Wrapping Up Loose Edges: Binding the 5th Grade Raffle Quilt Today

Binding In Progress on 5th Grade Raffle Quilt

So, you know that 5th grade class raffle quilt that was due on May 1st?  I got an extension until this Friday, since the fundraiser isn't until May 15th at the school's annual Night of the Arts performances.  Why do I ALWAYS underestimate how long these projects will take?  Especially the Final Stretch steps that come after the quilting is complete: the quilt label, the hanging sleeve, and the binding. 

Embroidered Quilt Label, Created in Bernina Digitizing Software

For instance, I had in mind to do a "quick" embroidered quilt label.  I thought I would use the Auto Digitizing feature in my Bernina Designer Plus embroidery software (I'm using Version 6 since I have not yet upgraded to Version 7) in order to include the school's logo on my label, but unfortunately the image file of the logo that I was working with was not high enough resolution.  So I had to haul out my two-volume software owner's manual (I had a print shop print and spiral bind the online manual) and re-taught myself how to import the logo image into the digitizing software, how to redraw each of the shapes in the logo using left and right mouse clicks, how to adjust things like pull compensation and stitch density for my lightweight Kona cotton fabric, and how to select a nice fill stitch for the gray eagle and satin stitches for the colored shapes.  I adjusted the stitch angle for each of those colored shapes so they radiate outward from the center as well.  Digitizing software is SUPER cool, but it's not as simple as scanning or importing clip art and then hitting an "embroider" button the way you just click "print" to send something to a printer.  You're actually creating a program that tells your embroidery machine's internal computer a sequence of 5,000 or more movements to create your embroidery design one stitch at a time. 

As far as what to include on the quilt label: The students will each be signing their individual blocks with Sakura PIGMA Micron permanent extra fine point marking pens, right on the front of the quilt.  So on the label I put "Created by Ms. Hinkelman's 5th Grade Students" to identify which homeroom class made the quilt, and added "Under the Direction of Ms. Suzanne Tans" because all of the student art work was created in her art class under her supervision, and the concept of bringing the students outside to collect natural objects and then use them in an abstract painting was entirely her idea.  I put "Charlotte, North Carolina 2014" because the Quilt Police and Quilt Historians would definitely come after me if I left off the date or where the quilt was made, and, after hemming and hawing about whether I should put my own name on the quilt at all, I finally decided to include "Machine Quilted by" me. 

Throughout this project, I've tried to keep myself out of it as much as possible so the finished quilt would be all about the students rather than all about Rebecca.  That's why I didn't add any pieced blocks or borders or try to do anything fancy with the quilt construction.  I tried to quilt the blocks in a way that supported and accentuated each child's artwork, but as I look at the finished quilt, my far-from-perfect free-motion quilting skills look like they could have been the work of a child as well, especially considering that most of the people viewing the quilt are not quilters and will have no idea that quilting spirals and squiggles is any more difficult than drawing those motifs with a pen and pencil.  So I put the "quilted by me" disclosure primarily to ensure viewers would not be misled into thinking I taught the entire class how to stitch a quilt from start to finish in 3 weeks -- which would have been a MUCH more impressive feat than what I actually did! 

I decided to incorporate a permanent quilt sleeve because, for one thing, the quilt will need to be hung for display at school on May 15th and 16th for the art auction or raffle or whatever during the Nights of the Arts performances.  Whoever wins the quilt may want to display it in their home on a wall, and having a quilt sleeve pocket for a rod gives them that option without precluding more conventional use of the quilt for snuggling on the couch.  But in order for the quilt sleeve to be attached to the back of the finished quilt with stitches that don't come all the way through to the front, I machine stitched the top of the sleeve to the raw edges at the top of the quilt but had to stitch the bottom edge and sides to the quilt by hand.  Same thing with the quilt label, stitched by hand with an invisible applique stitch in the lower left corner of the quilt, with two edges of the label stitched into the binding. 

Attaching Binding with Walking Foot, Regular Sole

Once the label and sleeve had been hand stitched to the back of the quilt and I'd basted 1/8" from the raw edges with my walking foot, I was FINALLY ready to get started on the binding yesterday.  I cut 2" wide cross grain strips for my binding and I'm stitching them to the quilt with my walking foot.  I switched the sole of the walking foot to this one that has markings indicating 1/4" to the left, right, and in front of the needle, which helps with mitered corners because I don't have to mark or guess where to stop and fold the binding strip back at the corners.  Even though my Bernina 750 QE sewing machine has built in Dual Feed that helps two fabric layers feed more evenly, the walking foot is recommended for best results in situations where you are sewing through three or more layers.  When attaching French fold binding to my quilt, I have the quilt backing, batting, quilt top, plus two layers of binding fabric to stitch through, so that's five layers in all -- it's definitely worth taking 30 seconds to swap out my presser foot and attach the walking foot.

