Have you seen our Janome monster stuffies? Janomeman made these (above) using one of the new built-in designs on our Janome MC550E. Many of us have been having fun making even more of them such as this livid lime green/yellow fleece monster complete with hair! 

or these?

While I was stitching these in the BIG RE 36b hoop on the Janome MC550E, I got to thinking…..”what if” I edited the outline of the long skinny monsters above that look a bit like fat worms? What if I omitted the eyes, mouth and dots, made the oval shape a little wider/bigger and then added in my own writing/message? 

I used the alphabet font on the Edit screen of the Janome MC550E although I could certainly have done this using Janome or Artistic embroidery digitizing software too. 

First I stitched the oval placement line as in the pic below. This is important as you need to know where to layer the back of the pillow (or monster) when you are ready to add this.

I added the letters ZZZZZ and some dots….. as my plan was to embroider a lovely soft and fleecy neck roll pillow. I made each Z a different color – all this can be done on the edit screen or in embroidery software. The pic below shows this stitching out.  I used a small piece of water soluble stabilizer on top of the fleece so that the stitches would not sink down into the fluff/pile of the fleece. It tears away very easily when you are done with the embroidery as the needle perforates the stabilizer. And it is water soluble in case some bits remain. 

Lastly, I added another layer of fleece over the top of what had already been stitched in the hoop. It stitches a double line – the outer line is the cutting line and the inner line is the seam of the stuffie, or in this case, my neck roll pillow. It leaves a hole for turning the pillow out to the right side. I slip stitched this closed after I had stuffed the pillow with pillow fill. Yes, I have to admit I very occasionally do the “dirty H word”!

You might notice I am using a different foot here: this is the HIGH shank Convertible free motion foot set with the closed toe. I decided to use this for these thickish fleece monsters and this pillow as I was able to adjust the height of the foot using the spring/screw so that my foot was raised up a bit and allowed more space under the foot for the thicker fleece.

Are you inspired to make some monster stuffies…….or a comfy neck roll pillow or two?

They sure are quick and fun to make.