Thinking Outside the Hoop: Valentine Thoughts Embroidery Project

The Classic: Dinner Napkin Centerpiece

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What you need:

• a set of dinner napkins
• a long-stemmed red rose stock design
• appropriate backing for your dinner napkin of choice; I used tearaway backing with just a bit of spray glue.

What you do:

• hoop the napkin with the backing
• when positioning, simply center the design on the napkin and fold it to work best for display purposes
• size the design appropriately, keeping in mind the final size of your fully folded napkin (see picture at right)
• sew your design
• you can use floral wire inside each napkin to help it stand up, or use spray starch and iron the napkin
• fold, and arrange as you wish!

This idea won an EMB Honors award in the Stock Design Category during the Atlantic City ISS Show. Very quick, very easy and a unique centerpiece.

The Comfy: Nightshirts and Boxers

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Now here's where you can let your imagination (and humor) really go.

Boxers:

I had a customer that wanted something humorous for her fire-fighting husband for Valentine's Day. I know this couple and their sense of humor well, so I embroidered a firefighter combined with some text ("My Little Firefighter") alongside the fly of a pair of boxers. They were a big hit, and I ended up doing a pair for the entire fire station crew.

A few thoughts on techniques for embroidering boxers:

• allow for the fly to be hooped to insure the design is close to the fly area
• you can use straight pins to pin back the top flap to allow you to get closer if need be.

Nightshirt:

In some cases, the bigger the design, the better. The Valentine / Heart combination below just doesn't work nearly as well at a small scale. I enlarged it as much as I could to work well with the overall scale of the garment, and it stitched wonderfully. Another big hit with customers - half the battle is finding the right garment to use - this can work on a robe just as easily as it can on a nightshirt. Know your audience! Happy Valentine's Day!