The quilt is still under the machine at the moment with just that first side and corner of the binding stitched on.  But of course, once the binding has been machine stitched to the front of the quilt, it needs to wrap around to the back side and be stitched down by hand all the way around the perimeter of the quilt.  That hand sewing could take me several days, but at least it's PORTABLE -- I can carry the quilt around with me and work on it all day long if I have to. 

Finally, I think I want to wash the quilt before I hand it over to the PTO.  I use glycerin and/or Neutrogena hand lotion on my hands to grip the quilt throughout the quilting process rather than wearing yucky rubber gloves, and I used a lot of starch throughout the construction process to help me straighten the blocks and to get things lining up properly.  I also used water soluble stabilizer when I embroidered the quilt label and wasn't able to remove every little speck of that, but it will dissolve and wash away when I launder the quilt.  I'd like to get all of the dust, grime, starch, stabilizer, and lotion residue washed out of the quilt before I send it off to its permanent home.  I feel like a quilt isn't really, REALLY finished until I pull it out of the clothes dryer and it's all soft, snuggly, and crinkly-textured.

Wish me luck! 

Machine Embroidered Applique, Without Panty Lines

Machine Embroidered Elephant Applique Pillow

I figure everyone's probably sick of seeing my Jingle BOM quilt project over and over again, so I thought I'd switch gears and write a machine embroidery blog post today.  I did some custom machine embroidery a few months ago for an interior design client's nursery project, and I thought I'd share with you how I worked out some of the technical challenges that arose along the way. 



Panty Lines!  Base Fabric Shows Through Applique Fabric

My client had selected the Graham crib bedding collection from Serena and Lily and I designed a window seat, upholstered cornice, and a diaper stacker to complete this modern nursery.  (Coincidentally, the baby's name is also Graham, so we also did a custom monogrammed pillow for the glider rocker with his name on it).  Serena & Lily sells their crib bedding fabric by the yard, and I planned to use it for a sweet little appliqued throw pillow.  My base fabric, Skittles in Blueberry Sky colorway, is from F. Schumacher's Lulu DK Child collection.  As you can see in the photo above, the embroidered splatter dots on this fabric not only show through the thin quilting weight cotton sheeting fabric, but since they are embroidered rather than printed, they also created raised bumps that I didn't want on my applique. 

I sourced the machine embroidery design for this cute elephant applique from Applique Corner Design, an independent Etsy seller who created the design using Bernina digitizing software -- software that I own, but never digitize with.  I can almost always find a professionally digitized design that suits my project and only use the software to edit, combine designs, and tweak things.  I did need to make some adjustments to this design in my software after I stitched out a sample embroidery.  I added underlay stitching to the ear applique because the satin stitching didn't meet up exactly for me when the circle was complete.  Also, the original design file instructed the machine to stitch the entire outline of the elephant first and then go back and do the tail separately.  In my test sew, the elephant pulled in ever so slightly, just enough that the tail ended up not being attached to the body.  Like pin the tail on the elephant, but without the pin.  I easily corrected that by programming the tail and body outline as a single embroidery object to stitch out at the same time.  Finally, I enlarged the design to completely fill the usable portion of my Mega embroidery hoop. 



Tracing Applique Shapes Onto Fusible Web

Another reason I can't live without my digitizing software (even though I rarely digitize) is because I use it to print out actual size templates of any embroidery file.  This is crucial for an applique design, so that I can precut my applique shapes precisely before stitching them down.  I used my light box to trace the shapes onto lightweight fusible web, trying to keep my pencil line in the middle of where the satin stitching will be.  Note that it's important to trace a REVERSE image of the applique shape -- this photo was an "oops" that resulted in an elephant pointing the wrong direction!

Initially, I had planned to use Dry CoverUp, a vinyl topping product designed for machine embroidery, to prevent the embroidered dots of my base fabric from showing through the finished elephant applique.  However, I tried it in my trial run and I didn't like how stiff it made the finished embroidery.  This was, after all, for a baby's room, and I wanted this pillow to be super soft and snuggly when it was finished.  So I used temporary spray adhesive to hold two layers of my thin cotton elephant fabric together, and then I treated the doubled fabric as one layer.



Fusible Web with Window, Adhered to Reverse Side of Applique Fabric

As you can see in the photo above, my enlarged elephant shape was wider than my fusible web so I had to use two pieces.  Those little asterisks I penciled in are registration marks to make sure I aligned the two pieces of fusible web properly when I ironed them to my fabric.After tracing the elephant shape onto my fusible web backing but BEFORE ironing it to my applique fabric, I carefully cut a "window" out of the center of the fusible web shape.  Again, my goal was to keep the finished applique embroidery as soft and snuggly as possible.  I only needed the fusible web to adhere those outer edges of my elephant in place until the machine satin stitches permanently secured the applique to the base fabric.  Not only does this window technique eliminate a lot of the bulk and stiffness of the fusible web, but it also enables you to carefully trim away some of the backing fabric behind the applique shape after the design has finished stitching. 




