant-that-tastes-like-buttercream.html

And that's it!

Happy New Year!

  Here's to another year of staying up the night before drawing, digitizing, and stitching my kids' birthday shirts. Hats off to those of you who make a whole outfit. 

Use coupon code NEWYEAR2013 to receive 50% off of your entire order (12/31/12 - 1/1/13) at www.originalstitches.com!

P.S. I'm sorry only one has been fully tested and made available to you. I promise to get the other listed this year......sometime.

Snowflake Ornament Instructions

 If you haven't already. Head on over to our website to download the free snowflake ornament design.


Here is a little in the hoop design for you to play with. The 4x4 file stitches one snowflake ornament. If you'd like to do more than one at a time, the 5x7 file stitches two snowflake ornaments.

INTSRUCTIONS:

 Hoop your water soluble stabilizer, tear away stabilizer, or matching color stabilizer.

 The first stitch pack is your placement line. I forgot I was taking pictures for instructions and used white. Trust me, the placement line is there.

If you want to use ribbon, position your ribbon over the line using clear tape or adhesive spray.

Don't stitch yet!

Place your felt (I wanted to go frayed so I used flannel) over the ribbon and placement line.

Run your tackdown stitch.

And run your decorative stitching. There are stops to change colors. I just really wanted all gray right now. 

When your decorative stitching is finished. Turn your hoop OVER. Place your covering fabric on the BACK side of the hoop using adhesive spray to hold in place.

Like so.

Stitch your final tackdown.

Remove from your hoop and cut out your ornament. 

If you used ribbon, remember to carefully trim!

And you are finished. 

Reusable Gift Tags

Some time ago I had this great idea to make in the hoop reusable luggage tags. 

I think they turned out well. 

However, I cannot get my directions clear enough and need to take more pictures. 

Yes, I do NOT release files that aren't clear enough to be stitched.

The above also had a felt version that IS simple.

Simple enough to change from a luggage tag to a reusable gift tag. 

Yeah!

And they are coming out in cute new shapes for all occasions.

From seasonal to plain.

These instructions contain photo instructions on how to make the gift tags with chalk fabric, a photo (or hand drawn picture) or with vinyl.

But the possibilities don't stop there. Think outside of the box!!

Take our new Reusable Heart Gift Tag.

Attach this to your gift on Feb 14th. 

 But maybe you need something for a classroom?

When stitching out the final tackdown, add an extra piece of felt to the back. You can use this pocket to add a piece of candy or if you are being healthy, a piece of chalk!

Flip the way direction of the felt and you have sucker covers.

Simple and quick!

Now, while I have chalk in my house (4 kids, we have chalk!), I love the crispness of chalk markers. I checked our local Micheal's and they didn't have any but they directed me to Staples. They had neon markers that would have worked, but I really wanted chalk! I asked at the counter if they carried them and they said they could order one! Free shipping to the store and it was there within two days. I'm not sure what stores near you carry them, but it never hurts to ask!

Crash go the Ornaments

About a month ago, I had this brilliant idea to start and end all Christmas designs before November.

Wouldn't that have been nice?

I was merrily making my way through testing the designs when *crash* my usb stops working.

UH OH! I didn't have any of my new designs backed up yet.

Nope, not ONE!

I had just finished stitching my snowman out, I pulled the usb out of my machine, I plugged it into my laptop and nothing. 

Of course, it was over the weekend so I researched several usb retrieval sites and left messages with all of them. The first one that responded to me, well, I dragged all four of my kids out of the house and had it in the mail in 30 minutes. 

That's almost two years worth of work! (Ok, ok, I had backed it up in April before we moved, so it was really only the last six months that would have been lost.)

Almost four weeks later, I'm glad to say that all ornaments are finally up and listed on our website. All of the data was retrieved off the usb and I paid a ridiculous amount of $$$ to get it back (seriously, if I had just prepaid for an online back-up service for the next 15 years, it might have been the same amount). Guess who has an online back-up service now?

Well, at least they are all up before Thanksgiving. That's something ... right?

October 2012 Freebies Now Available

---------------NO LONGER AVAILABLE-----------------

I have decided to take down our ghost appliques. This is completely a personal choice and there is NOTHING wrong with the files :)

So, if you would like this guy (never released).......

......or this old favorite........

 ........head on over to our facebook page, become a fan, and download these appliques before they disappear forever.

