Trying something new

Today I decided to try something new. I have an embroidery machine and had purchased "Edge to Edge Quilting on Your Embroidery Machine" by Amelie Scott. It sat on my shelf unused. Today I decided it was time to give it a try. I knew of another quilter that had used it successfully so why not give it a try.

I started by reading the instructions. I know, the coward's way. The author gives a detailed description of what you need to do and includes tips for success. It was quite informative and well worth the time spent.

The first thing one has to do is create templates from cloth or tearaway stabilizer. I chose to use stabilizer. There 2 stitch files for each design. You make a template for each of them. Basically, the 2 files are the same design rotated 180 degrees from each other. The field are used to stitch alternate columns. but I'm getting ahead of myself here.

The quilt is stitched in columns. The most complicated thing to do is to figure out how many columns are needed and therefore where the first one will be placed. It will be somewhere near the middle but not exactly depending on your measurements. Again, the instructions are quite thorough in explaining how to do the calculation.

You also need to determine how many times the file will get stitched in a column. Following the instructions, I found I would need between 4 and 5 for each column. I chose to stitch 4 full files and then skip stitches on the fifth hooping to just stitch the amount I needed plus a little off the side.

At the speed I have my embroidery machine set, each hooping stitches out in about 3 minutes. The time spent to rehab is significantly more but gets faster with practice. A lap quilt measuring about 55" x 55" is going to require a total of 45 hoopings. The total time will probably be between 10 and 12 hours. That seems like quite a long time but the resulting stitching is comparable to that from a longer for a fraction of the cost.

I would recommend this technique to anyone with an embroidery machine and quilt tops waiting to be quilted. Just start with something not too big and follow the instructions provided with the designs.