When I purchased my latest Brother sewing machine, Kate suggested I pay the extra few dollars and get the embroidery attachment. What the heck, I thought and I did it and now I am so thankful that I did. I am working on an Anita Goodesign called Santa's Ride.
Its all machine embroidered and as you can see, there is lots of work to do!! I don't actually do much, except change the threads when the machine tells me to, the machine does all the stitching and its just wonderful watching each block come to life with the beautiful colours.
Each block is stitched individually then they will be sewn together with borders to resemble a glass window pane (I have just placed the blocks abutting in the picture below to give you an idea of the scene)
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| BLOCKS 1 TO 4 |
The machine tacks an outline stitch showing me where to place the material, then it stitches it down, I trim off the excess, then the machine satin stitches around the edge. Very clever!!
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| BLOCKS 1 TO 7 |
I found that I needed a heavy duty backing in the embroidery hoop otherwise with all the heavy stitching, the block started to buckle. Once I found the right backing, everything has gone well so far.
It can be very time consuming as Block #7 took 1.5hrs to stitch. I put the colour thread in the machine, go about my business then come back now and then when the colour needs changing.
Here is BLOCK #8 in part progress so you can see how the machine links all the colours. This one shows some of the presents in Santa's Sack. When the block is finished, I trim off all the unwanted threads and square up the block.
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| BLOCK #8 - Part finished |
