I made a baby blanket last summer and I hand-monogrammed it using satin stitch and guess what? I’m not doing that again. It takes too long, plus I’m guessing most of the monogram has frayed away by this point. But I love a good monogram. So it’s time to learn to machine monogram. Because I’ve got two baby blankets to make.
I decided to practice on a sheet. I found the style of letter I wanted, printed it very big, cut it out and then used tracing paper to transfer the outline to the sheet. You can also see in this picture I was listening to a podcast via my Bluetooth speaker, I was planning a hike (blue book) and there was something going on with those light bulbs.
I bought some backing, which is sitting on the table in the above picture, right next to the phone, and it worked like a charm. I also googled to find the proper kind of thread to use for machine monogramming. It’s a different kind than for all-purpose sewing. As you can see, there are some shaky places, but overall it turned out okay. You can also see the short line of stitches I made along the edge when I wasn’t quite sure what stitch width and length I should use.
Confident (enough) in my skills, I monogrammed the two pieces of material. Again, not the best job, but livable.
“But wait!” I hear you wondering. “What if the people you are making the blankets for see this post? Won’t the surprise be ruined?” This is the plus of having a blog with very few readers. Neither recipient of a blanket reads this blog, thus the secret is safe with us.
Buoyed by that success I continued on with sewing the blanket for baby J and made it through all the steps but the tacking of the binding, which will be done while watching movies. 
I’m pretty excited about how good this project looks. (And thanks to friend Julie who wandered the fabric store for a very long time until we found exactly the right front/back combo.)