Test Fitting Applique Shapes to Printed Template

After fusing the fusible web to my applique fabrics, I carefully cut out my two shapes and laid them on my actual size printed template to ensure that the shapes fit properly within the column of satin stitching along all of the edges.  (That's the smaller test stitchout that you see draped on the pillow form in this photo.  I don't know if you can tell from the photo, but there was a definite contrast between the soft, slightly puckered texture of the background fabric and the stiff, rigid applique).



Fusing the Applique Shape to the Background Fabric

Once the applique shapes have been prepared, a machine embroidered applique design stitches out much like any other machine embroidery design.  The machine stitches an outline placement line for an applique shape, and then stops as it would for a color change.  That's when you carefully remove the hoop from the machine, line up your precut applique shape along the placement line, and fuse it in place.  With this large design in my Mega hoop, I'm able to fit my full size iron inside the hoop to fuse my applique in place, but if you're doing a smaller design in a smaller hoop, a travel iron would be a better choice.  With the applique fabric fused in place, you reattach the hoop to the embroidery machine and then it stitches a zigzag tackdown stitch followed by a satin stitch all along the edges.  WAY faster than the hand stitched applique project I've been working on recently, but of course it's a completely different look.



Tackdown Stitching Completed, Satin Stitching In Progress



 Here you can see how, after the entire design finished stitching and I removed the fabric from the hoop, I not only removed my tearaway stabilizer from the project, but also cut away the background fabric inside the body of the elephant, using duckbilled applique scissors to ensure I didn't snip into the applique fabric by mistake.  Note that I would not have been able to remove the backing fabric if I had fusible web permanently adhering the entire elephant shape to the background fabric -- that's why I cut that window in the fusible web before I fused it to the yellow fabric:



Excess Backing Fabric Trimmed Away Behind Elephant Applique

Notice that, when I trimmed away the backing fabric, I got a slight puckering to the applique shape that wasn't there before.  For some projects that wouldn't be acceptable, but it's exactly the effect I wanted to achieve with this one.  Now my elephant applique was as soft and pliable as the background fabric, and if I scrunched the whole thing in my hand there was no obvious stiffness to the applique.  It looked and felt as though the applique had always been there, as if this is how the fabric came from the mill.  Perfecto!


Finished!  Soft, Snuggly Applique with No Embarrassing Show-Through

Here's the finished pillow:


Finished Elephant Pillow

Isn't that adorable?  Just the way I had envisioned it!  The yellow chenille throw pillow fabric and the gray matelassé bench cushion fabric are from Fabricut, and all of the trims are from Samuel & Sons. 

The other embroidered pillow for this project was a custom monogram.  When I design monograms for very young children, I like to use very clear, legible fonts.  Although this is for a newborn's nursery, I'm thinking about this baby growing into a preschooler, recognizing his name and his initials on the pillow once he starts learning the alphabet and learning to write his name.  I know I said that I never digitize anything with my embroidery software, but I do use it quite a bit for monograms.  I spelled out the child's name in lower case letters using a TrueType font that I digitized for embroidery in my software.  Then I combined the first name design with a large capital initial "G" that I purchased from Embroidery Arts, my absolute favorite source for machine embroidered monogram designs.  This letter is from their Moderne Monogram Set 5, and I used my embroidery software to enlarge it significantly and changed the satin stitch to a step fill stitch pattern.

I was using that same pesky Schumacher Skittles fabric that already had splatter dots embroidered all over it, so there were "panty line" issues with this design, too -- especially since my large "G" needed to be stitched in pale yellow thread over top of dark blue embroidered splatter dots.  This time, I did use the CoverUp product, and it worked like a charm, making my yellow G stand out boldly against the background fabric and completely eliminating show through.  Since the letter "G" that needed CoverUp was skinny, the stiffness of the vinyl CoverUp was negligible with this design.  I just had to go back and very carefully trim away the little whiskers of yellow vinyl that remained around the edges of the embroidery after I tore the excess product away.



Monogram Test Embroidery Completed

Automatic Basting Function

This design fit nicely into my Large Oval embroidery hoop.  As you can see, I use the built-in hoop basting function of my Bernina 750 QE as added insurance to keep the fabric and stabilizer from shifting during the embroidery process.  With this feature engaged, the machine automatically sews a long basting stitch along the perimeter of the embroidery hoop before it begins stitching the embroidery design.  These stitches are easily removed once the design has completely stitched out, and I use this basting function with every single project.



Finished Pillow: "G" is for Graham

I also did a custom diaper stacker for this project, which doesn't have any embroidery on it, but I just had to share it because it came out so cute:


Custom Diaper Stacker

I used flannel drapery interlining behind that thin cotton sheeting fabric to give it some body and a padded satin hanger inside at the top.  With a diaper stacker that cute, I'm ALMOST nostalgic for the diapering days...  No, not quite!

