Sometimes My Embroidery Machine Hates Me

The project I'm working on now is Vogue 7828 (see my last post for a picture). After the fitting muslin, my next step is choosing thread color for the embroidery. (Note that I didn't use the embroidery I showed in the last blog entry.  I went with the Flowerful design set instead.  My friend, T used the other set and I wanted to do something different).

I was happily surprised that I took only three tries to come up with a combination I liked. Usually, choosing the exact right colors is a process analogous to how I imagine Michelangelo approaching painting the Sistine Chapel. I see him pondering color samples and throwing on trial strokes of color. My usual process consists of days of sorting through threads, stitch-out after stitch-out, agony over the multitude of choices, then finally a decision, my hair noticeably sparser with clumps sprinkled around the sewing room floor from my unconscious pulling.

However, this process was quite fast for my current project with only 3 stitch-outs and one clear winner.

With the colors settled, I commenced the embroidery. In my own tart-it-up style, I chose to have lots of embroidery on the blouse. Queen Victoria would be proud of my lack of restraint when it comes to decorating my pieces. I planned a line of embroidery running next to each of the seam lines on one of the fronts, a line down one sleeve and embroidery strewn quite liberally across the back.

I have a pretty good relationship with my embroidery machine. It trusts me to use good thread, stabilize correctly and to use designs that aren't too dense for comfort. In return, I trust my embroidery machine to stitch each color of a design from start to finish without breaking thread or needles or stopping indiscriminately.

The system works most of the time. Usually I can set a design stitching and walk away to do something else. When I'm really on a roll, I have all 3 embroidery machines going at once, my own team of sewing elves working independently while I finish something different. Unfortunately, today the elves rebelled. Maybe it was commentary on my color choice or the sheer amount of embroidery for the piece, but during the last quarter of the third line, things began to go wrong.
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The first two lines were challenging. The top line had to follow a stitching line which bends up at a 30 degree angle. (The stitching line's angle creates a dart, pulling the edges together at the armhole.) To make sure I was sufficiently challenged, the next two lines required precise placement so they would each be centered between seams.

Line 1 stitched perfectly, even the bend. Ditto line 2. It was in the middle of the third, that things headed downhill.

First - I left  the room for just a few minutes to take a shower and dry my hair.  When I came back the machine was stopped with a broken needle dangling on the thread. Why, Machine? Why?  Of course there was an answer. The thread had twisted around the thread stand freezing up the feed. The thread pulled tight and zip - the needle broke.

Never underestimate the power of me as a disgruntled worker. Before I broke the second needle I had a major "operator error." I changed out the needle and rebooted the machine as I usually do. Unfortunately, I was particularly spacey when I fast forwarded the machine to the color I thought should sew next and I skipped color 3. It wasn't until I was totally finished with color 4 that I realized the rather major error. At first I thought I could stitch color 3 after color 4 but machine embroidery is not that simple. There are bunches of places where color 3 stitches from one part of the design to another. These stitches will be hidden under the flowers of the later colors, many of those flowers are color 4 flowers. So... if I stitched color 3 after color 4 it would stitch right over the flowers.  Shoot.  Time to break out more fabric and start again. Good thing I purchase fabric in leviathan amounts.


I re-threaded and started up again. I wasn't 30 seconds into this stitch-out when I heard the dreaded ka-thunk.  Needle number two was in two pieces. This time it was because I was at the end of my bobbin. The last teeny bit of thread clung tenaciously to the bobbin causing resistance and another broken needle. Unfortunately, this needle breakage jerked the fabric out of the hoop which meant starting yet again. My pile of extra fabric wasn't looking quite as massive.

Needle Number Three's unfortunate demise was a direct result of Needle Number Two. In the process of finishing off the late Needle Number Two, the threads had tangled around the bobbin and nudged the throat plate just a little out of line. Funny, the reaction of a needle hitting a solid surface like a throat plate.  That Poor Number Three didn't have a chance. Ka-thunk again.

Sometimes I think the machine breaks needles just to tell me to change my needles more often.

I'm pleased to say that I've finished the embroidery and I love it. I did finish with three versions of the left back panel, which enabled interesting comparisons. When I first started this project, I sewed out a couple of color options. Now I have two more variations and I like them both. I'm not unhappy with the final product but I like the other two as well.

Kind of put a crimp in my feeling of omnipotence as far as color choices. Looks like there were lots of other ways I could have gone. The obvious choice doesn't seem so obvious anymore.

