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Embroidery

Date Posted: 17 November 2020

Aside from thread breakage, design registration (outlines that don’t line up) is the issue that is most commonly asked about. This article will give you a tried and proven solution to what is an easily fixed problem, but there are some things that need to be addressed first. For example, a b...

 

Over the years I have heard many common myths or fallacies about machine embroidery. These ideas are perpetuated in classes and especially on the internet. Here are 20 popular misconceptions and their corresponding truths. Myth 1—I need to know how to sew to use an embroidery machine Reality ...

 

Embroidery looked so easy during your demo. The sales person popped in a swatch of fabric, punched a few buttons, changed the thread a couple of times and there was a perfect design. Now you’re sitting in your sewing room facing your newly unboxed machine wondering where to start. Or maybe you’ve ha...

 

Metallic thread is one of those things we "love to hate." We love the look of metallic thread but it can sometimes be frustrating to embroider with. I'll share some tips and tricks I've learned over the years to get great results. These tips work with any thread and most are just plain good "best pr...

 

Imagine machine embroidery as a jigsaw puzzle. When assembling a jigsaw puzzle, the easiest way to start is by finding and piecing together the edges and corners because they are the most identifiable pieces. Then you gradually begin fitting in the middle pieces. With machine embroidery, it's pre...

Have you ever had unwanted bobbin thread showing up in your design? It’s like an uninvited guest at a party - it really can spoil the moment! One of the most read articles in our last bulletin was about the Towa Digital Tension Gauge , which is not surprising given the importance of setting t...

Date Posted: 2 September 2020

HOW DOES IT WORK? We’re all familiar with fluorescent dyes like those used in highlighter pens. These dyes look bright because they take in light of a variety of colours and then transmit it back as a single colour. For example, a green highlighter’s ink absorbs the white light which hits it and ...

 

Is it 'stabiliser'? Or 'backing'? What are these mysterious words that haunt all embroiderers? Which word is correct? Truth is, they are both correct. A stabilizer or backing is fundamental to good machine embroidery but what type of backing should you use out of the literally hundreds available. Th...

 

The purpose of this article is not to cover the entire science of how thread is manufactured along with the details of every potential embroidery thread available. Instead, I'll give you a brief overview of how to select and use common embroidery threads. Here are the two most basic criteria when...

 

Are you experiencing puckering or poor registration? Review these topics before faulting the digitizer! Both digitizing and embroidery are precision processes and each is impacted by a number of factors. Truly perfect embroidery – where every stitch is perfectly tensioned and placed and the em...

  Date Posted: 7 July 2020

My grandchildren love to draw and when 5 year old Peyton drew this little masterpiece I couldn’t resist turning it into a unique embroidery that is now hanging on her bedroom wall. It’s such a cute original drawing...and who doesn’t believe unicorns? They are almost as magical as the Brother My ...

Can I turn a photo into embroidery? This is the single most popular question we've been asked since embroidery software first became available to home hobbyists in the mid-1990's. The answer has always been, 'Well, yes but not really that successfully'... that is, until Brother created their indu...

 

What is compensation? The action of machine tensions when applying stitches to fabric causes distortion during sewing. Stitches are "pulled" in causing a shortening effect when the stitch direction reverses. Conversely, stitches are "pushed" out along their length. Note, however, that these are n...

 

Density is the distance between individual stitches in a satin column or rows of stitches in a fill. The closer the rows are to each other, the more dense an area of stitches is. How is density measured? There are two primary ways that embroidery and digitizing systems measure density. One mea...

 

First of all, what exactly is underlay? Underlay is the skeleton of an embroidery design; stitches that are laid down before the upper decorative stitches. Just as the bones of your skeleton provide support for your body, so does underlay support a design. Underlay is the foundation of a design and ...

Date Posted: 1 July 2019

It helps if you first understand how it works! No one enjoys dealing with thread breaks and often the embroidery thread itself is unfairly blamed. Granted there are some cheap and nasty threads available, but there are also a host of excellent brands like Hemingworth, which of course has the bene...