Tutorial - how to embroider on knit fabrics

S'mores "cupcakes"

S'mores are one of my favorite desserts, but with a fire ban here all summer long I'm forced to make them in the microwave. And while they taste okay from the microwave, they are not consistent. The marshmallow doesn't 'toast' as much as it expands into a 'melty pile'. And the chocolate does not melt at all.

So I tried switching to Fluff and I started using hot fudge sauce in place of chocolate.

The hot fudge sauce worked well, but it's still not the same as a milk chocolate candy bar, and the fluff was a bit too sweet for my taste. I think those two ingredients work best with ice cream.

Since I'm fast losing faith in the microwave s'more, I decided to move this party to the oven and make them in a jumbo cupcake pan.

They turned out amazing!! I can't believe I didn't think to try this sooner. Here's how I made my S'mores "cupcakes".

*Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

*Line a jumbo cup cake pan with paper liners.

*Crumble 1/2 a graham cracker into each liner (one square = 1/2 a cracker).

*Chop up a milk chocolate candy bar and add on top of the cracker. I didn't measure here, I just added in what looked good to me. I dont think there's such thing as too much chocolate. 

 TIP: You can also use milk chocolate chips if.  For more variety, try carmel chips, dark chocolate chips, peanut butter, chips white chocolate chips or butterscotch chips.

*Place 3 marshmallows into each liner.

*Cover with a piece of aluminum foil, tent it so that it doesn't stick to the marshmallows.

The tent keeps the marshmallows from baking too fast and burning.

*Bake for 5 min with the tent on....remove tent and bake for another 5 min. Please note..the exact times may vary depending on your oven..so keep an eye on them through the oven door. If your oven runs hot..you can pull them out early...or if need be keep them in longer. Also if you use mini chips or mini marshmallows your baking time will be less...bottom line just keep a close eye on them.

* Remove from oven and immediately add another 1/2 square graham cracker to the top. Crumble it...or use it as as scoop. Which ever you prefer. They both taste great.

*Eat while warm...yummm!!

Enjoy - Kat  :)

Tuesday Tip - Quilting Halos

Creating Embroidery Designs

I thought I'd share a bit of my creative process with you all today. I have this graphpaper notebook that I bought specifically for sketching out designs in. I almost always have it with me. Well, I don't bring it everywhere I go as it's hard to sketch out designs at the grocery store. I mean, a girl needs to focus on all those cereal choices.  

I sketch my design ideas in the notebook, and then later using my digitizing software I turn those sketches into embroidery designs. Sometimes the design I end up with is dramtically different from the sketch I started out with. Othertimes it's exactly the same or has minor differences.

Here is a design that I created this morning along with it's original sketch. 

You can see that I changed up the stars from my original drawing...and I'm soo excited about the final design. It's perfect.  

The next step for this star spangled beauty will be to test stitch it out, photograph it for the website, save the embroidery file into all of the different machine formats, create a thread chart (showing the color changes and other details of the design) and then after all that I'll post it live on my website www.calicocali.com for your purchasing pleasure. 

And that my friends, is how an embroidery design is born.

Happy Monday Everyone!!

-Hugs,

Kat  :)

Tuesday Tip - blind hem foot