Stay tuned for the next installment from the Needle Graveyard, with plenty of pictures.

Out of the Depths of the Scrap Hamper

Utilizing Your Embroidery Stitch-Outs

I recently discovered that I have accumulated wealth. In my sewing room I have a softsided hamper, overflowing with orphaned sample embroidery stitch-outs and pieces of fabric too small to fold.

I would guess that I'm not the only sew-ist who has a collection of very small pieces of fabric and / or samples of embroidery not associated with projects. Still, I feel I need to explain why I have this hamper. It's not just that I am a fabric hoarder (though I am). I'm a fabric addict. But the scrap-embroidery addiction all started in a class I took from my friends the Pixeladies. I was commanded to keep all scraps for future free piecing works! Call that my first taste of the drug.

The vessel of choice for collecting these small pieces of fabric and unused embroidery designs is a bright yellow soft-sided hamper. When I began my collection, the hamper seemed like a good choice; standing about 3 feet tall, with a 24" diameter, it seemed as though it would hold all of the small pieces I could possibly collect.

Naturally, as with so many things, the collection expanded to fill all of the available space and now my hamper is not only full but overflowing.

The hamper stood unmolested for almost a year. But then, the siren song called to me, and first I tasted...then repeated...and soon it fed off my own genetic tendencies to fabric addiction...until I was completely powerless and out of control.

Of course, I could never weed through it and discard some of my valuable fabric pieces, small though they might be. For me, the queen of fabric hoarders, it seemed that a better idea was - gasp - to start using these pieces!

My first foray into the "use-what-I-have" scene was fairly innocent: I took pieced rectangles from the Piece Party class and combined them with a sample stitch-out from Crested Beaut 2 and made up the Travel Documents case from my own Quick Gifts 1 Booklet.

Ahhhhhhhh....the first rush of using something from a forgotten stash!

But it wasn't enough. While digging, I came across so many beautiful stitch-outs nestled in that bed of little scraps. The urge was upon me!

Oprah had guilted me into carrying my own bags to the grocery store. I could always use more shopping bags. "It's good for the environment," I reasoned. Call it justification, call it rationalization, or be realistic and call it my drug. Out popped one of the flowers from the Flowerful design set. Put that together with the Stitch-N-Flip method and...a star is born.

(OK, a grocery bag star, but a star never the less.)

Arghhhhhh! Ahhhhh! Groan! The scrap junkie woke! "Use all this gorgeous crap! USE IT! MORE! NOW!" I broke out in a cold sweat. My digging in the basket became more frantic.

What about using the pieces from the hamper in a more formal setting? It's easier to justify things if they're classy and upscale.

Enter 4 stitched-out designs (from the Savannah set) added to the front of an in-progress sewing machine pad with pockets from the Quick Gifts 2 booklet.

"MORE! MORE!" the addiction roared! It was time to get serious. No more "one scrap here, another two there..." If I really wanted to set these pieces free from their hamper-dungeon, I would have to get more pieces than that out for my next project. And it would be hard to stop me from doing just that.

I noticed that the colors in the hamper were heavily weighted in the oranges and reds. I started pulling and Voila! I had a lead for my next fix! Even though all of the colors were in the red/orange/yellow family, some of the pink toned reds were a little abrasive when placed next to the more orange reds. The problem was solved when I did some neutral brown lines.

It took a lot more work for this fix than the previous ones, but I loved the results*. All of the fabrics for a blouse came from the piece hamper. The designs had already been stitched as samples and the only place I had to work with yardage was the dividing lines. Luckily, I had the deep brown print in my main fabric stash. (Could I interest you in a hit from your own stash?) The designs are again from Crested Beaut Design set.

Just then, Randy found me, bent over, head deep in the hamper. He grabbed me by the back of the neck and pulled me out. "Look! We've got a business to run! How is anyone going to get their embroidery fix if you're stuck there with your head in the scraps!" He slapped my face with a wet remnant and shook my shoulders. "C'mon! You've had enough scraps for today! Get out here and start shipping orders!"

I knew he was right, that my scrap project addiction was interfering with my livelihood. I got myself together, took some deep breaths, and went back to work.

But don't tell - that hamper is still over half full...and the moment when nobody's looking...

you might find me rummaging in there again...making...who knows? A pet-cosy? Car organizer? Remote control holder? There were some turquoises in there with crystals that would be perfect for a...

Stay tuned until the next time I fall off the scrap wagon.

