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Saturday, 22 August 2020

Tea towels galore!

So what have I been doing? Yes you guessed it! Machine embroidery!


ricamo a macchina


I have been busy embroidering a whole load of tea towels I had. Fun just putting simple lettering on them. 

Here are a few photos:


Strofinacci


Ricamo

I have done over 40 teatowels! A lot have already left the house.


embroidery


Between doing those and masks I have been very busy. Now I need to catch up with some sewing that is all piled up here! 


Embroidery


Have a nice day!




Thursday, 13 August 2020

Machine Embroidery.

I am continuing my machine embroidery experiments. 

Machine set up

 An Eagle:

embroidered eagle




Yesterday I decided to try some appliquè. Just very simple.

I took some blue fabric and then some white on top. I stabilized the blue with tear away stabilizer. I basted the white at the corners floating on the frame. I didn't use any glue. I don't have any yet and to be honest I am scared of getting my frames and machine sticky. I keep seeing FB posts asking how to remove the glue! 

appliquè

I chose a simple circle design on my machine and stitched it out. 



Then I took the frame off the machine and carefully cut the excess white fabric from the outside of the stitching. I replaced the frame and then did another programmed circle with a satin stitch in the exact same place. 



appliquè

Then I added a simple E in the center. All without altering the position of the hoop design. 

appliquè


It was quite fun and simple enough for me to not worry about spoiling a project. 
I have no idea what if anything I will use it for but another practice piece is done. Lol! 

cross stitch



It is lovely to be trying out "new to me" things. Even cross stitch!


Butterflies

Bye for now! Happy sewing.

Saturday, 8 August 2020

Machine Embroidery.

Well I have a new love in my life....machine embroidery! 

Embroidery machine
I bought a Brother Innovis F440e embroidery only machine. I already have a good sewing machine. 

An embroidery machine is something I have wanted for a long time. 

I was very scared in case I didn't manage to learn to use it. There are no local lessons available. Fortunately there are many videos online and I managed to find some with the machine I had ordered.
I also found the instruction book online and read and reread that many times before my machine arrived. 

I found that machine embroidery is a whole new world. 
Ordinary sewing thread is not used but special 40 weight embroidery thread. There are many brands and different sorts of thread. I ordered some New Brothread. A pack of different colours so I had a starting selection. 

40 weight thread

Then there is the bobbin thread. My machine takes 90 weight bobbin thread which is very thin and resistent. I ordered pre-wound bobbins which work beautifully so far!

Other machines which are combined sewing and embroidery machines use 60 weight bobbin thread. It is important to check the instruction book with the machine. 

After learning that I had to find out all about different stabilizers! The fabric in the hoop needs stabilizing to embroider well. I bought some online and also bought a starter pack with various types to try and a super help it had an instruction booklet for newbies like me! 

machine embroidery


Everything bought online as there are no local shops who have these things. 

As soon as my machine arrived I tried it. I was lucky as it threaded and worked fine first time! I was shaking as I tried it! Lol! 

The first thing I wrote was my name! 

Brother F440e
Then I started slowly working through a mountain of teatowels I have to embroider! 

Tea towels


Obviously with Covid-19 still around masks were another must to make:

face masks



Now the latest thing I have embroidered were some towels. I found a letter E which fit into the oval on the big towel. For the smaller one I remembered that I can reduce the design size slightly so I thought to try that. It worked! The machine actually automatically recalculated the stitch density as well and number of stitches. It took over 1000 sts less and a minute less to embroider! I was fascinated! Magic! Lol!


Towels


So much more to add! But now I am going to go and do some embroidery!