Creating Placement Marks for Embroiderying Appliques

Besides the patch working that went into this stocking, (see Elcie's Stocking- Patch Work Tip) some machine embroidery went into this stocking.  

Here is a non-digital way to convert an embroidery file into an applique file.

I used some free embroidery designs from The Sew Forum.

The tree I wanted to use wasn't an applique, 
which means it didn't draw a placement line for my green fabric.

On my Babylock, (and Brother's are like this too) I have this tool that lets me 
move (skip) forward and backward in the stitching of the embroidery.

 So I advanced through the "tree" part of the embroidery, 
and marked outer parts of the pattern,
 under the needle with my air soluble pin.

I now have a placement guide for my fabric for the Christmas tree.

 Even though the "gift" embroidery was not meant to be an applique, 
it did have beginning lines I was able to use to add the fabric.

I really enJOYed doing this project,

 because I felt like a kid at Christmas with a new box of crayons 

as I got to go through my thread stash (catch a glimpse here) 

and pick from my colorful threads.

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Sharing at several Linky Parties.

Thanks to the FREE programs:

possibly used for this post

GIMP for cropping & other digital effects

 Photoscape for downsizing & watermarking photo

PicMonkey creating collages used on this page