Sewing Tips & Tricks: Machine Embroidery

From time to time, we will be sharing different sewing and crafting tips and tricks here on the blog. Today's project is all about embroidery. If you are into the nitty-gritty details, this post is for you! Read to the bottom of the post as I will be posting all of the details of this project.

My two daughters are in a local competitive dance team. Last year, I designed a quick graphic in Adobe Illustrator CC to be placed over a team photo, and the dance instructor liked it so much that she asked if they could use it as their official logo. I was over the moon excited!

A few weeks later, when we were ordering warm up jackets for their upcoming competition season, I was asked if I'd be interested in embroidering the logo I designed onto all 17 jackets. I said yes! After all, I had a brand new, AMAZING machine at my disposal... the Baby Lock Unity!

I had my friend, Kent Simmons, over at the studio one night and he digitized my logo using Designer's Gallery MasterWorks III.  I had never used this software before so I wanted someone here with prior experience to help me with it. After sitting down alongside him, I quickly realized that the software is actually really easy to use. I saved my logo as a JPG and we imported it into the program. We were able to choose the style of stitches for each portion of the design, the size of the finished design and thread colors, etc.

After we were happy with the look of the digitized logo, we saved it onto a flash drive and brought it over to the Baby Lock Unity for a trial run. Not bad for the first time, eh?

Then the fun (or should I say, work?) really began! The 17 blank jackets were delivered at the studio and over a period of a few weeks (we weren't running the machine full time) we embroidered one after another. The logo has a little over 32,000 stitches, so even running at full speed, it took about an hour for each jacket to embroider (not counting the time for hooping the jacket, thread color changes and removing stabilizers at the end). This is what we started with:

We had a few minor hiccups here and there, and 100% were user error. But I have to say that the amazing customer service at Baby Lock got me through it without a hitch. If you're ever in a bind, just call 800-313-4110 and they will help you out! One time, I had forgotten to switch to a full bobbin before beginning to stitch a new jacket. Of course, the bobbin thread ran out halfway through the job and I had to remove the hoop in order to replace the bobbin. As scared as I was, the Baby Lock rep calmly talked me through the whole process and everything turned out fine.

Another time, I began to experience a few thread breaks, which became more and more frequent as the job continued. When I got to stitching the pink portion, I noticed right away that the bobbin thread was showing through to the top. I consulted my Unity manual and quickly found out that it was due to loose tension on my bobbin case. I called my trusty rep again, and she told me I needed to switch to the "alternate bobbin case" (what? I didn't even now there was such a thing!) Again, calmly, she talked me through where to find the case, how to remove the existing case and replace it with the new one, and back up the stitches enough so that it would cover up the goofed up part. The jacket turned out beautiful and you would never guess there was any bobbin thread showing through to the top.

When all was said & done, this was the outcome, and I couldn't be happier. There are 16 little girls (and 1 dance instructor) with some pretty amazing-looking jackets!

Now, for the nitty-gritty details:

• Design software: Adobe Illustrator CC
• Digitizing software: Designer's Gallery MasterWorks III
• Embroidery Machine: Baby Lock Unity
• Embroidery Thread: Madeira Rayon Thread 1001 (white) and 1110 (medium rose)
• Bobbin Thread: Clear Glide Poly Class 15 Pre-Wound Bobbins (I used 1 bobbin per jacket)
• Top Stabilizer: Hydro Melt Water Soluble Embroidery Topping by Baby Lock
• Bottom Stabilizers: 2.0 oz. Cut-Away Soft Medium Embroidery Stabilizer and 1.8 oz Tear-Away Heavy embroider Stabilizer, both by Baby Lock

Tips & Tricks:

• If you are embroidering on a finished product (jackets, dresses, towels, etc.) always test out your embroidery design on a scrap of fabric before moving on to the finished product. We found out that one of our letters hadn't digitized properly so we had to quickly go back to the digitizing software to fix the issue. We were thankful to have caught this error before we started the jackets.
• The order in which we placed our items on the hoop is as follows: 1 layer of Tear-Away Stabilizer, 1 layer of Cut-Away Stabilizer, Jacket (right side up), 1 layer of Wash-Away (Solvy). After embroidery is complete, you can remove the Solvy by hand and any spots that don't tear out easily, you can spritz with a little water and it will dissolve away. On the inside, you can easily tear the edges off the tear-away stabilizer, but don't try to tear if it doesn't want to tear easily... you don't want the threads to bust. Lastly, use embroidery scissors to cut your Cut-Away stabilizer about 1/4" to 1/2" away from the outer edges of the embroidery... be careful not to cut through your finished piece!
• Always start each project with a full bobbin, unless you know for a fact you can get 2 or more from each bobbin. You want to avoid changing bobbin thread in the middle of your job (believe me!).
• If doing multiple pieces, like we did, change out your machine's needle after 2 or 3 projects to avoid any issues with dull needles.
• Use high quality threads. We love Madeira!
• Keep your machine's manual handy. You'll be surprised at how much you can troubleshoot on your own just by looking it up on there!

A few of our "tiny dancers" taking a snack break between routines:

I would like to thank Baby Lock and Madeira for your incredible products and amazing support through this whole process, my friend Kent Simmons, for lending his time and expertise, and last but not least, Jesica Schreiber at Victory Academy Elite Dance Company for trusting me with these jackets. This was quite the experience!!

Winners, a Flash SALE and New Product reveal!