And here's the whole nursery:


Completed Nursery

The upholstered cornice fabric is Conifer Modern from Kravet and the leather glider chair is Natuzzi.  We also added some Samuel & Sons Dolce Pom Pom border trim to the readymade Serena & Lily crib skirt, to give it a more custom touch and to tie the bedding in with the custom items.
Here's the initial design rendering I made for the client:

 I was really happy with how this project turned out, and more importantly, the new mom was thrilled with it.  All's well that ends well.  Back to that hand applique medallion!

MY TURN: Machine Embroidery Blog Hop and GIVEAWAY with Anita Goodesign Fantasy Birds



Happy Blog Hop, my fellow machine embroiderers!  Today it's MY turn to strut my feathers in the week-long Spring Machine Embroidery Blog Hop hosted by SewCalGal and I Have a Notion, and sponsored by the embroidery digitizing gurus of Anita Goodesign. 

 

I suggest that you get up right now and go to the bathroom, and then get situated with a cup of coffee and maybe even some snacks.  This is going to be one of those blog posts that rivals Tolstoy's War and Peace (in length and wordiness, if not in literary genius), but unlike War and Peace, my lengthy post will at least be broken up with lots and lots of PICTURES. 

NOTE: Those of you who soldier through this entire post will be rewarded with multiple chances to win the Special Edition design collection of your choice, valued at $99.95, from our generous sponsor, Anita Goodesign.  I am not going to tell you how to enter the giveaway until the end, though -- I'm gonna make you work for it!  ;-)

 

Tutorial Photo of Appliqued Quilt Block Technique

I was delighted when I was invited to participate in this hop even before I knew who the sponsor was, but when I found out it was Anita Goodesign, I was delighted!  I attended an all-day embroidery seminar with Anita Goodesign at my local Bernina dealer's shop several years ago, and not only was I wowed by their beautiful, high-quality designs (yep, I spent lots of $$ that day), but I was also impressed by the extent to which these folks work to make their designs and projects as accessible and hassle-free to home embroiderers as they possibly can.  In fact, despite how ornate and elaborate many of their projects and designs appear, Anita Goodesign is actually one of the best digitizers for those who are brand new to machine embroidery.  These collections are all designed with projects in mind, thoroughly tested so the designs work perfectly in the project application, and each collection comes with thorough instructions.  My Fantasy Birds collection came with a 72-page, full color PDF tutorial that thoroughly explains all aspects of the project from stabilizing your fabric all the way through assembly and the final binding stitches.  The tutorial PDF includes scores of full color photographs like the one above to guide you every step of the way.  All the guesswork and confusion is eliminated, and even beginners can easily achieve professional results.  I have not seen any other company do this, and it's a huge value add.

 

48" x 48" Fantasy Birds Tiled Quilt Project in Silk Dupioni

I chose to showcase Anita Goodesign's Fantasy Birds Special Edition Collection because this tiled quilt project is a perfect example of an embroidery project that looks impressive and intimidating, but is actually easy to create if you read through the tutorial PDF and follow the instructions.  Always keeping novices in mind, Anita Goodesign includes three different sizes of each design as well as mirror images of each design, so you don't need to have embroidery software in order to create the project, and there is a version of every design that will fit the hoop of any home embroidery machine without resizing.  (However, just in case a customer who doesn't own software wishes to tweak the size of these designs, Anita Goodesign includes a resizing program on the CD as an extra bonus). This collection allows even embroiderers with smaller hoops to achieve impressive, large scale designs by splitting the larger rectangular designs into two separate appliqued quilt block designs that fit together perfectly when seamed together.  How cool is that? 

 

Not only do I love the concept behind this design collection; I also really love the way these designs combine very realistically digitized birds with fanciful, stylized Jacobean floral and botanical motifs, amost as if a real bird flew in the window and alighted on an embroidered fabric branch.  I knew I would have fun playing around with that.  This time I'm using brighter jewel tones for the Jacobean floral motifs, but next time it would be fun to do the birds in full color but do the Jacobean motifs in grayscale.

 

The original project I had planned for this blog hop was a 16" x 78" quilted table runner using all four of the large rectangular bird designs as well as four smaller square bird designs, with the blocks laid out as you see them in the image at left.  Except, as great as I think the split bird block designs are for making the designs accessible to every home embroiderer, I'm not every home embroiderer -- I'm a home embroiderer who recently spent a good chunk of change on a fancy Bernina 750QE machine and a snazzy Jumbo Hoop to go with it, primarily because I have always longed to be able to embroider large, beautiful embroideries all in one hooping.  I am also a home embroiderer who has invested in the v6 Bernina Designer Plus Embroidery Software, and I almost NEVER stitch out a stock embroidery design without tweaking it in my software first.  No way was my first big embroidery project with the new machine going to have seams running right through the middle of the birdies!

