Making Crafting a Productive Hobby

If you're naturally creative and enjoy putting your own personalized mark on home accessories and clothing, an applique embroidery sewing machine will make an excellent addition to your crafting room. You'll have a great time creating a variety of one-of-a-kind items to use in your own home as well as give as gifts to family and friends -- and who knows, maybe you'll enjoy the process so much that it'll turn into a home business venture.

Whatever you use your embroidery machine for, you'll undoubtedly enjoy many happy hours letting your creative muse roam free. Following are five fabulous projects to get you off to a great start with your new embroidery machine. 

Baby Blankets

Baby blankets are a great place to start for those with no experience running an embroidery sewing machine. You can buy plain blankets and choose the designs you want to put on them from an almost inexhaustible supply of computerized and traditional options. Some embroidery sewing machines even come with the capacity to create and digitize your own hand-drawn designs. 

Hats

Placing embroidered designs on hats and caps is a little more complex than on flat surfaces such as baby blankets, but today's state-of-the-art embroidery machines include features that make working with curved and otherwise uneven surfaces a breeze. This feature is called a stablizer, and it can also be used for working on stretchy fabrics.

Sheets and Pillowcases

There is no shortage of white and solid colored sheets and pillowcases available on the retail market that can be transformed into a personalized work of art using an embroidery machine. You can choose floral motifs for a romantic bedroom ambiance, or, if you've got children in your home, you can delight little hearts by embroidering their favorite fairy tale characters and scenes on their sheets and pillowcases. 

Kitchen Curtains

Give plain kitchen curtains a customized shabby chic look by covering them with rambling vines and flowers. You can complete the cottage garden motif by embroidering similar designs on kitchen towels, placemats, hot pads, and tablecloths. 

Tote Bags

Tote bags are another item that you can purchase in plain form that can easily be decorated to suit your personal needs and preferences. If you're going to be using the bag to carry baby supplies, for instance, you can embroider cute baby-themed designs such as Disney creatures on the bag. If it's going to be a gardening bag, you can cover it with flowers, and if it's destined to hold beach paraphernalia while you luxuriate in the sand and sun, splash palm trees and tropical islands all over it.