Custom Embroidered Insulated Drink Holder

Machine: THE Dream Machine® Innov-ís XV8500D(Opens in a new tab)
Features: Embroidery, Droplight™ LED Embroidery Positioning Marker, Sew Straight™ 2 I don’t know about you, but I am constantly carrying around a bottle of water or juice. In the heat of summer, it doesn’t take long for the liquids to get warm. An insulated drink holder is a perfect solution! Then I came across pre-cut insulated drink holders and my creative mind exploded … rhinestones, applique, embroidery to name a few. I've included a downloadable pattern so you can cut out your own! Let’s go with embroidery for the first one.

Supplies needed:

• Pre-cut insulated drink holder piece or Neoprene fabric
• FREE Insulated Drink Holder Pattern (download here)
  
• Embroidery thread(Opens in a new tab)
  
• Standard polyester all-purpose thread
• Adhesive-backed, water soluble stabilizer(Opens in a new tab)
  or Tear-away stabilizer(Opens in a new tab)
  
• Embroidery water soluble topper(Opens in a new tab)
  

Let's Get Started

Hoop the stabilizer with the paper side up.
Score the paper (as shown in one of my previous blog posts)
and position the insulated drink holder as shown.

Choose a Font

Enter into the Embroidery section on your Brother sewing machine
and choose a font.
It’s easy to adjust the size of the font: Choose L for large, M for Medium, or S for Small.
Take some time scanning through the various fonts. I decided to choose one with a thicker lettering to allow the letters to really stand out.

Embroidery Placement

The Brother Dream Machine allows a few tools for perfect embroidery placement. Click on the scanning icon.
The embroidery hoop will move around as the fabric is scanned into the sewing machine. An image of the fabric with show up on the screen. Here you see my lettering on top of the fabric.
Now that I see how much room I really have to add embroidery, I see I can add more letters or an embroidery design. I’m customizing this insulated drink holder with our boat's name, so I might as well add some fish for good luck.

The new embroidery design shows up in the center of the embroidery hoop. This sewing machine has a touch screen, so I can quickly move the embroidery designs around.

Everything is looking pretty good! Even though I chose size “small” for the original font size, I now have another chance to resize the letters. Go under the Edit tab and change the size as needed; there are a lot of options!
The last thing I want to do is change the thread colors (or leave them as is and start embroidering! ;))
If you want to double check the placement of the final design you can re-scan the fabric or check the placement with the laser light.

Each corner will show up on the screen with a green dot and on the fabric with a red dot from the laser.

Embroidery Topper

Depending on the fabric of the insulated drink holder you might want to consider adding a topper to keep the embroidered letters floating and not sinking into the fabric. Here I have added a water soluble stabilizer; plastic is also a good alternative.
Start to embroider! When the embroidery is finished on one side, re-hoop the insulated drink holder and embroider the other side. Follow all the steps to embroider on that side. When the embroidery is finished, tear or cutaway the excess stabilizer.

Sew the Insulated Drink Holder

Turn the fabric with right sides together. Stitch down each side with ¼” seam allowance. Don’t forget to turn on the laser light to help sew a straight stitch!





I hope you enjoy your chilled water all summer long! Be sure to share photos of your insulated drink holders, I would love to see your creativity! Cheers, Angela