 

So my grand plan was to stitch the square birdie blocks at the ends the way they were digitized, as applique blocks, but to sew out the larger bird designs seamlessly in my Jumbo Hoop.  In addition to the 25 quilt block designs in 3 sizes that are appliqued and embroidered in the hoop, Anita Goodesign also includes 48 individual embrodery designs from those blocks with the collection, each in 3 different sizes -- and including the four large bird and flower designs WITHOUT the split, in 3 different sizes, as shown below: 

 

Individual Blue Jay Design from Fantasy Birds Collection

The largest size of these individual designs is 6.75" x 11.75", so I planned to enlarge them in my Bernina software to fill the sewing field of my Jumbo Hoop, which is a little over 8" x 15" on a 7 Series machine (you can sew a design up to 10 1/4" x 15" on a Bernina 830 with the Jumbo Hoop due to the longer free arm on that machine).

 

Here's what this design looked like when I opened it up in my Bernina software, after enlarging it but making no other changes:

 

 

My Fantasy Birds look pretty ugly, don't they? That's because I imported the design in the commercial format EXP, which doesn't contain any information about thread colors so the software assigns colors randomly.  Bernina software will save an EXP design with an additional two files -- one contains the thread color information, and the other is an image file of the embroidery, like an icon.  If this was a simple two or three color monogram, I'd leave the design the way it was and disregard the colors shown at the machine during stitchout, but with a design of this complexity it's very easy to get confused about which color is going where and which portion of the design is stitching next -- I wanted to work out the colors ahead of time and have the correct color numbers displayed on my sewing machine's screen for each color change.

 

So my next order of business was to go through the thread chart for this design in my software and individually assign each of the Madeira rayon embroidery thread colors specified by Anita Goodesign for this design.  There are only 13 thread colors in the design, but there are 34 color changes in order for each component of the embroidery to stitch out in the correct sequence.  Although Anita Goodesign specifies Madeira thread, I already own almost every color Isacord makes and I wanted to use what I had on hand.  So, once I had manually entered the Madeira colors, I simply chose "Isacord 40 Numerical" from the drop-down menu, clicked "Match and Assign All" and, in seconds, all of my thread colors had converted automatically to the equivalent thread colors in Isacord polyester embroidery thread.  No need to hunt down a thread color conversion chart online or try to match up the colors manually!

 

I still wasn't finished with the software stage yet -- I spent another hour or so playing around with different thread colors for the Jacobean floral portions of the design.  I left the blue jays alone because I loved how realistic they looked and didn't want to mess that up, but I wanted to do something brighter and more vibrant with the "fantasy" part of the design, so the flowers wouldn't blend into the background as much and so the design would coordinate better with the assortment of silk remnants in my fabric stash.  This is what I finally came up with:

 

 

By this point, I was really getting really excited about the project!  I put my son Lars, the best 12-year-old embroidery assistant ever, to work digging through five large bins of embroidery thread until he had located all of the appropriate thread colors and lined them up for me in stitch order. (This task was assigned to him as penance for falling asleep with silly putty in his bed a few nights ago.  Laundry will be EXTRA fun this week!) 

So I was ready to start embroidering, and I was going to start with this blue jay design! I knew it would take awhile to stitch out, and I figured I could use that time to enlarge and edit stitch colors for the subsequent designs.  I had assembled all of my supplies and notions, cut out Jumbo Hoop sized pieces of silk fabrics, and prepared my fabric pieces as per Anita Goodesign's tutorial instructions. 

 

Silk Dupioni (above), My Kravet Glittered Silk Shantung (below)

My base fabric is a gorgeous, very unusual glitter-embellished 100% silk shantung drapery remnant from Kravet -- the pattern is called Sparkle, the colorway is Ivory, and it retails for a sickening $121 per yard.  I have several odd-sized scrap pieces of this fabric that were left over from one of my interior design clients' projects several years ago, and I have been saving them just for a special project like this! 

 

Silk shantung is a lightweight, flimsy silk that is similar to the silk dupioni that Anita Goodesign used for their quilt samples, except that it's a bit more refined, with a smoother surface, a tighter weave, and a much less pronounced slubbed texture than what is characteristic of silk dupioni, as you can see in the photo above.  So I thought it best to follow Anita Goodesign's recommendations for stabilizing my silk for these dense designs.  I fused Pellon Ultra Weft interfacing to the reverse side of my silk first.  Then I cut a piece of plain cotton muslin large enough to fit comfortably in my Jumbo Hoop, and adhered a piece of Pacesetter Midweight Tearaway embroidery stabilizer to the back of the muslin with my 505 spray adhesive.  I then sprayed the top of the muslin with 505 and adhered that to my interfaced silk.  Finally, I spray-starched the right side of my silk with Niagara Original spray starch.  My fabric sandwich was as crisp as cardstock when I hooped all of my layers.  I intended to use my sewing machine's hoop basting feature to secure all four layers around the perimeter of the hoop prior to stitching, but alas, I could not find the screen with that option, and I was impatient about getting started...

