FreeStanding Lace Embroidery

Posted on August 13, 2018 by edges

It’s been awhile since I’ve done any freestanding lace. A friend recently gave me a few spools of white Isacord thread and so what else would I do with it?

I immediately purchased a few designs from OESD. Collection 12724 was perfect for what I had in mind.

When you are working on freestanding lace, you’ll want to use 2 layers of wash-away stabilizer. I used AquaMesh from OESD. Not to be confused with Aquamesh PLUS, which is also a wash-away stabilizer, but has paper, almost like contact paper on one side, so the stabilizer is sticky. You’d use that on towels or something where you want the stabilizer to disappear, but don’t want to hoop your fabric.

A quick look at the machine in action:

Now comes the finished product.

Once the design is complete, remove it from the hoop, trim away as much excess stabilizer as possible, then rinse it in warm water until the stabilizer has dissolved.

Next, pin it down to a piece of styrofoam or floral foam. Cardboard will work as well, but it will get a little soggy. I invested in this piece of styrofoam years ago in the floral department of a Michael’s, JoAnn’s or Hobby Lobby. I don’t remember where. The point is that it will last for years.

When you pin, feel free to use all those pins that are bent or just not perfect for quilting or intricate sewing. These pins don’t matter much, they just have to hold the design in place. It WILL curl and stick up in strange places if you skip this step. Overnight is usually the perfect amount of time for a design to dry completely.

It’s a perfect accent to a delicate teacup or a small jewel box.

I have been working on a larger project and I planned it out in Bernina Software 8. It requires a few of the pieces repeated and arranged and sewn together. I don’t know how it will look when it’s done, but I’m envisioning that it will make a nice centerpiece on a round table with a festive color underneath. It’s about 18 inches across. (It’s over half a million stitches, so…yeah, we’ll see.)

For some of my previous postings on freestanding lace, you can click here.

And here.

My Wife Quilts…Tips on Embroidering on T-Shirts

Posted on May 26, 2018 by edges

Do you have someone in your life who loves t-shirts?

I do. My husband is what in the old days, they used to call a curmudgeon. He doesn’t care what he wears, as long as it’s comfortable. Being clean is preferable, holes are optional.

I do a lot of repair work on his stuff.

One day, many years ago, I was at some sort of quilt show and I ran across a t-shirt:

“My wife quilts, therefore I’m broke.”

I bought it for him and he has worn it ever since. In fact, the first time he wore it, he said that women of a certain age were giggling at him. I should mention, he also has a t-shirt that says:

“You read my shirt. That’s enough social interaction for one day.”

And so, we have a sort of running gag. As t-shirts wear out, I am always on the lookout for others that, I don’t know, fit his character. (He has Homer Simpson and the Grinch, if that helps.)

This past week, I found an embroidery design that I thought would be perfect, and decided to add to his collection.

A couple of tips for embroidering on t-shirts:

Use a ballpoint needle. You should make an effort to do this any time you sew or embroider on anything stretchy. It really does make a difference. A Microtex or Sharp will cut right through the fibers and it might not happen right away, but after a few washings, you can end up with a hole. Knits don’t like to be cut. A ballpoint needle will move the threads aside as it penetrates.
Use cutaway stabilizer. I had a nice polymesh. But this design, at approximately 8 x 10 inches, had almost 38,000 stitches. That’s not a huge amount, but it’s not low density either. I used two layers of black polymesh cutaway. I just happened to have some black cutaway from a sweatshirt I did awhile back.

3. Use your ironing board to help you hoop. Just slide the t-shirt over the end of your ironing board as if you were going to iron it. Take your one or two layers of stabilizer and insert them under the shirt, taking care to lay them very flat under the design. I also print out the design so I can get a good look at positioning, and pin it in place. You can then just insert you hoop underneath the layer to be embroidered and place the top part of the hoop on top. Easy.

4. Remember not to pull on this fabric. My experience has been that lots of people love to hoop their fabric and then pull it tight all they way around the hoop. DON’T DO THAT. Especially with knits. You want the design to lay flat after the hoop comes out. Your cutaway stabilizer will help you, but not if the fabric is distorted and stretched when you start. The fabric should be flat, not pulled.

