A Big Change

Greetings to All:

It's almost a new year and like so many people I have written resolutions. To be more accurate I have written a resolution.  My resolution is to write consistently post on my blog and to make my blog more accessible to my friends, customers and clients.  So... in addition to writing more often I have decided to move my blog to my website.

Anytime you want to see what I'm up to you can go to my site:

www.bullarddesigns.com  and click on the menu, clicking on Blog.  You'll find my newest postings there.

For right now, you can click here and go straight to the current blog post: 

Thank you.  I look forward to seeing you at my new blog site!

Bobbi Bullard
bobbi@bullarddesigns.com
www.bullarddesigns.com/blog

Back in the Saddle Again

Been a while since I’ve blogged, nine months to be exact. Gestation time.

 It’s not like I don’t think about blogging. I think about it all the time. Something odd will happen and I’ll think, wow, that would be funny for the blog. But… obviously it's a long journey between the thought and the action.

 So what have I been doing? I'm spending a lot of time renovating my sewing studio. And, although I haven't published them yet, I have been writing blog posts about the renovation.  I won't publish until I’m can show the pictures of the completed room.   Showing you the steps without being able to show the finished product seems wrong.

Anyway, the inspiration for today’s blog came from reading an article from Houzz,  a checklist of things to do to prepare your house for the holidays.

 The list is excellent including a wide variety of suggestions, most of which don’t apply to my home at all. I don't have a chimney to have cleaned or a sump pump to check and the only way I could add storage to my mudroom would be to add a mud room.

The first item on the list did catch my attention, the thing  about deep cleaning the kitchen, especially cleaning under the refrigerator.

Let me clarify. I do clean under my refrigerator. I do it every ninety days using a special brush made to run under the coils. I actually feel quite righteous about cleaning under the refrigerator, as this is the only place that I clean better than the average person. For the few minutes I kneel in front of the refrigerator, brush in hand I feel like a regular June Cleaver. Of course, that dream shatters the minute I get up and look at the rest of the kitchen.

Well, it seems that cleaning from the front isn't enough. The author of this list is very clear. To clean under the fridge, one should pull the fridge away from the wall and clean from the back.  As I wasn't ready to turn in my June C badge, I marched up to that refrigerator and pulled it away from the wall. Wow! What an eye opener. There were things under that fridge that I didn't even know were lost.  I found old bills and a photo or two and quarters and balls of aluminum foil and bills and … things that cannot be named. Who knew, my refrigerator is a hoarder. : )

 This cleaning  experience was particularly good for one thing. It sent me right to the computer to re-start my blogging career.

And, just to keep your attention, here’s a teaser of the sewing room renovation blog. Here are pictures of the before. Pretty grewsome. And... I didn't make it worse just to show a dramatic change. This is what the room looked like.

Watch this space for the magnificent transformation.

In the Pocket

This morning as I was browsing through some old magazines (Designs in Machine Embroidery, of course), re-reading articles I’d written, an unusual thing happened to me. An article, not written by me, caught my eye. The piece, a how-to on embroidering the pockets of your blue-jeans, showed me the light. I’ve been guilty of breaking fashion law. I was wearing jeans with naked pockets! 

Yes, friends, the pockets on my jeans are embarrassingly plain. That’s not to say that these aren’t high end pants. They’re Gloria Vanderbilt jeans, sold at that oh, so fashionable store, Le Costco. I buy them because they happen to fit me amazingly well. And, while they sport a designer’s label on the inside, the outside is shockingly bare. 

I didn’t even know I was moving, but I found myself in my sewing room chair, a pair of jeans in my lap, unstitching the pockets. Next, I had to decide what to put on those oh so naked pockets and how to do it.

I have just finished productizing a new design set so I started with one of those designs. I digitized a design the shape and size of the pocket and put that behind a couple of the designs. Voila! The perfect way to embroider on a jeans pocket.

Before any embroidery on good fabric (or in this case, good pockets) I test. It’s kind of a standard joke for me, that “TEST” is a four letter word. Luckily for me, I have a substantial box of jeans’ pants’ legs hanging around my basement, (doesn’t everyone?) in which there was a piece with a color similar to my pocket. I was ready to test. I hooped the pants leg and started stitching, changing colors intermittently until I found the perfect combination.

The New System:

When I added the pocket outline to the embroidery design I basically set up a no-fail pocket stitching system. Whoo Hoo! 

Step 1 - Hoop a wash-away stabilizer and stitch color 1, the outline of the pocket.

Step 2 – Place your pocket so it is perfectly centered over the stitching. The edges of your pocket don’t have to match up with the pocket exactly. Just center your pocket over the stitching.

 

Step 3 - Using pins or spray adhere the pocket to the stabilizer.

Step 4 – Stitch the design. 

 

Here is the pocket on the pants.  I would have shown both pockets but I didn't want to use a wide angle lens.

While I was on a roll, I pulled out another pair of pants and went embroidery crazy. This pocket showcases a little more bling.

Ahh.... naked pockets no more!   I can now go out in public with pride!