 

Well, I plugged that USB stick into my sewbaby, opened up my design, attached my hoop, and pressed the start button -- and almost fell on my ass when I saw that the estimated stitching time was 220 minutes.  I grabbed a calculator to check my math -- yep, this baby was going to take almost four HOURS to sew out, not counting the additional time involved in rethreading and trimming jump stitches between color changes, or the time I'd spend removing stabilizer and cleaning up the completed embroidery design once it had finished.  Eek! 

My enlarged design was 13 1/4" x 7 3/4", had 69,639 stitches, and was going to burn through an estimated 161 meters of bobbin thread and 4-6 hours of my time.  And, considering that it was already 5 PM on Tuesday evening when I made this discovery, I realized that not only would I be unable to complete my entire table runner project for this post, I wasn't even going to be able to sew out the entire first design in one evening.  Dinner and bed time stories with my children trump sewing projects any day in the week.  So I embroidered about half of the design after I put the kids to bed on Tuesday night, and when I stopped at 11 PM I put my sewing machine in Eco Mode to conserve power while ensuring I could pick up right where I left off on Wednesday morning. 

 

Finally, around 2 PM yesterday, my blue jay design had finally finished stitching:

 

Ta Da!

 

Well, I now truly appreciate the value of owning a machine that can embroider up to 1,000 stitches per minute.  Even if my old Artista 200E/730E could have embroidered a design this size (which it couldn't), at its maximum embroidery speed of 680 stitches per minute it would have taken approximately FIVE hours and forty minutes to stitch this design.  (I've been practicing Pre Algebra with Lars -- this would make a good word problem for him!)  Uff da!  Clearly, a large, densely-embroidered quilt project like this is a major time commitment, not the quilt-in-a-day scenario I had envisioned.  After all, other than embroidered quilt labels, occasional monogram projects, and quilting "in the hoop" with speedy outline quilting designs, I really don't have much embroidery experience, and I've certainly never tackled any designs of this size before.

 

I really love how beautifully this design stitched out, and I'm looking forward to continuing my project.  Above are some of the other silk fabrics I'm considering for borders and/or for the appliqued fabric strips on the smaller blocks.  Wouldn't it be fun to cut out the big butterfly from that silk Robert Allen print and fuse it into this design as an applique, secured by satin stitching? 

 

After unhooping the design, I carefully tore away most of the tearaway stabilizer.  Then I sat down with a bright Ott light and tweezers and painstakingly removed the stabilizer from all of the nooks and crannies.  Next, with a duck-billed applique scissors for safety and holding my breath the entire time, I trimmed away most of the cotton muslin fabric from the back of the design, as though the muslin was a cutaway stabilizer.  I really wanted to restore the soft hand and drape of the silk now that the embroidery process was complete.  When I was finished, the back of my design looked like this:

 

Back of Design, Tearaway Removed and Muslin Cut Away

 

Now that I've stitched out this design, I keep thinking of other applications besides table runners, quilts, or pillows.  Wouldn't this design be gorgeous on the flat sections of a box pleated or pelmet-style window valance? 

 

Can You Imagine These Designs on a Window Treatment?

Of course, as soon as I got that idea, I had to import the photo of my completed embroidery design into my interior design software to try it out.  Why do I suggest embroidery for the valance, but not for the drapery panels?  Well, with a top treatment, you wouldn't have to embroider 15 yards of continuous fabric and drive yourself nuts trying to space the designs with an accurate pattern repeat like you'd have to do for a pair of drapery panels.  You would just overcut each flat section, embroider the design, and then trim the piece to the appropriate size afterwards.  If you're really ambitious, you could even use some of the other standalone designs in this collection, maybe some of the Jacobean floral elements, to embroider banding for the lead (inside vertical) edges of your drapery panels in place of the solid brown banding in my rendering. 

 

You know, embroidered silk drapery fabrics that look like this go for hundreds of dollars per yard, yet you're limited to the thread colors chosen by the mills.  By embroidering your own silk base fabric, you can have your dream fabric with embroidery thread colors custom selected to match your oriental carpet, your other fabrics, or anything else that tickles your fancy.  Just add English bump interlining, a heavy cotton sateen drapery lining, and you'll have a gorgeous custom window treatment unlike anyone else's, anywhere.

 

It's probably a good thing I didn't finish my table runner project, because I've been going on forever and I still have dozens of photos and three more pages of notes that I had planned to include in this blog post, just from sewing out the first design.  So, expect a follow-up post within the next few days where I will share the Trouble-Shooting Journey to Eliminate Thread Loops with an Unusual Needle, my Three Favorite Embroidery Tools that Don't Come With Your Machine, and My Final Verdict on the Final Steam Pressing of Embroidery Designs.  In all honesty, I probably won't finish my project until several months from now, considering that it was just last week that I finished the project I began for the Fall Machine Embroidery Blog Hop I participated in back in November!

