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Original text by Marina Belova 
I decided to make another double-sided applique: a pencil holder right in the hoop. The idea of making such a thing appealed to me. 

The idea itself did not belong to me, I just imitated something I've seen using an image of a suitable shape. It proved to be not an easy task, but then I stumbled upon this egg-shaped monkey: 

I had to modify the design so that it better suited my purposes. In the end, I got a design file with just 6321 stitches in it. 

I chose brown felt as the basis for my embroidery. It was rather thick, about 2 mm. Therefore, I found it inconvenient to trim it while in the hoop. So I created a paper template: 

By it, I made 2 felt cut-outs: for the right and the wrong side. 

Time to embroider now. I hoop the stabilizer. I'm accustomed to the middle-weight cut-away variety (because I have two 100 m rolls of it). But a tear-away one would be even better, for it will detach more easily around its edges.

I load a design file and hit the start button. First, the machine stitches a basting stitch that will show me where to put my cut-outs: 

I sprinkle the felt with the temporary spray adhesive and arrange the pieces however more carefully inside the contour: 

After that I switch on the machine and embroider the entire front side: 

Now we've come to the most interesting part of this simple project. I take the hoop off the machine and turn it to the wrong side. Then, I cut off a piece of ribbon for my eyelet and attach it to the wrong side of the embroidery with the most ordinary painter's tape. 

Observe the way I stick the upper end of the ribbon to the hoop in order to prevent it from loosening up or being accidentally stitched: 

Then I take the other piece of felt and attach it to the wrong side of the embroidery with the same adhesive: 

Having done that, I turn the hoop back into its original position, carefully (so that not to dislocate any of the details) insert it into the machine and embroider the border. 
After embroidery is completed, I unhoop the whole thing and take it out: 

Singe the leftover fibers of the stabilizer with a lighter. Mine is made of polyester, and therefore, burns well. Cut out the holes for my pencil in accordance with the marks: 

Insert the pencil and hang the thing on the wall or somewhere. Simple, isn't it? 
In retrospect, I can say for sure that it was the first time I used a ready template. Now I understand why an embroidered applique on cheap items usually turns out very untidy – too many steps, and, therefore, possibilities to make a mistake. Such as making of the templates, attaching them and, of course, digitizing. You lose control somewhere in between. But the making of the templates speeds up the embroidery process, especially if there is a laser cutting machine involved. 
Monkey applique free embroidery design download here
Original text by Marina Belova 
Today I've set out to do a simple yet in every way useful thing: a pincushion. It will allow me to kill two birds with one stone. No wait, even three: 
First, it will solve the problem of storing my needles and pins, which usually are all around the box where I keep sundries.  Second, I'll practice digitizing for knitwear.  Third, I'll practice embroidering on knitwear. 
The latter two may seem odd to some people, but I can assure you that they are nothing of the kind. Even my meager experience on the subject tell me that this fabric requires experience, skill, and knowledge of all relating digitizing and embroidery techniques. And how can you achieve those if not practicing? Theory is nothing without practice. 
This very simple image became the basis for my design: 

After digitizing it, I got this: 

This being an In-The-Hoop project, I thought that I could do without hooping the fabric and hooped only a tear-away stabilizer (size ~35-40): 

I start with embroidering the guideline: 

Then I put my fabric on top of it and sprinkle it with temporary spray adhesive (you'll see a bit later that it will hardly make it any good): 

I hit the start button and here comes a very nasty surprise that I should have expected from the very beginning – the distortion of the fabric, which now has ugly wrinkles: 

Those cannot be straightened out with washing and pressing: 

Well, nothing can be done here, as you see. When I turned the embroidery inside out I saw that this stabilizer wouldn't do as the needle cuts right through it around the edges of the satins, falls off and does not support anything anymore. 

Conclusion: use a cutaway stabilizer instead and be sure to hoop the knitwear. Furthermore, test the quality of the hooping, using the most common methods at the very least. 
Then hoop your fabric and try to lift it a bit: 

If you've succeeded, do the rehooping. 
Or even simpler: slide your finger across the fabric and see if any bumps will appear, like on the photo below. 

If there is one, the fabric is loose and you'll need to rehoop. 
At last, after several attempts of hooping my piece of knitwear together with the stabilizer, I got everything right: 

In the same photo, the hoop burn on knitwear is visible, which is not good either. But it does not matter in this particular case. 
Now it's time to use the machine. I embroider the front side of my pincushion: 

This time the result is much better. But it is still not good enough as there are gaps between the stitches in the flower. I should find out what went wrong at the digitizing stage. So I'll go and read some more literature on the subject of digitizing on knitwear. 
In any circumstances, I intend to finish this project. My next step will involve placing another piece of knitwear on top of the one already embroidered, to make the back side of my pincushion: 

I start the machine and embroider an open circle. 