5. Clean and oil your machine before you start, and load a fresh bobbin. This should go without saying before every project, but sometimes it helps to be reminded not to cut corners. Take the time to clean out your machine NOW, make sure all the parts are oiled and the bobbin is full. Why start out with issues? Make your life easy by taking care of any obvious problems before it really gets rockin’.

6. You can use Gentle Touch to fuse to the back of the design when it’s complete, to keep the stabilizer from rubbing against the skin. People use this a lot for baby onesies and kid’s clothes. My husband won’t care.

Finally, you can see in this last shot how helpful it is to use a black stabilizer against black fabric. It just keeps everything neat.

T-shirts like this are very cheap at Michael’s or Wal-Mart. You can also purchase pretty decent t-shirts online, especially if you google “blank t-shirts.”

Maybe you have someone in your life who has great t-shirt “attitude”.

I hope so. It’s entertaining.

Hello Sunshine! Machine Embroidery for the Season

Posted on May 11, 2018 by edges

I wanted something cheery for my basement door, and finally took down all the “Rules of the House” in pictorial form. If my 15-year-old doesn’t know the rules of the house by now, like brushing your teeth, not jumping on the sofa, not throwing superballs, we have truly failed as parents.

Anyway, I had a nice blank door that was screaming for something to hang on it.

A while back I found these embroidery designs from Kimberbell, part of the “Hello Sunshine” quilt collection.

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, and didn’t really want to purchase any fabric

I had a teensy memo notebook on my desk and scribbled out a few ideas. I printed out the embroidery designs and laid them out on some linen fabric I already owned It was an awkward amount…not really enough for a quilt but enough for a decent wall hanging.

On the last bicycle, my machine locked up and I had to bring it into the dealer for a cleaning and tune up.

My machine is now running smooth as silk and I was able to complete the design.

I wanted something simple and cheerful.

I love these bikes as they remind me of the possibilities of the summer season.

It also gives me an excuse to create something in machine embroidery for that spot every season.

Ready for fall leaves and holiday yet?

What’s Happening in Machine Embroidery?

Posted on April 9, 2018 by edges

I’ve been scrounging around on my machine embroidery sites looking for the most interesting projects and new ideas. I’ve found that with machine embroidery, there’s always a new way to do something that’s been around awhile, or an old way to do something very fresh.

We have snow on the ground here this April, but I just KNOW that spring will get here eventually. So I focused my search on all things inspirational for spring.

Enjoy!

Embroidery Library

Although they always have new product, I found their Garden Party Lookbook to be charming and full of spring-like ideas. You’ll want to check out all their lookbooks. But the Garden Party book had an interesting technique (something I hadn’t seen before) for embroidering on straw hats.

Embroidery Design Studio

They are featuring a strong graphic spring collection called Grow Love. These cute little flowers and butterflies would be great on jeans or anything denim. They also have their washaway stabilizers on sale through April 13. If you are someone who loves freestanding lace (which I’m thinking about for Halloween) now’s the time to stock up on Aquamesh.

Urban Threads

So the big trend I’ve seen lately and it’s reflected quite a bit at Urban Threads is embroidery on garments everywhere. Jeans up and down the legs, t-shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies, everything. This trend extends far beyond just the embroidery world. The newest Dolce and Cabbana runway collection is just loaded with over-sized, all-over embroidery. The kitschy-er, the better. Urban Threads has some great examples in their Fashion Look book. But it’s everywhere.

Kreations by Kara

OK, I was drawn to these lovely purple flowers in her sale bin. I need them along the hemline of a summer skirt. Wouldn’t that be lovely?

Kimberbell

Kimberbell, if you’re not familiar, is a wholesale design distributor. Their store locator is actually pretty accurate so feel free to use that to find a dealer near you.

Their products are always cheerful and sometimes over the top for me, but I fell in love with the designs on Hello Sunshine quilt. The quilt itself is a bit much at the moment, but who can live without the charming bike design, the mason jars, the watermelon? Not me. I bought the collection and am already laying out something for a wall hanging for this spring/summer.

I recognize this list is not comprehensive, just a little tour to get your creative juices flowing about machine embroidery again. I hope you find something that inspires you to dust off that embroidery module and rev it up for spring!

