Today three of us got together at Carolee's for our little embroidery group. We all have Bernina sewing machines with embroidery modules, and we want to learn more about them, so we get together once or twice a month to play. Carolee has a basement sewing room, which was the place to be today because it was warm and muggy outside. From left to right in the photo is Carolee, Pauline, and me. I tried to look busy because I don't like to have my picture taken.Pauline took a bunch of classes after she bought her Bernina a while back, so she is the brains of the group. We try to choose something specific to work on at our get togethers, and today our focus was multihooping. When a design is too large for the selected hoop size, it becomes necessary to rehoop the fabric at some point during the stitch out in order to complete the whole design. Getting the design lined back up correctly is not an easy task for a novice, and I'm not too sure that I grasped exactly how to do this, but I'll play around with it some more.
The block we worked with today was one of the blocks from the Latte Quilt, a sampler of a dozen or so embroidered quilt blocks, and so named, I suppose, because it is all stitched in neutral colors on a neutral background. I've seen the complete sampler stitched out and quilted, and it's gorgeous.What you see in the photo is two thirds of the design, which required two hoopings. The most obvious problem I had was puckering in the fabric, which is something that has frustrated me quite often. There must be about a dozen reasons why this might happen, and I never seem to get any of them right. (Teresa, are you reading this? Help!)
The second problem was that we actually loaded the wrong design into memory when we rehooped it for the right side of the embroidery. Some of the stitching crossed over parts of the center design, which wasn't right. Neither of these things bothered me, however, because it was a practice piece, and I had fun watching it stitch out. I was pleased with the quality of the stitch out today, which I haven't always been able to say in the past.
Next time we get together, we will play with machine embroidered applique.
7 comments:
Sorry. I deleted my comment because I had too many errors in it - trying to type too quickly!
Just catching up with your recent posts. Just love your roses. Such a great colour and so perfect. Did they have a nice perfume?
The quilt show looked fun and I just loved the Christmas stripe. I can hardly wait until we get the new season's fabrics here - oops! Did I say that out loud? Good thing my husband can't read this comment...
Good to see you practicing - so far so good, and so fun with friends!
First of all I want to thank you for stopping by and commenting on my new quilt I have started. Second of all my name is Carol Lee, 2 separate words, and I have never know anyone else with that name. How cool!
How fun to have friends over to sew with! :D
Pic looks pretty professional...good looking gals even the one side two with glasses...glad you are having fun..Pauline said she was planning to go and 'play'...can't wait to see your accomplishments...how much fun!!
Nice header! I need to find someone nearby to play embroiderer with....what fun!
Oh you have made me want to run home and take out my brother embroiderer!!! lovely work, by the way!! love reading your post, but I usually have to do it between customers and most of the time I don't comment... but thank you for such a lovely blog!
Hi Sue, I'm a little behind on reading the blogs! Looks like your having fun... I make pillowcases for all the G kids every year. Sometime
in the summer & for 1 of the holidays. They love them.
Okay embroidery time, My 2 ways to embroider cotton fabric.. I either embroider the whole piece quilt top or embroider blocks. I hoop 1 layer of tear away in the hoop, then I cut a piece of very thin batt just a little bigger than the design area & adhere it to the back of the top/block just under were the design will be stitched. Then I spray the hooped tearaway & adhere the top/batt to the hoop & embroider it. Tear the stabilizer away & trim the batt to about 1/4 inch from design. I did this with the quilt & made for Victoria. After the embroidery is all done. I layer the top batt & backing & quilt as usual. The other method I use to embroider is to starch the fabric several times to stiffen it up. Hoop 2 layers of tear away or cut away. Spray the stabilizer with 505 & adhere the fabric to it then embroider it. I use the 1st with high stitch count designs & 2nd for most others. Boy do I sound like & taught to many classes! Hope it all makes since. I'm thinking I should have just emailed you as this is getting long. I'll get back to you on lining up the designs tomorrow!
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