If you read some of my past blog posts you will know that this year I have been traveling quite a bit for work. This means I don’t have many opportunities to sew much between trips. For my final month trip down to Jacksonville, Florida one of my co-worker’s offered to drive down my sewing machine since he was planning to drive instead of fly. I was ecstatic! I can now create wonderful things on travel plus keep my Etsy shop open!
I may have sent more then just my sewing machine with my co-worker. I also sent a duffel bag full of fabric down with him and some sewing tools. Hehe. In my defense some of the fabric I can’t buy in any fabric store and can only get online plus there are certain sewing tools I didn’t want to buy again. My co-worker was a big sport and gladly took everything I needed to Florida. 😆
I might have felt like I was a crazy person having a sewing machine and fabric everywhere in my hotel room, but I can only imagine what other people have in there hotel rooms. Just saying. No matter what I was just happy that I could have a little piece of home while on travel.
You are probably curious to know what I ended up making while on this month long trip… Well…
I found that my Night & Light Fury Dragon Plushies were becoming a little popular so I decided to try and get ahead and make 5 of each. “Trying to get ahead” did not happen at all. I ended up making like 10 of each during my whole trip. Every time I thought I might be able to get ahead I end up getting another order. I am not complaining what so ever, but I definitly stayed busy on top of my long hours at work.
Surprisingly, I received quite a bit of orders requesting if I can embroider a small saying on the bellys of the dragons. After a few request, I updated my Etsy shop to include an option for some of my listing to have initials, date, or small message embroidered on customers plushies for an additional charge. Yay for new things!
One of the requesters wanted me to embroider a message on the Light and Night Fury Dragons for a special bond that she has with her best friend. She told me that both of them love dragons and she found out that she has to travel for a long period of time so she will be far distance from her friend. She thought it would be amazing if I could embroider the messages on the dragons so they both can remember each other while being apart for so long. Her plan was to give the light fury to her friend and keep the night fury dragon for herself. She told me the message she wanted on the light fury while her friend contacted me with the surprise message he wanted on the night fury for her to keep.
You want to know what the messages where??
Light Fury: “I am here for you. Indefinitely.”
Night Fury: “I am always with you.”
So heart felt. Awwww. Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of the light fury embroidery but if you see the night fury embroidery you can imagine what it looked like. I promise I will try and remember to take pictures after I complete projects. In my defense, I was super busy and I spaced. I am just happy I at least took a picture of one.
Next little project I did on the road was a cute Pokemon: Sylveon (an Evolution of Eevee). This customer selected my new embroidery option and had me embroider initials on the plushie for his girl friend.
Adorable!
My last and final project that I accomplished during my work travel was a sport team T-Shirt that I appliqued football team licensed fabric and embroidered on. This was a fun challenge since this person (the front desk clerk at my hotel who became a fan of my work) is attending the Cowboys VS Jaguars game in October and she cheers for both teams. (Oh man that must be fun to cheer for two teams that are going head to head… yikes….) This meant that she wanted me to design and embroider on a T-shirt showing both teams, their colors and have “I cheer for both” on the shirt. Hmmmm…. I like a challenge.
Below is my first design I showed her:
She liked this design but it seemed to small and her concern was that no one would be able to read it from a distance. I explained that this design will fit on the largest hoop I have for my machine. Then it hit me, I can design something bigger but make the design so I can hoop multiple times to get everything she wants. That is when I sketched this design for her on the spot using my phone:
When I showed her this sketch and explained it she was ecstatic. Before I actually embroidered on her T-shirt I showed her the separate designs I made using my embroidery program to get final approval and also purchased the licensed team fabric at the local fabric store.
She approved the designs and how she wanted the fabric placed on the applique embroidery. Here I go! I can tell you one thing, it is slightly difficult to embroider a huge design on a T-shirt. My big hoop had the tendency to slip or not line up when I was hooping the embroidery stabilizer with the T-shirt. I had to finagle with it for like 10 minutes or so just to get it hooped the way I wanted. Lol. Don’t worry it was so worth it in the end though.
Here is a little video I took while my embroider machine was stitching the design:
Neat, right? I kind of wish I took more videos during the process but I originally only did this video to show my husband what I was up to while I was on travel. Hehe. My husband loves to see my progress on my projects plus he is interested in the new creations I make. I love that my husband is so supportive in my hobbies. 😁
You want to know how it turned out in the end?? I can’t wait any longer to show you…. Here it is:
I am really proud of myself. This was my first big applique project that I have ever created plus this was my first time embroidering on a T-shirt too! Yay! I should give myself a big pat on the back for this accomplishment. *Pats my back* Hehe.
It was amazing that I was able to sew and create while I was on travel. Sewing was a great way to occupy my time at my hotel room plus I wasn’t bored at all during my trip. Maybe the next time I go on a long trip I might bring along my sewing/embroidery machine… if I have an opportunity too or if I purchase a good traveling case for it so it won’t get damaged when I take as a carry on possibly?? I don’t know, I have to some research but it is possible. I am not sure if I am always going to have a kind co-worker to drive my sewing machine to a travel destination. 😉
Thanks for stopping by!
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One response to “Traveling & Sewing”
[…] Oh my goodness, it took about an hour or so to do each design. I spent about 8 hours total just doing the applique designs. Wow. I still had fun doing it though! Hehe. Totally worth it! The designs turned out better then I expected, especially since this is the second time ever doing an embroidery applique project (first time I did an embroidery applique was when I made a T-shirt while on travel here.) […]