Buttoned-Up Valentine

Posted on February 10, 2018 by edges

Every year, I make something silly as a Valentine for my husband. I’m not sure what inspired this project, possibly something on Instagram which I then added to embroidery software and used the supplies I had at home.

This year the theme was buttons.

The world is exploding with buttons these days. I tend to gravitate toward the antique ones. I’ve been known to hang out in an antique shop and just sort through all their old buttons, searching, searching. When you find the one that’s perfect, it’s a real treasure.

Bernina makes a button sew-on foot that I’ve used many times. The holes on buttons are set a standard distance apart. Therefore a stitch set at the right width will just sew it on, and most Bernina machines have this stitch in the buttonhole section of stitches. However, I’ve taught the use of it to others and, honestly, some people get it immediately and some people just have a harder time, and need more practice.

Here’s a link to the Bernina instructions.

Some tips:

–If you are just learning, choose a medium-sized standard button which is relatively flat. This is the easiest type of button to sew.

–If you have a 7 Series machine with “hover” you may want to turn it off in settings. The button can move around otherwise, and that’s not helpful. Use the freehand system (the knee-lift that lifts the presser foot) so your hands are free to adjust the position of the button.

–You can continue to use the hover if you are good at holding the button in place until the first few stitches are taken.

–ALWAYS run the first few stitches slowly by using the handwheel to check needle placement. I usually use the handwheel until the needle pops over to the second hole to make sure it fits nicely in both holes.

–Run the buttonhole stitch twice per button. The first time never seems to be quite enough for me.

–The screw on the foot allows you to adjust the height of the rubber pad for thicker buttons.

–Smaller buttons, though they may still be standard-sized, often benefit from reducing the stitch width slightly. After you do this enough, you’ll get a feel for the sizing.

Once you get used to using this foot, I promise, you will never want to sew a button on by hand again. If you break a needle or a button (it happens) don’t worry. It’s scary, but don’t be afraid of your machine. I do wear glasses when doing this because you can break a needle doing just about anything on a sewing machine. And I also need to see!

Have fun with this. If at first it seems a little tricky, don’t give up! These feet are engineered to make your life easier. Take advantage of them!

Splendid Sampler on the Move!

Posted on January 6, 2018 by edges

Finally, I am moving forward with my Splendid Sampler quilt. I wrote about it here and here.

I would like to say that I completed all 100 of the blocks, but alas, life happens and I am a firm believer in stopping while I’m ahead. At first I did every block that came my way, regardless of the techniques.

I quickly realized that I never want to sew hexies. I mean *never*. Especially not 1 inch ones. And I realize that I may make enemies this way, but not everyone likes the same thing and that is just fine. If you love tiny hexies, bless your heart. If you like bunnies and squirrels on your quilt, bless your heart as well. And if you really love tiny paper-piecing, you’re probably going to heaven too.

It is laid out in our foyer, and I am finalizing the way to finish it. As you can see, I was pretty strict about the color palette. Thankfully, I still love the colors. Something about the neutrality of it makes it slightly less traditional. As you can see, I’ll probably stick with the dark inner border and a “piano key” outer border. I have so many scraps left over, I will easily be able to use them up as the border. I gain a little size there too.

I vowed a long time ago not to make quilts that are larger than twin size because:

I have no room to store them.
I don’t want to pay someone else to quilt them and I absolutely cannot handle queen size on my domestic machine, at least not with any quality.

But I did learn some new techniques. And I reignited a love of hand embroidery, which is quite popular right now.

It really does take a lot of time. As you can see, the left side is done by hand, the right side I just digitized and stitched out in machine embroidery. Sometimes the new block would be announced and I would think (I’m being honest here), “Not another hand embroidered block. I don’t have time this week.” At that point I was reminded of Indiana Jones in the scene with the Samarai wielding the giant sword. Indy, exhausted, whips out his gun and shoots him. After days of finishing one hand-stitched block, if another came up, I just went to the computer, digitized it in software, and within an hour, machine embroidered the next block. It’s cheating, I know.

But it looks great.

Over 20,000 quilters started this project back in February 2016.

I would love to know how many finished a quilt!

Chasing Cats with Machine Embroidery

Posted on September 10, 2017 by edges

Doesn’t everyone have a Halloween tree?

