Tag: embroidery

First T-Shirt

The first t-shirt on my new machine is done! Lowering the thread tension was the answer. Other lessons:

  • The machine stitches a few times then pauses for you to cut the tail. It is not telling you it thinks the thread broke.
  • Not shrinking the pattern makes a HUGE difference. Compressing stitches is not good.
  • Cheap embroidery thread is frustrating. I made a test pattern on a scrap of fabric using some cheap thread I had purchased and used for hand stitching. Very cheap, large variety of colors. But in a machine? It breaks constantly. Every couple hundred stitches, I was re-threading a broken thread. Using my good thread, I only re-threaded the machine to change colors.

New Embroidery Project

I finally got larger blank t-shirts for Anya. Anya and I will spend an hour or two in the evening relaxing and embroidering the shirts. About nine shirt-sized images fit on a 8.5″x11″ sheet of dissolving, printable transfer paper. I’ll create a single image and arrange all of the embroidery patterns to fill the page (needs to be black lines on a white background as the printout is fuzzy, and color or gray-scale makes a big mess). Cut out one image, stick it onto a shirt, add a hoop (I love Darice’s spring tension hoops!), and go.

I taught Anya to back-stitching along lines last year, and I taught her how to make a satin stitch today. She’s working on a cute little owl. I’m working on this hand embroidery pattern from Urban Threads. Should be finished tomorrow too!

Thread Painting – Butterfly Tshirt

I’ve seen various iterations of needle painting (thread painting, needle shading) and am finally trying it. While the technique isn’t difficult, it is seriously time consuming. Fortunately, Anya loves the butterfly thus far. I’ll probably make another shirt or two using this technique … but start with a size 6 or 7 shirt so she gets years of wearing it (and most of the embroidered shirts will either become a t-shirt quilt or appliqué patches on a larger shirt)