(Look, NO watermarks on the pictures! That's how you know I'm serious!!!)

How to draw a soccer ball.

Well, if you are like me and like to draw all of your designs from scratch, that leaves a little conundrum when it comes to widely known objects. 

What to do, what to do......

Up on my plate was a soccer ball. 

Soccer balls have a pentagon and hexagon pattern. 

Thus, I started like this:

You'll notice these aren't perfect pentagons and hexagons. They are going on a round surface so they needed a little perspective. 

Fun. Fun. 

That came with a lot of tweaking.

But it was finally time to start filling in the ball. Again, lines are curved for perspective.

Until you have the final ball!

Whew! What a lot of work for a little soccer ball.

And this little ball is now part of the larger file.

Now that the soccer ball has been mastered, making the whole thing applique would be really cute! Just think of using flame or flower fabric instead of having plain black pentagons.

A howling good time.

I love wolves.

I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because my parents had a mixed breed dog that looked like a wolf to my young eyes when I was a child.

Maybe it's because they look so cute and cuddly, just with a little attitude.

Or because they live in packs.

Whatever the reason, I claim wolves as my favorite animal.

Howling.

Baying at the moon.

Or being spooky.

No matter the size, pups or alpha males, I like wolves.

For right now, I just have simple applique and embroidery designs of wolves.

Maybe one day I will make this guy into an embroidery file. 

No, I was not an art major in college. Just a science major. But, art has always been my hobby. Even right now while I'm majoring in Motherhood, I spend hours creating for you. Just like I spent hours painting him (that's right, copyright Original Stitches). 

His eyes get me every time. It would take a lot of work to make thread speak like a paint brush. 

One of these days I will.

September 2012 Freebie Now Available!

EXPIRED! Visit our website to download the tension test for free (in the FREE category)!!

Our September freebie is now posted on our facebook page!

Please "LIKE" our facebook page to gain access to this month's FREE DOWNLOAD!

This month's freebie is a little different but it something we all need.

We just finished moving from one state to another.

Before I wanted to start any projects, I made a test file to make sure all of my needles were adjusted correctly and nothing had changed during my machine's travel in a truck.

This test file comes in a 1 needle (4x4 hoop), 4 needle (4x4 hoop), 6 needle (5x7 hoop) and 10 needle (6x10 hoop). Of course, you can use them however you want. If you have a single need, you may want to use the 4 needle design to test all of the adjustments (stopping at each color change).

Here is how mine stitched out the first time.

Check your manual book for how to adjust your needle tension. Normally, you want the back of the stitching to show 1/3 top thread, 1/3 bobbin thread, and 1/3 top thread.

I had a few adjustments to make on a few needles.

Enjoy!

Where I get some of my fonts.

There are quite a few places to get true type fonts (ttfs).

In truth, a lot of those sites are slightly scary and I'm not exactly sure what I'm downloading and if there will be any extra codes in those files that might crash my computer.

Back in my scrapbooking years, I visited kevinandamanda.com a lot. I have quite a few of their ttfs in my Windows font folder. A lot of their fonts grace my digital scrapbooks.

AND, now their fonts are part of some designs for sale.

"Happy Fall Y'all" uses their Carrington font and I Love Derwin font.

They also have a nice page explaining how to download and use their fonts so I won't go into that detail.

Check out their terms of use page if you like using ttfs for your projects. Fonts are free for personal use and they have a few options for commercial use.

I hope you enjoy this site and all of their reviews. They also have a facebook page if you want to stay up to date on new releases.

So, if you have time, peruse through the Fonts for Peas section where you will find so many different handwriting fonts! There has to be something for EVERY project there :)

August 2012 FREEBIE is now available!

EXPIRED. Avalable for purchase here.    

Our August freebie is now posted on our facebook page!

Please "LIKE" our facebook page to gain access to this month's FREE DOWNLOADS!

 USA Alligator Clip Cover

 USA Circle Clip Cover (fits any clip 50mm or less)

 

July 2012 Freebie

Our July freebie is now posted on our facebook page!

Please "LIKE" our facebook page to gain access to this month's FREE DOWNLOADS!

Frayed USA Stars

Satin Stitch USA Stars

There is an extra placement line in this file so you can add ribbon! Yes, even in the frayed file.

Let's see some creative stitching!