*I'm not the only one who loved the Scrap Hamper Blouse. This blouse was accepted into the juried show, PIQF 2009.

Don't forget, you can see more of my embroidery designs on my website.

From the Depths of the Drawers

The drawers and shelves of my sewing room are populated with countless treasures, all purchased at sewing shows, many of them in their original packages. At the time of purchase, each of these items offered unlimited potential for making my sewing so much easier. Yet, somehow these little orphaned tools sit untouched and alone in the bottom of my drawers.
Imagine my surprise when this week, while immersed in the creation of my latest project, I pulled out one of these heretofore unopened treasures.

The Project:
Because I am an extreme multi-tasker, it is never a surprise when I start new projects even when I have, well, too many works in progress. This week I began a new quilt. My goal is to have something to enter in juried quilt shows. Despite the fact that I’ve only made five quilts, I’m positive I can produce something that will be accepted. As a founding member of the ‘Too Stupid to Be Afraid’ club, I often take on goals beyond my current skill level and this quilt is an example par excellence. I am using my Round To It embroidery designs. These designs use the embroidery machine to produce New York Beauty arches embellished with perfectly positioned machine embroidery. The ‘paper piecing’ is actually done on a tearaway stabilizer on the embroidery machine.

After all the pieces are attached, the machine embroiders around the triangles in the arches. It might be possible to duplicate the end result in another way but not without high levels of frustration.

I already have a quilt made with these designs and I’m quite happy with it. Unfortunately it doesn’t pass the ‘made in the last two years’ test. I even considered fudging the age on a quilt show entry form (who would it hurt to show a quilt that is 3 years old instead of 2?) but for this quilt there’s documented proof that its beyond the two year age limit as it's been in a magazine editor’s hands for longer than that.

For the new Round To it quilt I’ve chosen a rainbow of hand dyed fabrics to for the spikes and a mottled cream for the background. I am very happy with the color/texture/embroidery combination. The first step was embroidering/piecing the arches for the first four squares.

The Learning Experience
In my directions for the embroidery designs I suggest that you piece the quarter/circle arch to a center piece and an outer edge to complete a square that is one fourth of a New York Beauty quilt square.

In the past I had found this technique to be quite challenging. However, a few weeks ago, the owner of a new LQS (local quilt store), Shared Stitches, led my sewing guild group in a session on piecing curved edges. Sharon used the method she had learned from the author of a book on the Winding Ways quilt, Nancy MacDonald. Sharon’s directions were excellent. Everyone in the class produced beautiful, smooth, perfectly curved seams.I am certainly no expert; I’m actually kind of new to this curved piecing thing. But, having attended Sharon’s session, I can now produce acceptable curved seams. My take on the technique is that if your pieces are cut accurately, seaming is easy.

The key seems to be having identical sewing lines on both the concave and convex pieces, and the piece cut exactly one quarter inch from the sewing line. (Is it any surprise I'm more of a garment sewer?)

If the pieces are cut accurately, and you match the ends and the centers of the pieces, your seams will be perfect. If you want detailed instructions you can get the book, Winding Ways Quilts, A Practically Pinless Approach by Nancy Macdonald.

With the confidence built from this lesson on piecing curved seams I approached attaching my paper/embroidery machine pieced arches to their background square.First, I decided to sew the 4 arched pieces together to make a circle and to piece the entire circle into the background fabric. I carefully trimmed the seams on both the inside and outside of the pieced circle to ¼” outside the stitching line. Next I cut a square from the outside/background fabric. I cut a circle in the middle of that square that had the radius of the outside of the pieced circle minus ¼.

The New Gadget
That’s when I decided to break out my secret weapon. Buried in my drawer of not yet embraced gadgets was a foot designed for piecing curved seams; the Curve Master Presser Foot. This presser foot is designed to enable anyone to produce perfect curved seams. As I felt competent in the curved seam process even without this foot, I was sure that I would now become a superstar of curved piecing. After all, two years ago at a sewing show in Novi, Michigan, I had stood with mouth open, watching perfect curve after perfect curve being sewn by the company demonstrator.
Of course I had to buy! In retrospect the company demonstrator was sewing the curves using the method I had just learned, the ‘practically pinless pieced curves’ described in the Winding Ways book.

So I approached the drawer of unused sewing gadgets and began the great search. There it was, next to the fabric circle cutter, under the beads presser foot, behind the template for the uneven quilt squares, my Curve Master Presser Foot. I cracked the plastic case on a new gadget, a presser foot designed to sew curved pieces together. It was a good day.