Thank you all for your sweet comments on our newest PDF pattern, the Holly Jumper Dress. I read each and every one of the 96 comments that came in and was pleased to see how many of you already owned a MODKID pattern or a copy of my book and just were hesitant to try PDFs. There were also a few comments from folks who came from the PDF industry, but had never tried a MODKID pattern before. Regardless, there were so many great comments that we couldn't choose winners ourselves, so we left it up to chance. We used Random.org to choose 3 winners, and the results were:

Comment #32:

Kelly Smith3:28 PM

I love PDF patterns. I am horrible about losing my patterns, but I always make sure my PDFs are backed up in many places. I haven't tried any of your yet, but I love the Holly dress. This will be the first spring/summer that my girl has been walking so I can't wait to make her some cute dresses.

Comment #35:

Angela4:40 PM

I have some of your paper patterns, but haven't yet bought one of your PDF patterns. Holly is a gorgeous girl's dress and I would so love to,win it :-)

Comment #77:
Gorby family blog9:53 PM

I love that Holly goes up to a size 10. My oldest daughter doesn't get many handmades anymore since so many patterns stop at size 8. It's a beautiful dress and I'd love to make one for her!

Congrats to all the winners!! Please take a look at our PDF pattern offerings on our Etsy store, and email us your choice at info (at) modkidboutique (dot) com, so we can get it to you right away. 

Since so many of you commented that you had not yet tried one of our PDF patterns, we thought we'd make it a little easier on you and give you a 20% off code to use in the next 24 hours... use code TRYMODKID2 to receive 20% off you entire order on our Etsy store! This code is only valid on our Etsy store and is not valid on our website for paper patterns or books. It expires Friday, May 3rd at 12 noon CST.

While I have you all here, I also wanted to talk a little about what's been going on in the design front. As some of you might now, I am a licensed designer for Silhouette America, designing shapes to use on their Cameo machine, which die cuts on paper, vinyl, fabric and other surfaces. Well... true story: I had designer's block recently. It happens to the best of us, I've been told, haha. I didn't upload any new shapes to my Silhouette shop for about 2 weeks because I just couldn't come up with anything new to draw. I needed to draw something that just felt... well.. me. Do you know what I mean?

I dug deep and deeper and then I had an A-HA moment. I thought, why not go back to my roots and draw up my favorite things? What are my favorite things?? Well, I seem to have an almost unhealthy obsession with mid-century modern chairs. I own a couple at home and drool every time I see one at a local auction house. So, I drew up some shapes based on my favorite mod chairs...

Then, I looked around my house and found my other obsession... vintage cameras! I own probably 2 or 3 dozen of these beauties and they are sprinkled all over my house and studio. I just adore looking at them...

Finally, I thought, why stop there? Let's draw everything retro and vintage! haha

Anyway, you can find my new retro and vintage shapes, along with the rest of my Silhouette Shape Collection, HERE.

Wondering what's going on in the fabric front? Well, we are busy getting ready for the International Quilt Market, which this Spring happens to take place in one of my favorite cities in the whole wide world, Portland, OR! This is a special Market for me because I feel I've come full circle. The first Market I ever attended, 5 years ago, was in Portland, and here I am, 5 years later and 12 fabric collections in. I am not ready to completely show you my new fabric collection, but how about a little sneak peek? OK...

That's it. Not giving any more hints! Stay tuned for a full reveal... soon! :)

Do you CAMEO®?

I am so thrilled to share with you this new design venture I am embarking on. This past Summer I attended the CHA Show (Craft & Hobby Association) in Chicago and I met with so many lovely folks. One of them worked for Silhouette and after showing me how their amazing Cameo® machine worked and taking a look at my portfolio (which I conveniently brought on my iPad), urged me to submit some designs for their contributing artist program. I also had dinner with a couple of lovely designers who had nothing but great things to say about this company. So, fast-forward a couple of months and I am now the newest licensed designer at Silhouette! I'm sure you'll recognize some classic Patty shapes in my artist page:



If you're not familiar with Silhouette or the Cameo, here's a bit of info for you (directly from their website):

The Silhouette CAMEO® is an electronic cutting tool for personal use. Like a home printer, it plugs into your PC or Mac® with a simple USB cable. However, instead of printing it uses a small blade to cut paper, cardstock, vinyl, fabric and more up to 12" wide and 10 feet long. The machine also boasts a quiet motor and the ability to register and cut printed materials. 

The Cameo can be used to make Scrapbook pages, Cards, Custom apparel, Vinyl décor, Etched glass, Sketch designs, Temporary tattoos and Paper crafts.

The designs I have currently available on the Silhouette site are all "regular cut" which means that they are SVG files to be used with their software and printed on their machine. They are scalable, meaning you can scale them to any size you need, and editable, which means you can modify them (move elements around on a layout) to fit your needs.

My dear friend Char from Crap I've Made used three of my designs to make some adorable shirts for her kids and friends. In her words, "I made some t-shirts using some stencil vinyl and the Silhouette fabric ink and then I tried one with freezer paper and the Silhouette fabric ink.  They turned out pretty darn awesome, if I do say so myself." I couldn't agree more!!



Here are some close-ups of all three:







Eeeek! I want one now!

More designs will be popping up every week, so bookmark my page and check often! If you guys out there make any fun projects using my shapes, please send me some photos (email to info AT modkidboutique DOT com) and I will be sure to share them here.