Mason or canning jars are everywhere these days and this country girl here loves the charm of them. I’m so happy they are popular! They make a great way to gift many food items. Here is the newest item over at my Etsy site.
I’ve digitized lids for both wide and narrow mouth canning jars as well as a matching tag so you can personalize your jars for gift giving. Once embroidered, just embellish with rubberstamps, ribbons, twine, buttons, bows and more! I’ve created the process for embroidery on cardstock but it works just as well on fabric. In addition, all you need is just a small piece of felt or fabric to applique. There are three files included in the set, wide mouth jar lid, narrow mouth jar lid and tag. As you saw in a previous blog post, I’ve been making lots of pickles with the cucumbers we now have. Here I just rubber stamped onto the lid after it was stitched.
This machine embroidery project is done entirely in the hoop with one hooping. It takes only minutes to make.
Complete step-by-step instructions take you through the process.
Take a look at this! I’m now offering my designs in the following formats: PES, DST, HUS, JEF, VIP, and VP3. Currently though, all previous designs will remain as they were originally digitized.
Well Friends, they say there is no place like home, but boy-o-boy did we have a nice time cruising in Alaska. This was a very belated 25th anniversary trip (as we have already passed our 26th). Last year with the move to Michigan just kept us too busy to leave home.
I wish I could have packed each of you up in my suitcase to join us. What fun that would have been! Let me tell you it was quite a break from the summer heat for sure. Just imagine cool temperatures as you look through the photos.
I hope you will enjoy just a snippet of photos from our trip.
We are home! The past couple of weeks have been the vacation of a lifetime with our Alaskan trip and I’m going through pictures a we speak. I’ll have some to share in a few days.
However though, yesterday was the day. It is the day I had not wanted to see and how I hoped would wait a little longer to arrive. Time stands still for no man. My body may be 50 but my mind feels like it is somewhere between 35 and 40. Seriously, where did the time go.
I had a good day and sweet Mike knows I love flowers so he came home with the most beautiful bouquet and card. Dinner with Mike and Tim was special and we went to the Chop House in Grand Rapids. Double Yum!
I am so thankful for the many blessings God has given me throughout these 50 years. Each and every day I see God’s gracious beauty all around. My family means more to me than anything on this planet. I just pray that I will continue to stay healthy and strong to enjoy each day with them for many, MANY more years. I pray for increased wisdom and discernment each and every day to make the right choices in all I do. And friends, I pray for all of you and I am so thankful for each and every one of my readers.
Dear Friends, Be sure to scroll down to the bottom of the home page and grab the letter H. As you read this I am unplugged from the computer for a couple of weeks while hubby and I relax and enjoy the last bit of summer. If you should try to contact me, please know that it will be a bit before I am able to get back with you.
Also please note there will not be a new banner released over the next two weeks.
It is the things that you see above that are keeping me away from the embroidery machine. We’ve had a surplus of cucumbers that make into great pickles. I just use this package of seasoning.
The recipe is right on the back. The only changes I made is that I added two whole garlic cloves to each pint along with a sprig of dill weed. Yummy! Refrigerator pickles are super easy to make as well, you really can’t go wrong.
I enjoy cooking and the nutritional value of making food myself. I also love the colors God has given us in food as I think it is truly beautiful.
One more thing…There are some great pickling spice recipes out there so if your grocery doesn’t have this, just create your own spice mix.
If you remember, one of my goals this year was to contribute back to the community. I have found a worthy organization that spoke to my heart in many ways. It is a local group called Crafters With a Cause. Here I am this past Friday on our community service day quilting quilts for preemie infants. I got 4 quilts done that day, the quilting portion of them. Someone else was putting on the bindings and they had been previously pieced. The room was an abuzz with activity. Not only are quilts being made, but there were bears and dolls being stitched and stuffed, and hats for the preemies being knitted and crocheted.
Having worked as a labor and delivery nurse and Lamaze instructor for many years this cause has much meaning for me. What comfort it can bring to a new mother who has a baby in the NICU to receive something such as a quilted blanket, to see their baby laying on something that has color in their isolette. Quilts give comfort in many ways and I certainly quilted them with love praying over them and the babies that would soon be using them.
It was a wonderful day and I made new friends. Now I’m thinking of baby designs that I can create and embroider to be used in the quilt blocks.
This past week our daughter Katie came for a visit. What a blessing to have her home. Katie is in the Air Force and has recently returned from a deployment in Kuwait. This mama is very happy to have her back on US soil and I hope and pray she won’t have to go again. We had a wonderful time talking, laughing, shopping, eating and me getting to love on her.