Before sewing the circle to the background square I marked the top, bottom and each side of the pieced circle and the circle cut out of the background piece. I pinned the circle to the background piece, matching the marks. Using the special presser foot I sewed the two together.
Comments on the Special ‘Curves’ Presser Foot

The piecing went very smoothly. I can see how the curved foot makes the piecing a little bit easier than using a regular quarter inch foot. I think I’ll enjoy having this presser foot, but only because I have a lot of curved piecing to do with this new quilt. And, its probable that I would get just as proficient sewing curves with a regular quarter inch presser foot. My grade for my new gadget is B+; good but not great.

Back to the Quilt
I’m still plugging away at the quilt. I’ve totally completed the first four squares and even as I type the embroidery machine is stitching out the first of the pieces for number five. I was not able to use a sewing machine to piece in the centers of each circle. The hole was just too small. If I had constructed the square one quarter at a time I probably wouldn’t have had a problem. My solution was to hand appliqué a center circle into the middle of each quilt square.



I’ll try to log more as I get further in the decision making process.



As for the Multi-Tasking

I am working on a large number of concurrent projects. I'm a third of the way through creating a an embroidery oriented Block of the Month product. My goal for that is to introduce new embroidery/quilting techniques in many of the months' blocks.

And watch for my newest design set, another of the projects in process. (You do know that I design embroidery designs, don't you?)

I'm frantically preparing for my next big show - Sew Expo in Puyallup Washington at the end of February. I'm excited about the classes I'm teaching there. I have great new ideas to introduce.

Stay tuned.

The Christmas Stocking Chronicles

In theory, making a Christmas stocking is easy. Decorate a piece of material, cut it out in a stocking shape, sew on a back and voila! A fiber art masterpiece. OK, I knew it would be a little more than that but compared with my usual sewing, elaborate garments covered with embroidery, one little stocking should be a cinch.

Well, sometimes theory and reality are not synonymous.

When the folks at Designs in Machine Embroidery asked me if I’d be interested in making a Christmas stocking for the holiday issue I jumped on it. The requirements were simple; make a Christmas stocking using machine embroidery. To spice it up I could add as many other embellishment techniques as I wanted. Oh yes, one more thing, I had to use one of three color combinations: gold and white, silver and light blue, or red and green. Well, it seemed easy. That is till I actually started the project.

Though I am truly the queen of procrastination I had a flash of rational thought and began this project 4 weeks before the deadline.

Getting Started

I began with a search of my internal resource center. Surely with the thousands of yards of fabric tucked into every nook and cranny around my house I would have something that would work for my stocking masterpiece.

I chose to make a gold and white stocking. This was an easy choice for me as I have lots of white fabric, very little red and green and I’m pretty sure there isn’t even a tiny bit of light blue fabric anywhere. To add to the appeal of gold and white, I have a quilt that is all white with gold embroidery that is stunning. Surely I could get the same effect as in the quilt in a Christmas stocking. OK - gold and white it is.

Despite an intensive search I couldn’t find any metallic gold fabric. Yes, I looked under the bed and yes, I looked in all the closets and yes, I did look in the boxes of fabric in the spare bathroom shower. No gold fabric.

But that didn’t stop me. I had something just as good, gold Paintstiks. Paintstiks are crayons made from oil paints pressed into a stick. The metallic Paintstiks can color fabric and add a beautiful sheen. Let's see, gold Paintstiks on white fabric, Voila! gold fabric.

How to use the gold Paintstiks? Hmm... My first thought was to show off some of my rubber stamps by placing a stamp under the fabric and rubbing the Paintstik on top. I loved the way this looks. I pulled out a Christmas-y stamp, a Christmas tree consisting of little gold stars stacked up. Houston, we have lift off.

I spent the next few hours working with stamps and Paintstiks.

I began by practicing the rubbing technique. Great, I haven't lost my touch. Obviously I’m on the right track. The trees are gorgeous.

I carefully marked up a grid and systematically placed trees on a line, and then repeated on multiple lines creating an over all pattern. I didn’t have to make a full rectangle, only enough for the stocking.

The gold was beautiful, the trees interesting, the overall pattern was just what I expected. I covered the space for a stocking and then repeated on some more fabric so I would have extra fabric for experimentation.

I was feeling good. I was on my way to creating a stocking and not even close to the deadline. Who was that person occupying my body?

