Seams like old times: Embroidery is a creative way to personalize gifts

For many years, monogramming indicated wealth and prestige, a sewn symbol of the wearer’s status. Although monogramming remains popular with jewelry, some surprising ways of using it to personalize other items can elevate a nice gift into something quite special.
“I can get as detailed as anyone wants to get,” said Pamela Carpenter, owner of Embroidery by Pamela, 121 Daleview Drive, Plymouth
The Plymouth businesswoman regularly personalized gifts blankets, duffel bags and clothing, to name but a few.
She held up a denim shirt with embroidered candy canes tumbling down the placket. Underneath, another candy cane popped up on a snowy turtleneck.
“These are very popular,” she said, noting that the pairing can feature almost any embroidered image.
Versatility
Flipping through the pages of Carpenter’s work album revealed how versatile embroidering can be — page after page of hats, sweatshirts, jackets and towels flowed by, each with a distinctive design for the wearer.
“I’ve embroidered placemats, napkins, towel sets, you name it,” she said, holding up a white dishtowel. Within the next few days, she’ll embroider a holiday theme on it, along with the recipient’s name, and attach it to a lipstick red cloth handle — perfect for hanging in the kitchen.
In her workshop, a rainbow of spooled thread hung on a board next to a row of large sewing machines.
Carpenter called her work “labor intensive,” saying that while large companies can sew hundreds of designs at once, her machines require her to set everything up individually — she loads an image on her computer, editing when necessary, programs that onto the machine, sets the cloth on a hoop and starts the machine to sewing each image.
“These sewing machines are intricate,” she said. “It’s a very technical process.”
The results speak for themselves, though — fluffy towels with elegant letters, shirts bearing everything from football team logos to Abraham Lincoln, and blankets with the wedding couple’s names and big date have gone out her door.

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