Not What I Bargained For

Here's a little tale of woe and warning on Christmas projects gone wild:

Two years ago, while perusing my favorite embroidery web site, I came across these beauties: embroidered lace ornament covers!

It was love at first sight. But I wasn't in love with the price, and at the time, we only had one tree. So, I had to wait. Then last year, with a second tree, and a 50% off coupon, I bought the design pack for the embroidered lace ornament covers. I didn't have the time to work on them last December, nor did I want to pay full price for glass ornaments, so I decided that these would make a great mid-summer project.

Of course, that didn't happen. And by summer I was too hot to babysit my embroidery machine, and it was too loud with all of the other noises my kids were already making. So they sat, untouched until November. Right after Halloween, I remembered that I had still yet to begin this project: make 18, yes 18, embroidered lace ornament covers-one set in brown over gold, the other gold over brown. So, armed with 40 and 50% off coupons I headed to JoAnn's for some Ultra Solvy stabilizer and thread.

At this point let me brief you on free standing lace. It is a pain in the butt. You embroider, using matching top and bottom thread, into a thin sheet of stabilizer (think plastic wrap, 2-3 sheets thick), being careful not to loose any stitches, or the whole thing can unravel when you wash out the stabilizer. The stabilizer tears very easily, and once it does, the whole design is ruined! It took me 7 sets of covers to realize I could embroider into double thickness, thus preventing the tearing.

Also, embroidering free standing lace requires a lot of thread. A LOT. Think about 2 1000m spools worth of thread for just 9 ornaments. It requires so much because you're using top and bottom thread of the same color.

But, wait, it gets worse. Another point I had failed to realize was this: that each half of a cover takes, on average, 45 minutes to stitch. Assuming all goes well, which it rarely does, so it's more like 50-55 minutes/half or in other words ABOUT 2 HOURS FOR 1. So, it then get really frustrating when the stabilizer tears. I figured that I lost about 2 whole designs: about 8 bobbins worth of thread, and 4 hours worth of work.

And on it goes. If those other problems weren't enough, I ran out of thread halfway through one of my designs. And since my machine won't hold my place if I turn it off, I had to leave it on until I could get over to JoAnn's to buy more thread (that happened the day that everyone was home sick). And when I got to JoAnn's, I had just missed the Viking Center closing by 5 minutes, but the lady was nice and hand wrote the order to charge me the next day. Then, a few days later, my machine was making a funny noise, I had to finish the first half of the last ornament, and put my machine away until I can get it serviced. That left me with a half finished ornament (not to mention 4 aprons yet to do), so I borrowed my mother-in-law's machine that I have a love/hate relationship with (I hate the tread system but I love the quiet).

With that machine, I was able to finish the other half, and get the other set of 9 covers done. Unfortunately, I now realize how old and loud my machine is, and now I want a new one (it only costs $1800!!!), but I don't see that happening any time soon.

So here's the total rundown of my simple project that got totally out of control:

2 pks ornaments on clearance last year ($3 total); 5 spools of 1000m thread ($30); 2 pks stabilizer ($20); embroidery design ($5).

ARE YOU TELLING ME THAT I JUST SPENT $60 ON 18 ORNAMENTS?! Please don't tell Eric. They do look good though.