Thursday, March 28, 2013

sewing thank you notes

so my birthday was over the weekend and i got a lot of great sewing related goodies (2 books, 3 fabric store gift cards and my threads magazine subscription came in!) there was also a lot of chocolate cake and a little wine ;) i have some pretty amazing friends and family. really, i feel so blessed. and they know me so well!

i'm really big on thank you notes
. it's just a thing. what about you? do you always write them? do you care if you receive them or not? so i had some store-bought cards. but i also felt like getting a little crafty. and i had some blank cards made of nice paper, soooo...

i originally had the idea to cut out the words "THANK YOU" out of scrap fabric and stitch them onto the cards. but that would probably get time consuming and the cards are on the small side so the letters would also need to be small. and i didn't want this to turn into something frustrating. so then i thought i'd cut little triangles of scrap fabric and sew them onto the card in a pennant banner style. i wasn't loving it, so then i thought i'd sew different colored ribbons to make stripes across the fronts, and then i remembered all of the specialty stitches on my machine, so i said "forget the ribbons! let's try out these funky stitches!"

and this is what i came up with.







i have to say, i think they turned out super cute. i stitched across the envelope flaps as well. and i only killed one needle in the process! i started going too fast and it just couldn't take it. sewing through paper probably isn't the best thing for my machine, but i think it'll be alright.

i'm wondering if some of my friends won't know i have specialty stitches on my machine and will think i did it all by hand, like a robot. hehe

22 comments:

  1. sewing on paper won't hurt your machine at all. It will definately dull the needle, so just change it after you finish and defuzz the bobbin area. Those cards are super cute! I hope your friends enjoy them. g

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    1. oh good! i was a little worried it might be rough on the gears or something, but i guess it's no worse than heavy denim or something like that? i did change the needle and defuzzed, so i should be good to go =)

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  2. First of all, happy belated birthday! It sounds like you had a lovely day.

    I love these cards, they are perfect. What a great idea. I now want a new sewing machine with lots of fancy stitches so that I can make some. My 20+ year old machine only has a couple of decorative stitches.

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    1. thanks! one decorative stitch or even just a zig zag in different colored threads would be fun!

      i left the bobbin thread white so i could change out the colors faster. if you try it, go slow so you don't break a needle and i found that cranking the first stitch on each row with the hand wheel helped it get started right. and i tied little knots at the ends to help stop fraying, but a drop of fray check or glue would probably help too. i also thought about zig-zagging down the card instead of stopping and starting, but i liked the look of the horizontal stripes.

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  3. How pretty! What a great idea!

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  4. These are absolutely adorable! Such a great idea :)

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  5. Happy (belated) birthday to you! Those cards are very cute, and duplicating a row on the card was a nice touch :)

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  6. Happy belated birthday - and these cards are lovely - I think it is always lovely to have some on hand for sending out when needed. I love old fashioned thank you notes - it's alwasy nice to receive them, or a thinking of you note, so these will be great.

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    1. thanks! i need to get some more blank cards so i can make more to have on hand

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  7. These turned out so nice! I've done something similar in the past and in fact I keep a needle specially for sewing on paper. Happy birthday!

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    1. very smart! i'll put this needle to the side for sewing paper, and i trashed the needle i broke =)

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  8. Another belated Birthday Wish, from Down Under! Love the cards - if I received one of these they would be treasured...much more inspiring than the store purchased ones...J

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    1. thanks, i sure hope they treasure them or at least think they're cute!

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  9. Cute!! Happy belated Birthday!!

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  10. Those are so adorable! What a clever idea. I'm really going to have to try that.

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    1. do it! it was a lot of fun and a great little break from sewing a more complicated project

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  11. Happy belated birthday! And those are awesome! Such a great idea :)

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  12. Thoese are rather lovely - and the different colored threads make them look most classy!

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  13. I love these -- they are adorable!

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