 

So, have I lost everyone, or are you still with me?  Because I did promise a giveaway!  Anita Goodesigns is giving away FREE Special Edition design collections worth $99.95 each (winners choose which of the 15 Special Edition collections they want to win). 

 

For the Cheeky Cognoscenti giveaway, you can earn ONE chance to win by visiting Anita Goodesign's website here, drooling all over your keyboard at their gorgeous designs, and then commenting on this post to tell me which Special Edition design collection you would choose if you won and what ideas you have for using those designs in your own project. 

 

You can earn a SECOND chance to win by following Cheeky Cognoscenti via either Networked Blogs or Google Friend Connect (on the side bar at the right side of this page, scroll up) and then leaving a second comment telling me that you're following.  Important: If you are a "No Reply" blogger or an Anonymous commenter, be sure to leave your email address [eg. Sally(at)hotmail(dot)com] in your comment so that I can contact you if you're the winner! 

 

That's right -- not only am I giving away a free Anita Goodesign Special Edition design collection, but each of the other eight bloggers in the hop is also giving away a free Special Edition design collection this week as well.  If you haven't done so already, be sure to stop by each of the other blogs before the end of the week so you can see more beautiful embroidery projects, pick up more embroidery tips and tricks, and collect even more chances to win.  Each blogger sets their own rules for when they will choose a winner, so if you missed any of the blogs from Monday through Wednesday you might not be too late to enter!

I plan to select a random winner from all comments on this post on Monday the 25th.

Here's the lineup with links, one last time:

Monday, March 18th:

Kelly - I Have A Notion
SewCalGal

Tuesday, March 19th:

Cindy - Sew Cindy
Trish - AllThingsCrafty.com

Wednesday, March 20th:

Marjorie's Quilting Bee
Margaret - The Average Quilter

Thursday, March 21st:

ME! ME! ME! ;-)

Rebecca Grace - Cheeky Cognoscenti

Fri., March 22nd

Gene Black - Alabama Artist
SewCalGal

 

Once again, I want to extend a HUGE thank-you to SewCalGal and I Have A Notion for organizing this hop and for inviting me to participate, and an even bigger thank-you to Anita Goodesign for graciously agreeing to sponser the event, for supplying the designs featured in all of our blog hop projects, and for donating such generous prizes for our lucky winners.

Well, folks, I had glorious plans of not only finishing the entire table runner yesterday, but I also planned to complete this blog post before my kids got home from school and schedule it to publish automatically at 7 AM.  Since it is now after 2 AM on Thursday morning.  I'm going to do one thing AHEAD of schedule -- I'm going to go ahead and publish it right now and then head straight to bed.  Happy Thursday, everyone, and good luck in the giveaways!  May the best stitcher win.  ;-)

UPDATED 6/17/2013: I didn't make this into a table runner, but I did finally layer it with batting and quilted the piece, and it came out so beautifully that I was doing a happy dance all over the sewing room!  You can see those results in this post.

Monogram Magic: Playing with Embroidery Software

My New Monogram: Destined for my Sewing Machine Dust Covers

Since I had nothing better to do this afternoon (shh!), I've been playing in my Bernina embroidery software, and this is what I've come up with to decorate a dust cover for my new sewbaby.  Isn't that fun?  It's big; the design measures approximately 7 1/2" wide by 8 1/2" tall, and it has over 50,000 stitches.  It will be the first embroidery design that I stitch out with the Jumbo Hoop I bought for my B 750 QE sewbaby.


Original Bernina Design for the 830 LE

I didn't digitize this from scratch -- I started with a Bernina embroidery design for the 830 LE machine that you can download here for free, and then I deleted the "830," copied and pasted a few swirlies and deleted a few others, and then combined the Bernina design with an enlarged "R" monogram from Embroidery Arts' Gothic 10 collection, which you can purchase here.  I think this particular late nineteenth century leaf and vine monogram style is perfect, because the little satin-stitched leaves on the inside of the monogram look almost exactly like the little satin-stitched leaves in the upper right section of the Bernina design.  I wanted my new design to look just as seamless as the original, as though the monogram and the swirly background graphics had been digitized together.

Gothic 10 Monogram Collection from Embroidery Arts, here

I used my software to remove overlapping stitches, to change the flower at top right from black to red, and to resequence the order of stitching to my liking, and then I printed out a full-size template of the design that I'll be able to use for placement. 

I have some other sewing that I've committed to finish up by the end of this week, plus I've got the carpool tag mini quilt and Princess Petunia's Dresden Plate quilt vying for my attention, so I won't be starting this new project right away.  At least I've got my design modified and ready to stitch out.

Seriously, I have LOTS that I should be doing right now.  I can't believe it's after 3 o'clock already. 

Enjoy what's left of your weekend!

