Being relative newbies to the world of machine embroidery, we decided any and all educational opportunities are a must at this point. It was a 3 hour lecture with a break, for shopping of course. The first half of the lecture was all about the mechanics of embroidery designs, why some work and why some don't and then how to fix them depending on what medium you are stitching the design out on. Of course it was also a huge plug for Walter's software and he did most of the lecture using his software to show examples.
Embroidery software is currently sitting on my wish list... It is expensive, very expensive. Walter Floriani's Total Control software retails for $4299.00. Yikes! Of course they were running a must have promotion on the software for the bargain price of $1700.00.... Still a bit expensive for me right now.
I also feel like I need to check out all my options for software.
My friend Lori did buy the software so I will have to bring her some wine and play on it! Check it out via hands on.
The second half of the lecture was all about stabilizers. Some of this was repeat but it was good repeat for me. There are so many options and it was good to hear them all explained by the person who developed them. I did get a nice set of stabilizers. Mr Floriani had put together several different kits and had them for 50% off regular price, I'm now set for a while on the stabilizer end of things.
Each attendee also received a great big gift box of items. A sampler of stabilizers, 10 spools of thread, a stabilizer info CD by Kay Brooks and 5 CD's with designs on them.
So....not wanting to forget everything I learned I spent some time today playing in my sewing room. One of my goals is to incorporate machine embroidery into my sewing. However, to do this I want to feel more comfortable embroidering in general. Hands on work and practice is the only way to make that work. I pulled a plain sleeveless tee from my closet and choose a design. Used the info I learned on stabilizers and got working.
The design is meant to be very tone on tone. I think it came out quite nicely. I am still toying with the idea of adding some more to it mainly for the practice of multi-hoop designs.
I had some real sewing to do. Headrest covers for our friends new car. (I was asked to make these in the beginning if the year!) while I was making these cute quilted headrests I had the embroidery machine running.
I made 2 sets of business card holders, this project was in a specialty issue of Quilting Arts called 101 Patchwork Projects. (also could be used for credit cards and cash, etc...) one is part of a birthday gift and one is for me. These designs are quite similar except for some of the colors and that mine has my initials on it. I. D&I don't put the initials on the birthday gift because she is betrothed and I am not sure if she is changing or keeping her last name. The goal of this exercise was to play with copying designs, mirroring them and correct size and placement. I was a little off in the overall dimensions for the actual business card holder. The entire thing should only be slightly larger than a business card... Mine is a little bit bigger. I would have had to fold under some of the embroidery design to get that size and it looked funny when I tried that.
- Posted by Steph from Siouxzeegirl Designs
Location:Linda Z's Arlington Heights, IL
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