Category: Embroidery

The past few weeks,

 

I’ve been reacquainting myself with my embroidery machine. I have the Brother Designio embroidery machine.

 

and I’ve been enjoying it immensely.

I hadn’t touched the machine in about two years.

 

A few days ago, I adjusted the tension on my Brother embroidery machine.

Initially, my stitch-outs were looking like this bunny, and in some cases, it was worse,

like this reindeer, however after making a few tweaks to the bobbin case the embroidered designs are now stitching out correctly.  Additionally, I swapped my sewing needle to a 75/11 and now the stitch out is much smoother. I need to remind myself to check my tension after a few stitch outs just to ensure that everything is working perfectly. Now that I think about it, it would be smart to take it apart and to clean it also. Earlier this week, I did open up my machine and was able to remove lint and a few strands of trapped thread. Now that everything is stitching out nicely, I have plenty of works in progress (that I’ve accumulated since making the tension adjustments) to complete. All the designs featured were bought at Urban Threads.

In other news…

I’m slowly making progress on the knit blanket I’m creating for my daughter.

This will be the fourth knit blanket I’ve created this year. Three queen sized blankets and one king size blanket. I’ve used worsted weight wool for all the blankets, so no… these blankets can’t be knit in one day. I’m a fast knitter, the majority of the blankets I’ve knit have taken a little over a month to complete.however, this one is taking the longest, but to be fair a few weeks have gone by without me knitting. My left wrist still is giving me issues and so when that happens, I don’t knit.

Yesterday, when I arrived home from work, I was thrilled to see that my  small tambour embroidery frame had arrived.

I did not have a chance to set it up last evening, since I was hanging out with my daughter most of the time; however this morning, I made that a priority after the all important things like feeding my daughter, getting ready for work were out of the way.

The above video shows how to make a basic chain stitch. Normally tambour embroidery is done on fabric that you can see through. Actually, I can with the above fabric that I’ve chosen. If it is an issue, I’ll chose a fabric where the holes are more visible.

The good news is that it looks like I’ll be practicing tambour embroidery later today. Yes! I can’t wait.

You know… I promised myself I would slow down on the new crafts, but here I go again learning something new. Well, to be fair embroidery is not new to me and it’s something I’ve been doing since I was about eight years old. However, in the past, I’ve always used a embroidery needle. Until now.

A little backstory…

I am surrounded by some lovely, talented enablers in life and online. Some of my online pals, from an advanced sewing group I’m a member of, got me a new way to embroider using a tambour needle. I checked out a few videos and noted it was faster than the embroidery needles that I’m used too and they used that needle to do the same type of embroidery that I’ve been doing for years.

Of course, that got my attention since I love incorporating embroidery onto various items and so I’ll be learning a new way to embroider. I’ll mainly be using the tambour needle for beaded embroidery. I love adding beaded embroidery to various items, my favorite being clothing. I have a few pieces that are very intricate. The most tedious piece I have is a maxi gown made solely of beads. That took me over a year to complete.

Since I already love beaded embroidery, I did not purchase one item to see how I would like it, I bought everything I needed to make my transition to tambour embroidery as easy as possible. The tambour needle was the first purchase, because I can’t obviously do tambour embroidery without a tambour needle, right?

I also purchased a large hoop, like the one shown in the video. This is perfect for large beading projects.

However, I also wanted a much smaller embroidery hoop that I can use in my lap, and so early this morning, I ordered the small Lacis Tambour round frame. This will be perfect if I want to carry my project with me. I most likely would bring it when visiting the BF, at his home, and he’s watching something that I have no interest in, such as baseball. I don’t watch a lot of television. Days, weeks and months can go by before I turn on the TV. The BF is already fascinated with my knitting, so I’ll be interested to see what he thinks about my tambour embroidery.

I did not need to purchase beads, thread or the appropriate cloth since I already have plenty in my crafting supplies.

Take a look at the above video. Isn’t that amazing? I can do that with a simple beaded needle, but I’m still learning how to embroider with my tambour needle, so it’ll be some time before I develop the speed and accuracy needed to match what I can do with a simple embroidery needle.