It’s a silly thing, I know. But we get a kick out of it. I make all the ornaments in machine embroidery as in-the-hoop projects.

First, the actual embroidery design is stitched out.

A placement line is stitched, so I can see where the backing will be placed. Before the backing, I tape down a ribbon for hanging. Then the backing is laid down with right sides together.

The backing then gets stitched down with an opening at the bottom which allows for turning the item inside out. Once the backing is stitched down, I can take the whole thing out of the hoop and trim 1/4 inch around the outside, clipping the corners, and turn it inside out.

Just add a bit of stuffing, stitch up the bottom and you’re done! Three at a time at this size. When I make them even smaller, six at a time is just as easy!

Finished and ready to hang on the tree.

I hope this gives you some ideas for the holidays. Happy stitching!

Chicken Soup and Embroidery Software

Posted on September 4, 2017 by edges

It’s a chicken soup kind of day.

My son came home after his first few days of high school with a nasty cold. I’m not surprised. The place is a breeding ground for experimental teenage germs.

On top of that, the weather turned cooler today…for how long, I’ve no idea. But it’s cloudy and cool right now.

Furthermore, like everyone else in the sewing industry, I read Nancy Zieman’s latest blog with a heavy heart. Whether you watched her show or not, you know Nancy. You buy her notions or you attend Quilt Expo in Madison. I’ve learned many tips from Nancy along the way, but my favorite line was this: ” I sew at least one quilt a year for charity.” She never said “You should…” She told us what she did, and then she did it, among all the other wonderful charitable contributions she made within the industry (and outside of it).

So, yes, it’s a chicken soup kind of day.

While the soup bubbled away, I sat down with my laptop and organized some of the Halloween designs I want to make in the very near future.

I use Bernina Embroidery Software 8, and I’m planning on making tiny pillow-like ornaments to hang on my Halloween tree.

The designs I’m using came from urbanthreads.com, a favorite of mine for cute and/or spooky embroidery.

It’s hard to see the design in this shot but it is a single thread color of a cat. I used a feature that people rarely take advantage of in the ‘design” menu. Click on “background” and change the background color in the hoop.

Now you can actually see what the design will look like stitched out on dark grey or black fabric. In the prior shot, you can see where I added stitching in a square around the outside. Before I stitch that, I will add a square of fabric and a ribbon for hanging. I’m not stitching out today, but I promise to share when I do.

In this design, I’m stitching the profile of this cat, but it has multiple thread changes for each cat. For some reason, the.exp file I’m using has changed all the colors from shades of purple to random colors. I did not take the time to fix the thread colors on screen because I will just use the correct ones as I stitch out.

The important thing to note here is that on the side, in the color film, I used the “Sequence by Color” tool. This way, I’m able to stitch all the same colors at once instead of changing threads each time for each color on each cat. Whew!

It makes a big difference in the amount of time it takes to stitch out. Also, I will have to cut the jump stitches in between each thread change, as I have the thread moving around quite a bit.

Still, I have loaded all this onto my USB stick and am ready to stitch as soon as I prep some fabric, stabilizer and fabric for the backs of these cute little ornaments.

Can’t wait to get started, but I won’t have time for a couple of days.

My Halloween quilt is complete, and ready for its debut! Stay tuned. It may be early September, but it’s already time for a cool change.

Freestanding Lace for the Holidays

Posted on December 6, 2016 by edges

I found these wonderful designs on Urbanthreads.com. I immediately thought of Valentine’s Day, although these were likely meant for the Christmas Season. I have not yet whip-stitched these together, but I love the look of them.

If you are not familiar with freestanding lace, a lot depends on the density of the designs and the stabilizer you use.

I used OESD Aquamesh, 2 layers for each piece. Each envelope has 3 pieces.

You can see the double layer of washaway stabilizer in the above photo. Each section of the envelope took at least an hour to stitch out, so be sure you start with a full bobbin, a well-oiled machine, a new needle and plenty of thread. I matched the bobbin thread to the top, using Isacord on everything.

There were two different envelope designs to choose from, one was roses, as shown above. The other was holly leaves, and I stitched that out in red. Both of the envelopes I stitched were about greeting card size.

But I do have a smaller size design that would be perfect for business cards or a gift card.

