If you are a frequent visitor to our site, you know that I enjoy being able to combine my sewing and cutting hobbies when making a project for a post.  I have used both again for the project this month.  I cut Christmas shapes out of a thin plastic and then decorated them by sewing lines of outline stitching on them.  They can be used as tags for gifts or as ornaments or possibly both after the gifts have been opened.  I used my KNK Studio software and my Make the Cut software to create and cut the shapes.

Materials Used:

Thin clear plastic – I used some clear poly plastic that is .12mm thick

Water soluble mesh embroidery stabilizer – “Wet N Gone”

Various 40 wt rayon and polyester embroidery threads to match yarns

Various fine metallic yarns in gold, silver, white, and red

Settings:

Machines used – 15″ KNK Maxx Air, Pfaff Creative Sensation Pro sewing machine

Blade – Red Cap Standard Material Blade

Force – 40 for the plastic, 14 for the vinyl

Speed – 80,  1 pass

Instructions/Information:

The mat I used was very sticky and I still put some strips of painter’s tape on the edges of the plastic pieces to hold them in place during the cutting.  The shapes I used are very basic and include a hole for a ribbon or cord.

The water soluble stabilizer was placed under the cut plastic shape to provide traction during the sewing process as well as to prevent damage from the feed dogs.  Since the yarn that I used is too heavy to be used in the needle of the sewing machine, I employed a method of sewing known as Bobbin Work.  The heavier thread/yarn is wound onto the bobbin and regular weight thread is used in the needle.  A special bobbin case that can have tension adjustments made to it is used.  The piece being sewn is placed with the right side down so the bobbin thread appears on the right side when the stitching is completed.

In order to more easily see the clear plastic that I was sewing on, I outline the piece on the stabilizer with a marker that also washes away.  When the stitching was complete, I soaked and rinsed the pieces in warm water to dissolve the stabilizer and markings.

I cut names out of vinyl to personalize the tags/ornaments.

Cutting files for the basic shapes can be found here Tag Shapes Cut Files_JudyKay