Sewing motivation or motivational sewing?

You might not know it from following me on social media, but I’m a runner. It took me 12 half marathons to finally call myself a real runner, but with my next goal looming on the horizon, I think I can safely put myself in this category (not claiming I’m fast or anything like that though, just to be clear!).

That’s right, just a few weeks ago I found out I was accepted into the Chicago marathon through the lottery draw. “Eeeek!!” and “what have I done??” were just a few of the things that swirled through my head when I read my “congratulatory” email.

I know, what does running have to do with a sewing blog?!? Well, being that it’s the middle of winter and we are going through a cold snap (-47 with the wind-chill) here in the ‘Peg (Winnipeg, Manitoba) I can really use all the inspiration I can find to hop on the treadmill for a run these days.

My treadmill has a big touchscreen monitor in front of it, and, while it does get used almost daily, I really wanted to make a cover for it to protect it between uses. I thought I’d give it a little bit of a personal touch by embroidering something on the front that would encourage me when I head downstairs for my 4:30 a.m. runs! (Yes, I’m a morning person!)

Just before Christmas this beautiful package of thread landed on my doorstep. (You could say Christmas came early!). I’m such a fan of Madeira threads and now I have an entire palette to play with!

Just look at all those beautiful colours and gradients. Madeira is a high quality thread that is great for all sewing applications, and especially for embroidery. I had zero issues while working on this little project. No thread breakage or tension challenges!

For this project, I found a set of black high absorbency towels that were slightly bigger than the dimensions of the monitor I wanted to cover. With the centre of the towel marked with chalk, I prepped the largest hoop on my Janome Skyline S9; the RE20a (6.7″ x 7.9″). I used a tearaway stabilizer on the back as there was some stretch to this towel and I didn’t want my embroidery design to get destroyed by the dense stitches.

On the top on the towel, I used a water-soluble stabilizer. You’ll notice that the towel doesn’t have those thick thread loops like many towels have, but I still wanted to make sure that my embroidery design stayed on top of the towel and didn’t get pulled into the pile. The magnetic clamps for the hoop held the stabilizer in place.

The embroidery file was sized and positioned using the free Janome AcuEdit app on my iPad. The Janome AcuSetter app helped fine tune everything in the hoop.

Of course the WIFI feature on the Janome Skyline S9 makes it super easy to upload my file to the machine.

I’m a recent convert to using the Janome AcuMonitor app to see how my embroidery projects are progressing along on the machine without having to sit in front of it and babysit it. I can be over at my cutting board prepping next steps and see how far along the stitch count is, what colour I have to change my thread to next, and the time remaining on my project.

To finish my treadmill monitor cover, I quickly changed over my Janome Skyline 9 from embroidery to sewing mode and attached an outside back cover by sewing along three sides, leaving the bottom open.

My monitor cover slips over the top of the screen to protect it when it’s not in use, and it gives me a little encouraging boost in the morning when I remove it before a run.

What sewing projects are you working on over the winter? Morning person or late-night owl? What’s a motivational quote you’d make to display somewhere in your home? Please provide your answers in the comments below; we’d love to hear from you!

Trina,

Janome Canada Artisan Trina Gallop