Once the design was complete, I trimmed away all the stabilizer, leaving 1/4 inch or so around the outside.

Each piece gets rinsed in warm water. Some people recommend filling the sink and letting the lace soak. That will work, but I usually keep the warm water running and rinse it thoroughly until all the stabilizer has dissolved.

The design needs to dry overnight, and I use a piece of florist’s styrofoam as a base, and flatten each design and pin in place. This prevents any curling as they dry.

After that, it’s just a whip stitch to assemble the front and the back, and then the top to the back.

I had the most fun searching for just the right button for each of envelopes. I plan to make a few more…I want the rose design in red. (Shhhhh…I think that’s part of this year’s Valentine’s Day gift.)

Finally, I thought I’d share my scarf, which is moving along nicely now. In fact, it’s probably twice as long as this photo shows…but not quite long enough to be complete.

The scarf will also have to be gently washed and stretched flat to dry. That way it will hold the shape.

If you enjoy designs from Urban Threads, you’ll get a kick out of their new holiday Look Book.

They also have their own line of fabric from Spoonflower now.

I actually have created my own fabric on Spoonflower with some of my black and white photography. But I’ll have to save that for another post once I come up with how I’m going to use the fabric!

Machine Embroidery Valance

Posted on October 23, 2016 by edges

I love one-of-a-kind.

If it hasn’t been done before, I’m in. Even if it has been done before, but it can be done slightly differently, I’m in.

What I’m not really interested in doing is creating exactly what someone else has already created. Let’s be honest, here. Nothing under the sun is really new any more. We all receive our inspiration from someone, or something, or some technique. Original ideas come from many places, but they almost always require inspiration from somewhere, and we all learn from one another.

That’s OK. As long as it’s new to you. I don’t judge people who take a pattern and re-create it exactly as the book dictates. That’s how we learn. We aren’t all designers. I’m not…at least I don’t get paid to be one.

But my favorite projects come to me like a whirlwind, and I have all to do to scribble them down before they disappear. The end product is not always exactly what I had planned, but I know when I have a starting point.

My challenge: To create a project based on some digitized rulers created in Artwork Canvas within Bernina Embroidery Software 8.

I started with the 3 black ruler shapes, wondering how to place them in an interesting project.

I knew I wanted to use a sewing theme, and I also wanted to incorporate Amanda Murphy’s Sewing Room embroidery designs. I thought they were cute and fresh. (See the link below).

Sitting at the computer one day, I had an idea. I don’t ever design on a computer. It’s just not fast enough to capture the idea before I talk myself out of it.

So I grabbed the back of the closest sheet of paper and scribbled out this initial design.

I thought I’d make a table runner, with all the embroidery designs lined up in a row. I thought about adding buttons scattered around the design, since the theme has thread spools, scissors , rulers, etc.

I didn’t have any fabric at home that was close to my reach that was in the right shape to hold all the designs.

So I stitched a number of half fatquarters together (fat-eighths). I think they were leftover from this project.

And I printed out some templates to see if I was getting close to my original thought.

It was going to work.

I began embroidery, and once the embroidery was complete, a friend at work (hey Bobbie!) asked if I was making another valance…this time for my sewing room. (You can check out the last time I made a valance here.)

I had actually been thinking of it as a table runner, but when she said valance, I suddenly saw that too!

I continued with the quilting which for some reason was a part of the original scribble and I couldn’t depart from it. Here are a few of the detail shots.

I’m sure you can see why I wanted to use Amanda Murphy’s embroideries…but it actually works pretty well with the digitized rulers.

Here’s what it looks like complete. It’s quilted all over using a walking foot, and the back is turned down to form a rod pocket.

It will be at the shop for a while, but I can’t wait to hang it on the window in my sewing room. I moved the random-sized buttons to the middle to give it a look of continuity. I love the Barbie-style dresses.

You can make the rulers if you attend Bernina’s November Software Inspiration class at your local dealer. And if you don’t have software, I’m sure you can find a measuring tape embroidery or replace it with another design. The point is not to make the same valance I made, (although you certainly are welcome to do that) but to make it your own! Have fun with the idea, and create something new and original for your own home.

Edgestitch

Sewing is life. Life is art.

Category Archives: machine embroidery