Are you curious about machine embroidery software and want to learn more? Then keep reading. This post and with video highlights is for you!!! I had the privilege of interviewing Roy Garland on one of my Sew Tell Me YouTube shows. Roy is the Chief Technology Officer at Designs in Machine Embroidery. In this interview Roy shared some insight into what digitizing is all about. He also shared some of his incredible embroidered artistry with friends of Let's Go Sew.

Here you'll find some highlights from this fun filled show. You can watch it from beginning to end by clicking on the arrow above, or go directly to the timestamps listed below for specific parts of the interview. Enjoy!!!

Check out these addtional designs created by Roy, using the DiME *My Lace Maker software.

It's always fun to take a plain tea towel and transform it with a bit of embroidery and some colorful trim!  I created this towel for the Brother Stitching Sewcial blog for the month of April 2022.

The featured FREE design is available for download in the .pes format and fits a 4-inch hoop size. If you read the instructions in the Brother blog posted HERE on their site, you'll see that I used a special method I call "off site" embroidery to avoid stitching directly on the towel. Please see my important note at the end for a link to the free design.

Essentially, "off site" embroidery consists of stitching the embroidery design on something else, and then applying it to the project as an appliqué. There are lots of advantages to this method. In this case, I wanted the backside of the towel to be free from the customary, unattractive "wrong side" stitches. There are other reasons to use this technique. If you'd like to learn more, below you'll find links to other "off site" embroidery projects I stitched in the past.

• Dress with Blue Roses-It's Sew Easy TV show 1204-2
• Pashmina Mania-It's Sew Easy TV show 1703-1
• Wrap Dress-As seen in Designs in Machine Embroidery

Below you'll find the addition of the Brother Sews YouTube show where I walk through the project with show host Angela Wolf. I shared lots of tips in this video. Enjoy!

No embroidery? No problem! Appliqué is an easy way to add a design element to your tea towel in place of embroidery. I found a cute tea cup design on the Quilting Daily website HERE. Appliqué is an easy way to add colorful accents to your projects. CLICK HERE for an appliqué tip sheet. 

Now, back to the embroidered tea towel project. In celebration of April being National Serger month, I used the serger to make the ruffled trim that ties together my pretty purple color scheme. Follow the instructions and you'll learn how to use a gathering foot on the serger. This foot makes it easy to gather one strip and sew it to a second strip all in one quick pass.

Of course you can use any color combo you choose for the project. The tea cup itself is made up of just three different colors, making it easy to change for your own personal color palette.

I'd love it if you would visit the Brother blog and then come back here to leave your comments. I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have too!

Happy stitching!

Below is a PDF version of the project you can view or print.