Monogramming Successes and Mess-ups

I was testing several designs for one of my favorite designers last night, Monogram Momma or AKA Applique Momma.  You can find her cute designs at http://www.appliquemomma.com/ .  I love doing test stitch outs for her and usually I just go ahead and put them on t-shirts, that I know my Grandchildren can wear.  They stitch out so great on the first try normally.  If it wasn't for operator error, the same would have been true for last night or better yet early this morning. 

I was on the third shirt, a super cute, simple race car, which I was putting on a Navy Blue Old Navy t-shirt for my sweet 16 month old grandson, and all was great in my world.  That  is, until I took the hoop out of the machine and was going to turn the hoop over to loosen it up to remove the shirt, when I realized, that the bottom of the front of the shirt was stitched to part of the back of the design.  Oh no!!!  This was the 3rd time this has happened to me in my 5 years of doing embroidery, so I suppose that isn't too bad a history record.  But it was such a cute design and a great soft t-shirt and I set out to salvage both.  I worked for a while, clipping the stitches, then decided at 1:30 am to put it up, wait until the light of day and attempt to get it unsewn. 

This morning, I have been able to get the shirt undone!  By very carefully clipping the back of the satin stitch around the wheels and the bottom of the car.  I am going to post pictures of the incident, and the steps to fix it.  I wanted you all to know, that when everything seeems hopeless when you make the type of mistake, step back and take a closer look.  Very carefully clip the stitches and see if you can salvage your work. 

This was after some work, but did not have the shirt loose yet.

I have the shirt undone from the applique, but haven't cleaned it up yet.

Some tips:  1- First would be prevention- always double check to make sure you have gotten the back of the shirt out of your stitching way.
2- Always write down the coordinates of your embroidery hoop placement, if you have moved the hoop up, down, or sideways.  This will allow you to go right back to the place you were to start with.
3-Do not unhoop your garment!!!
4- Very carefully try to remove the stitches, in good light.  This is a fairly time consuming process, but better than loosing the shirt. 
5-Use a lint remover to clean up your thread pieces.  (in my pictures, I have not done this yet).
6-Move your needle through the steps to return to the place in your design where you can replace the thread you had to clip loose.

Hopefully, tonight I will be able to complete my shirt, and will post pictures of the finished garment- whether I am successful or not!

These are the cute designs that I did get finished. 

 Be sure and come back tomorrow to see if I am successful in fixing my Mess-Up!