But where to put the embroidery? I tried appliquéing a Christmas tree design in the middle of the patterned fabric. Hmmm, nice. But ‘nice’ is never the goal for me. Stunning, spectacular, gorgeous, moving… that’s the goal.

Next try. What if I filled the triangles between the trees with embroidery? OK, easy enough. I digitized little textured triangles the right size. I tried a variety of textures.

Again, nice. But nice is not good enough!

Next I digitized a little satin stitch triangle to highlight the space. This worked, but the embroidery was definitely from the minimalist camp. Not exactly showcasing machine embroidery.

So Where Could I Go?

Back to the drawing board, literally the drawing board. I next spent some quality time with a sketch book. I doodled stars and snowflakes and lines and arrows. I tried flowers and swirls and just about everything. What about leopard print and gold silk matke? No, not unless the leopard is white, Nothing struck me as just right for a gold and white stocking.

Days had passed and I was no closer to making a stocking. Maybe I should wait till that deadline pressure kicks in.

Around this time my sister, a wise and wonderful woman, gave me some very sage advice, “Forget the color constraints,” she said. “Think of something beautiful and then worry about the colors.”

Ok, that sounded so good. My next doodles resulted in some beautiful designs. I had several but one of the drawings spoke to me. “Me! Me! Me!” it said. So I decided on the simple design of continuous lines of embroidery pieced between vertical lines of fabric.

The Embroidery

Finally I could begin stitching. I knew just what embroidery designs to use, a lovely line of Asian flowers from my Crested Beaut design set sewn in shades of gold.

I set up the machine and started to go. I sewed one set, then moved the hoop for the next. A beautiful bouquet created itself before my very eyes. Unfortunately my instinctive attraction for color overcame my good sense. A spool of rose pink thread had pushed its way into my hand and onto the machine. What’s a little pink between friends? Surely I could slip that into the embroidery as an accent to the gold and white.

I loved it! The flowers were gorgeous. I laid the completed strip of embroidery on my work table to admire.

I gloried, I gloated, basked in the magnificence of my work. Every time I passed the table I admired these gorgeous flowers.

Then the cold hard truth set in. As much as I wanted this line of flowers to be the centerpiece for the stocking, it would not do. With that much pink the stocking would no longer meet the ‘gold and white’ requirements. *!#*##!

Back to the embroidery machine. I needed a new line of embroidery At least I didn’t have to go back to the drawing board.

I did an instant replay on the stitching—only this time in shades of gold. And what a nice surprise, the gold version was just as pretty as the pink!

Now for the piecing.

Stripes Between the Embroidered Strips

When I laid the embroidered strips on the white fabric I wasn’t overwhelmed. The best way to describe the piece was ‘Blah’. What could I do to perk the thing up? Time to pull out the Paintstiks again.

This time I wanted an over all pattern that wouldn't overwhelm the embroidery. I decided on texture plates.

Texture plates are squares of plastic molded with a texture They’re sold in sets of 5 at your local craft and hobby store.

You use texture plates with Paintstiks the same way I used the Christmas tree stamp. Slip a texture plate under fabric and rub lightly with a Paintstik. After the fabric has cured for 24 hours press it using paper towels over the fabric to protect your iron.

My work with Paintstiks produced lightly spotted fabric which perfectly complimented the embroidered panels.

Trims

That wasn’t the end of my decisions. I pulled out the trim box and found a variety of possibilities to use between the fabrics. That one trim box held a line of gold sequins, a tiny line of white dotted with metallic gold pieces and a wide gold braid.

My final option was fabric I created using the gold Paintstiks, pressed into decorative trim.

Creating a Stocking From the Pieced Fabric

After drawing stocking shapes I liked I created a pattern. Because it was so important that the piecing and embroidery be aligned perfectly relative to the stocking, I cut out the center of the drawing and placed the tissue paper over the fabric, adjusting until I liked the final placement.


I then drew around the edges of the stocking. Removing the paper I cut on my drawn lines.

I repeated the whole process for a stocking back.

I completed the stocking in a traditional manner using some fake fur trim for the cuff.

I did add a finishing touch, Bling! I don’t call myself the Self Proclaimed Queen of Bling for nothing. I added hot-fix crystals, and crystals and more crystals. They did it. They added the perfect finishing touch.

So, am I happy? Yes. I love my finished stocking. Did I meet the deadline? Yes, with two weeks to spare.