My Treasure

So the kids are going as pirates for Halloween and I wanted to coordinate, but didn't want to sew myself an entire outfit. Enter the embroidery machine. I came up with an idea to put on a shirt for myself and could have used my awesome Janome 350e's editing capabilities to combine the text and applique I wanted. BUT, it would have been quite a bit of effort, especially as I was going to make shirts for the grandmas as well. So, I finally took the plunge to try the demo for Embird embroidery software.

My first design--I merged text and an applique

I have been holding off on downloading Embird because I want to be able to purchase the program if it turns out to be really awesome. I also didn't want to try to learn to use it during the holidays when I always take on too much to sew. And I wanted a time when I would be able to get the most use in the 30 days allotted. All those reasons went out the window when I needed it for Halloween:)   Here is what the grandma design looks like stitched out (the colors are a little different):

My mother-in-law's shirt
(mine is stitching out as I type this)

The treasure chest is from Planet Applique, and I used 3 fonts from 8 Claws and a Paw (Tempus Sans, Happy Birthday and Harrington).  I really like how the design turned out and was quite pleased with Embird.

I finally got some polymesh stabilizer ordered
and the design lays so smooth!