I did some more experiments during the Christmas season. A friend had made some stockings for another friend years ago, 20 we think. She was asked to make another for the new granddaughter of the same family. Since the originals they had also added a new son in-law, father to the little girl. My friend didn't want to make more than one and was going to recycle another for the son-in-law to save time. I offered to make one for him. Asked his interests and found out he loved to play golf. I used my friends pattern and added my own embellishments. I found a free clip art on line of a bear. Changed it some to make an applique for it. Then free motioned through a tissue paper drawing of it to attach and bring up the details. Added an extra applique for his golf club. It came out cute and the recipient was thrilled that he had a stocking also to hang up for Santa.

We also had to toy with my new sewing/embroidery machine to put letters on the granddaughter's stocking. I had a couple of Cd's with font designs on them but nothing would show up on the fabric we chose. I tried several combinations. Finally, it was stitched just like the Brad on the bear stocking, only in black.

After all of this I designed stockings for my grandson, granddaughter-in-law and great-granddaughter. I had fun downloading and looking for embroidery designs just for them. And made golf towels for my husband and brother and sister-in-law. All in all, you might say I managed to make myself busy this Christmas. Had fun too!!!

Another golfing friend had a birthday in January. They requested no gifts for her party, so I complied. I wish I had gone ahead with a towel for her too. Others had ignored the request and I could have too. Her towel when we played golf was a mess. I am now working on my own design for her. How hard is that to design your own embroidery design? So far the digitizing program and I are fighting. I think I am forcing it to do what I want but is complicated getting it to interpret my design the way I see it in my mind. I am just starting to try and simplify my drawings so the program can interpret it better. Coming close........... Maybe someone out there can help me. I have Amazing Designs digitizing programs. So far I have found no tutorial to go with it except how to open and close things. The very basics anyone should know about a computer program. It is so far hours and hours of trial and error.