One Stitch at a Time

My youngest daughter sent me a photo from etsy a few weeks ago showing knee socks that rise above the top of the boot, embroidered with a 3-letter monogram -- $20 if you order them made for you. This was the perfect opportunity to use the lovely box of embroidery thread I found at a garage sale last year, even though I had to put a little WD40 on my rusty hand-embroidery skills.

The socks I found at Target for $2.50 a pair. I did purchase a roll of Sulky Water Soluble Stabilizer (with a 40% off coupon at Joann's) that I'll be able to use with my embroidery machine as well. I had the embroidery thread, needle and hoop on my shelves.

The first thing I did was spend a little time on the laptop looking at typestyles to see which font would look good for her monogram. With a 3-letter monogram, they go in this order: small first initial, large last initial, small middle initial. I settled on Snell Roundhand because it's a little fancy but not too much for hand stitching.

I printed this out on plain white paper to get the correct size, cut a small piece of water soluble stabilizer, laid it over the paper and traced the monogram onto the stabilizer with a Sharpie. (Used green ink so it would stand out from the black thread and make it easier to see my stitches.) I laid the stabilizer over the sock, figuring out where I wanted it to land (just under the heavy cuff) and hooped it. I used straight pins to help pin the rest of the cuff out of the way so I didn't accidentally stitch the top of the sock together.

I used black embroidery thread, a back stitch for all letters and went over the middle of the C again with a chain stitch ...

One thing to remember when doing a pair of anything: be sure to put your stitching on the correct side, i.e., to the outside of each sock.

It was fun to wash the water soluble stabilizer out of each sock and see it magically disappear. I ended up doing it twice because after they air dried the first time, I could still feel a little gluey stiffness that was left over. Rinsed them in the kitchen sink with a little warm tap water and a dab of hand soap.

We were finally able to celebrate Heidi's birthday with her belatedly last night and I think she liked her personalized knee socks. Hopefully, it will be chilly enough for her to wear them soon with her cute boots!

On an ooey gooey delicious dessert note, I made the Gluten Free version of Caramel Apple Butterfinger Bars by Confessions of a Cookbook Queen as a substitute birthday cake. A little heaven on earth that includes fresh Granny Smith apples, oatmeal, Butterfinger candy bars and Caramel ice cream topping. I didn't say it was calorie free, just gluten free, using GF Bisquick and Red Mill GF Oatmeal ...

Warmed up with a scoop of French Vanilla melting into all that caramel-y goodness ... just yum!

So many projects, never enough time!