Michael's FDNY Visors

Here's a project that's been hiding in my sewing room since January 1 -- Michael's FDNY Visors:




My BIL, Michael is a New York firefighter. Last fall, he gave me a 1/2 dozen of these visors that he had received as freebies and asked me to add an F and D to either side of the NY logo. BTW, I'm pretty sure that Mike is a Mets fan, but he doesn't mind that these are Yankee visors, as long as they have the fire department reference and, of course, because they're free!

The first few attempts were a little cock-eyed . . . I'd never embroidered on hats before, let alone visors, but I had purchased all the nifty hoops and accessories to do the job. I just needed the practice. So I stitched up the first batch using a font that I thought looked cool. And that first bunch of visors turned out very well for a first attempt. But I also did a sample stitch-out of several other fonts for Michael, just in case he preferred something different on the next batch -- 'cuz I knew there would be a "next batch".

On New Year's Day, we had a small gathering at our house for Rich's birthday, which was New Year's Eve. And Mike brought me another dozen visors to stitch "whenever" . . . and he had chosen a different font style. Okay, no problem, they went into one of my 'project bins' for me to stitch whenever I got around to them. Well . . . actually, I forgot about them. I've been so busy doing Chelsea backpacks and minkee pals and blankies and all the other projects, I just forgot about the visors until I was cleaning up and found this bin in the corner. Since the summer is nearly over, I thought maybe I ought to put these at the top of the list.

Well, I had all kinds of problems this time around. I used a sticky stabilizer for the first batch last year (I think it was Sulky Sticky) and I don't remember having too many problems. This time, I used a different brand of sticky -- a roll I won as a door prize to an event in 2006. I used a #90 embroidery needle, but it kept getting gummy, the thread kept shredding, even the embroidery foot was getting coated with gunk . . . I think I broke 4 needles stitching 11 visors. And I was using a different font, so my previous notes for lining up the F and D properly were not helpful and my spacing is not consistent.

Anyway -- they are now finished. I'm sure Michael won't care that some of them are a little (or a LOT) crooked. They don't look half bad; but they're not up to my high standards. If I'm going to do any more hats or visors, I'm going to have to research the sticky stabilizer world and find one that doesn't gum up my machine . . . and maybe try a different size or brand of needle.

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