Ribbons for her hair

                                  

                              Each day comes bearing its own gifts. Untie the ribbons. ~ Ruth Ann Schabacke  

Mae Mae wanted some new ribbons.  Her school colors are navy blue and burgundy, and she wanted  ribbons with her name on them.  I used one inch navy ribbon and the Tinkertoy font.  it is difficult to embroider grosgrain ribbon because it just wants to wave after it is stitched. 

I used the measuring feature on the Artista software for the first time and couldn't believe how helpful it was.  I brought my letters in one at a time, then hit control D to duplicate them.  I knew my ribbon was one inch wide, so I hit the m key and left clicked, then moved the cursor slowly to the other side of the M and clicked, Lo and Behold, the M was 31.2 mm, so I knew it was not going to fit on the ribbon.  I changed the size until I got under 25.0 mm and I got my name large enough to read.  I had saved the little heart  to add to her name and I was ready to send it to the machine.

I have found, that when stitching on grosgrain ribbon, the right stabilizer is essential.  Or is should say stabilizers;  I used aquamesh stabilizer, hooped it, then sprayed it with 505 and laid both ends of the ribbon in the hoop, side by side.  I slid an extra layer of aquamesh under the hoop, and a layer of solvy on top of the ribbon.  I was ready to stitch away.  After pressing the ribbons on the wrong side, into a terry cloth towel, I was pleased with the results.

I was able to hold my ipad up to the computer as I was Face Timing this evening, and Mae Mae approved.  I can't wait to get a picture of the ribbons bouncing along beside a curly brown pony tail!