Category Archives: Software

Machine Embroidery – Multi Hooping – I Did It!

I have an embroidery sewing machine. It’s largest hoop is 200mm by 140mm (not including the gigahoop). I’ve always wanted to embroider a larger area and finally I did. I used Embird (to create the design and print the template) and a clothsetter (to place the fabric accurately in the hoop).

I made a birth sampler for Miss A (I removed her name and birth date from the above image for obvious reasons). It measures 35cm by 35cm and took 7 hoopings.

I will write a tutorial about my method (because I searched and couldn’t find anything particularly helpful).

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Blackwork Butterfly

I subscribe to the Inspirations magazine and in issue 52 they had this blackwork butterfly by Tanja Berlin.

I like it and I would like to try to replicate it with machine embroidery (my hand embroidery is hopeless …).

Here’s part of a wing that I’ve been working on in Thred.

It still needs a bit of work and it will be quite a drawn out process (not as long as doing it by hand though)

And another wing …

I’ve also changed the angle of the fill slightly.

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Making Letters for Applique Using an Embroidery Machine – Part 1

As I’m planning on making a few more of these towels as gifts, I thought I would describe the process.

I like to use a sans-serif font. Less fiddly when you come to sew the letters on! My favourite at the moment is Verdana.

I use a combination of Paint, Scansoft PC (an old Janome Package) and Embird to create my letters.

In Paint I set the image size to 400 by 380 (that’s the size scansoft can take). I then use the Text tool (set to Verdana, Bold, size 200) to create one letter.

Scansoft10

Of course, you can use whatever size and font you like. I then save the letter as a monochrome bitmap – it’s one of the options on the Save As panel. Once again, I do this because Scansoft will only take monochrome images (it’s very old software, but cheap!).

I then open Scansoft and import my letter.

DigitisingVerdanaSm

The software traces all of the lines.

I select the Line tool (the cursor is pointing to it in the image below)

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I then select (on the panel that pops up) the width of the satin stitching.

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At this stage I don’t worry too much about the colour – you can use whatever colour you like when you sewing it out.

I want to embroider all of the lines, so I select the All Lines button (see image below).

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The image is highlighted.

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I then select the Register button to make the embroidery.

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The following panel appears

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I select the Make button (the Cursor is point to it in the above image). The following panel appears …

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I select OK and the letter is created.

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I then save the letter in .sew format.

As I have a Janome MC350e, I need to convert from the .sew format to .jef format. I do this in Embird. See this tutorial for information about converting files in Embird.

I also like to use Embird to combine a few letters into one hoop (see image below for an example). I’ll create a whole new post later about combining designs in Embird.

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I then save the designs onto my USB stick and stitch them out.

Next post: stitching out the letters and attaching them to the object.

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Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone!

I’ve been busy making stock for my market stall. The sewing is almost finished, but I haven’t even started on the admin stuff.

working_1.jpg

I’ve bought PC Quilt software. I’m hoping to use it to help with my quilt design. I can do individual blocks, but I wanted something to show me different layouts. Plus I thought it would be useful with my documentation – because I do plan to write tutorials for the quilts I make.

I haven’t had much time to play – but I’ve discovered I can scan in my fabric, rotate quilt blocks and print foundation blocks. I will post more when I’ve had more time to play.

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