Book Reviews: Help With Machine Embroidery

Embroidery Machine Essentials: How to Stabilize, Hoop andStitch Decorative Designs, by Jeanine Twigg, is the best general overview that I've found for new machine embroiderers.  In Chapter 2: Embroidery Products and Chapter 3: The Embroidery Process, Twigg does a good job of introducing newbies to the mechanics of machine embroidery, including proper hooping technique, an overview of different types of stabilizers and their appropriate use for embroidery, and recommended placement of embroidery on common items such as shirts, towels, and linens.  The troubleshooting guide in Appendix I is useful as well, and Twigg does address the most challenging aspects of machine embroidery for most beginners, with clear explanations.  However, this book was published in 2001 and the entire first chapter covering equipment choices is hopelessly outdated.  Floppy disks and proprietary design cards have been dinosaurs for a long time, and because technology changes so quickly, it really should have been left out of the book entirely.  The projects featured in the last part of the book are, for the most part, unbelievably ugly and make you wonder why anyone would bother learning machine embroidery in the first place.  For that reason, the CD containing the embroidery designs featured in these projects is not much of a bonus, in my opinion.

I almost passed on Machine Embroidery on Difficult Materialsby Deborah Jones based on the title.  After all, I was having trouble embroidering on "ordinary" fabrics, so I had no desire to drive myself crazy trying to embroider on “difficult” fabrics like leather or vinyl.  However, this book turned out to be a far more valuable reference than I expected.  A better title would have been Successful Machine Embroidery on Every Fabric: Strategies for Hooping, Stabilizing, Editing and Troubleshooting from Professional Embroiderers.   Jones does an outstanding job of explaining how machine embroidery works with all fabrics, and how the fabric, stabilizers, needle, thread, and hooping method all affect the success or failure of the completed embroidery design.  What's more, Jones gives specific recommendations for altering embroidery designs within embroidery software in order to correct problems and achieve the best results for whatever material you're working with.  Not only does she recommend reducing/increasing your tension, stitch density or stitch length, but she also gives a range of specific values to try for each fabric, greatly reducing the process of trial-and-error.  For me, this is the most valuable information in the book.  I know HOW to use my embroidery software to change pull compensation, density of a fill stitch, stitch angles, etc. from my software mastery classes, but before reading this book I would look at an ugly sample stitch-out of a design and have no idea which values I should change to correct the problems.  The book also comes with a CD that contains multiple versions of designs that have been modified for different fabrics, so that you can open the designs in your embroidery software and compare the standard version to the adapted version. 

My copy of Machine Embroidery on Difficult Materials has been heavily highlighted, and it's my new go-to reference before starting any kind of embroidery project.  I recommend it wholeheartedly to novice to intermediate machine embroiderers. Readers who do not own embroidery software may feel discouraged that they are unable to try all of the author's suggestions, but many will decide to purchase embroidery software for the first time based on the software applications described in this book.

So, after conducting all of this research, I now know of several things I could have done differently to yield better results with my recent Too Cool for School Carpool Tag project: 

1. First and foremost, I was not using my Mega Hoop properly.  The Mega Hoop has two screws on opposite corners, and I was only loosening and tightening the one in the top left corner -- the one closest to the "R" that was puckering most severely.  I should have loosened and tightened BOTH screws to achieve the correct tension for my fabric.
2. The Mega Hoop also has four little wishbone-shaped clips that I had forgotten about and neglected to use.  These clips help to further secure the fabric in the oversize hoop, to minimize distortion and puckering.
3. I was not hooping correctly.  I was just barely loosening the hoop tension enough so that I could hoop my fabric with a great deal of effort (stretching my fabric in the process, no doubt!) and then I was tightening that screw again before I attached the hoop to the machine.  I should have loosened the outer hoop more and adjusted the tension to where the fabric could be hooped snug and taut, then popped the outer hoop off and re-hooped so the tension would be evenly distributed across the hoop rather than concentrated at the screw point -- and no more touching the screw once the fabric was back in the hoop and ready for stitching!
4. The final lesson I've learned is to stop being so stingy with stabilizers.  In general, you probably need more stabilizer for most projects than you think you do, and sometimes you need a combination of interfacing AND stabilizer to properly support embroidery stitches on a given fabric.  If I was doing the carpool tag over, I probably would have fused Polymesh cutaway stabilizer to my fabric as well as floating a layer of crisp tearaway stabilizer beneath the hoop.  Why?  Because it's very likely that the dense, closely-spaced stitches around my applique letters perforated my tearaway stabilizer so that it stopped providing support even before the design had finished stitching.  A lightweight cutaway like Polymesh would not have added bulk, but would have ensured integrity of the stabilizer throughout the stitching process. 

Armed with all of my new embroidery knowledge and resources, I will feel a lot more confident going into my next embroidery project!




Not Perfect, but Good Enough -- Moving On!

Considering everything that I did wrong, I think my carpool tag embroidery design came out pretty good, don't you?  I'm not going to start over a third time; I think I've learned what I set out to learn and this is "good enough" for this little project.  I'll attempt to quilt out the rippling that remains, but first I have to decide whether to add borders, and if so, how elaborate to make them.