Here we are at a local lake. I am paddling in a kayak as I take her picture in the canoe with her friend Mike.
While Katie canoed and I kayaked, our son Tim paddle boarded. He did a great job standing up on that thing. So when he returned to the beach, I decided I wanted to give it a whirl myself.
Here I am going around in one big circle because I was afraid to move the paddle to the other side of the board! LOL!!
This was at Millennium Park in Grand Rapids where they have many different types of water craft available for rent. It was a lot of fun that day. 🙂
Hi Friends, Just a short note to let you know that the letter G is available free this week at the bottom of my home page. Grab it quick! Letters A through F are available in my Etsy store. Blessings, Nancy
I was in need of a thank you card for my son to give. I like to embroidery on paper and had the phrase in mind I wanted it to say. What I ended up doing was using the freehand line tool in the software and just wrote out what I wanted the card to have on it. I lengthened the stitches a bit to 3.0 being the shortest stitch and 5.0 being the longest. I used variegated thread to create the color in the stitching which is all done with a triple run. To begin I hooped cut away stabilizer and floated the cardstock on top. When it finished stitching I just cut the stabilizer away and glued the embroidery card onto another piece of cardstock. My son was then able to write his message on the inside. I think it turned out sweet, not too feminine for him yet I got to do something creative. Plus I had the paper on hand. The little gift is a chipboard scrapbooking element. I love using things out of my creative stash to make new items.
Hi Friends, Just a short note to let you know that the letter F is available free this week at the bottom of my home page. Grab it quick! Letters A through E are available in my Etsy store. Blessings, Nancy
Dear Friends,
My first machine embroidery video. Boy it has been along time since I did a video.
In this video I share about what I have been embroidering. It’s only about 3 minutes long.
Dear Friends, I’ve been working on a sweet project that I’m now ready to share with you. In-the-hoop Joyful Flags! They make me smile!!!!! These flags are great plant picks so stick them in a potted plant, in your garden, tie it to a gift, add to a table decoration and the list goes on. The flagpole is a bamboo skewer. I’ve included complete step-by-step instructions with photographs but really these flags are super simple and quick and easy to make. They are a great fabric scrap buster. I’ve literally made dozens of them. You can find them in my Etsy shop. Enjoy!
I created this cuff to help keep me moving. It is way to easy for me to sit for far too long at the computer. Because of this and because of my age the weight has been slowly creeping on over the years. Oh I know how to take it off. I’m a lifetime member of Weight Watchers. I used to work as a nurse for Physician’s Weight Loss Centers. Doing what I should be doing is the hard thing. I’ve taken up golf and I even joined a gym and have been going faithfully every day for three weeks. My weight hasn’t budged a bit. It’s frustrating because you would think with all this exercise I would have noticed at least a tiny bit.
I need to wear my Eat Healthy cuff more. It is my favorite cuff as I love the fabric I used so much. I like sweets. Actually, I just like food. I need all the inspiration and reminders I can get. Both the Eat Healthy cuff and the Exercise cuff are available over at my Etsy shop in PES format.
Dear Friends, A special embroidery friend of mine, Rosemary, has been dealing with ovarian cancer. Please keep her lifted up in prayer. I designed this special cuff using phrases that are meaningful and uplifting to her. It is available in my Etsy shop. I hope that it brings comfort to all who create and wear this. Blessings, Nancy
The challenge this month at You Can Digitize was on shading. I can see that I will need much more practice in this area. It was a good challenge and I’ve learned a lot this month. As always, everyone in the challenge did the same cow design. I will be anxious to see the entries and see how others decided to digitize this.
My newsletter went out last night letting all on it know that the letter C is now available to download at the bottom of this page here. Letters A and B are available for sale on my Etsy site at www.embroideryit.etsy.com
As a reminder, to be notified when new letters and designs are released, be sure to sign up for my newsletter.
Thank you everyone and I hope you have a wonderful day.
This week I had a memorial service to attend and wanted to have a special card to give. Special means embroidered right? So I did machine embroidery and made this beautiful sympathy card.
You have seen me do machine embroidery on paper here. But on this, the stitching is pretty light so the paper doesn’t tear. With this design there was too much stitching that would have just created large holes if I would have attempted this on paper. What I did instead is stitch it on fabric and then trimmed the fabric, very lightly frayed the edges, and then glued it to a paper card I made. I finished it with a handwritten heartfelt message inside. It created a very meaningful gift during this time of sorrow. This design came from Embroidery Library.
As you saw in a previous blog post, I’ve been making lots of pickles with the cucumbers we now have. Here I just rubber stamped onto the lid after it was stitched.