Then I unhoop the embroidery and remove the stabilizer from its wrong side where possible: 

I cut the circle out of the fabric, leaving a margin: 

Turn it the right way round: 

The only thing left is to stuff it and then sew the hole up. 

The work is almost finished. The sequence is really simple. You can also attach an eyelet if you want to hang your pincushion on the wall. 
But the knitwear itself is tricky. 
Original text by Marina Belova 
I like to embroider items that don't need any sewing on the follow-up. The ones that come out of the hoop completely ready. Not so long ago I saw how to make a simple bag for the ordinary paper tissues and decided to do one myself. Make use of my designing skills, after all. The current season calls for paper tissues. 

I measured an ordinary pack: 

That gave me an idea for the item size and various details, such as interlocking flaps, so I chose a simple picture. For this, I used CorelDraw and here is what I got: 

When creating a design, I bore in mind the fabric type. I'd chosen fleece, for it does not fray and, therefore, doesn't require an edge finish. 

The next steps are simple, as are all truly great things. 
You print the templates for the details of your future item on paper: 

Cut them out: 

Sprinkle them with temporary spray adhesive and arrange them on the fabric: 

Now cut out the details: 

Hoop the stabilizer only: I used a middle-weight cut-away stabilizer as I'm going to embroider on fleece. 

Now load the design and embroider a guideline: 

Pick up the flaps, sprinkle them with temporary spray adhesive and arrange in the area outlined with the basting stitch with their right side up: 


Start your embroidery machine and stitch the details along the perimeter to attach them to the stabilizer: 

My fleece has rather high pile, so I covered it with a piece of thin water-soluble film: 

At this point, I realized that I made a little mistake while planning an embroidery sequence, and if I didn't turn the flap back, the roses in the upper part would stitch both flaps together. This is how I wiggled out of it: turned the fabric back (it appeared to be stretchy) and secured it with pins.
Here is what I got: 

Before embroidering the lower flap I took the pins out: 

And this is how the end result looks: 

After that I tore away the film, sprayed the other detail with adhesive and secured it on top of the one already embroidered with its wrong side up: 

I hit the start button and stitched the whole "sandwich" perimeter-wise: 

Unhooped the embroidery, tore away the stabilizer and removed the leftovers of the film: 

Turned the item the right side up and got a bag. The work is finished! 

After seeing the right side it became clear that the embroidery on the lower flap should have been placed higher. I can now put the tissues in my bag. 
In the nearest future, I intend to write an article about digitizing and embroidering on fleece. 
Original text by Marina Belova 
Today I'll describe how I made a double-sided appliqué. 
I decided to do it to test a third-party technique (see my article on the double-sided appliqué). I chose the most simple flower with five petals. I had an idea to put it in the corner of a piece of cloth so that the flower stretched beyond the basic fabric. 
I.e., I should get something like this: 

It is currently a popular place to put on an appliqué, and it is frequently used as an eyelet on a towel. Only my applique does not have a hole in it. 
I've already digitized this same flower. So I only slightly modified it, having added one more zig-zag for trimming of the extra fabric. 

Step 1 
I hooped only the tear-away stabilizer. I chose white threads in order to avoid changing a standard bobbin thread color. 

Step 2 
The machine stitched a basting stitch. 

Step 3 
I put a piece of fabric for the back side of my appliqué onto a stabilizer, face down. I started the machine and embroidered a narrow zig-zag stitch to which the excess fabric would be trimmed. 

Step 4 
I trimmed the extra fabric around my appliqué. 

Step 5 
On top of it, I put my basic fabric shaped as a triangle. 

And another layer on top of that – the front side of my appliqué. 

Step 6 
One more zig-zag was stitched, according to which I'd trim the upper layer of fabric. 

Step 7 
Now I trimmed the extra fabric.

Step 8 
I hit the start button to embroider the finishing satin border. 
Something went wrong almost immediately. Logic suggests that, since all my fabric pieces weren't hooped, I should have secured them somehow. The only quick way of doing that in my case was sprinkling them with temporary spray adhesive. But I neglected it. And I paid for this – the layers of fabric in my "sandwich" began to crumple and shift. I had to straighten them out, but it didn't help much. 
As a test piece it is still rather good: But now I know that I'd better not be lazy about it. You can see in the photo how the dark red fabric puckered. 

One more surprise popped up when satin columns were being embroidered on the stabilizer. Naturally, the stabilizer became perforated around its contours, but only sporadically. Most probably, this is related to the direction the fibers are arranged in the stabilizer. But perforation was not critical, and an appliqué was secured enough. 

Step 9 
The satin stitch border is now finished. I took the hoop off the machine and began to detach my appliqué from the stabilizer. Just press it slightly, and it will drop out. 

Step 10 
I turned the embroidery the wrong side out and removed the stabilizer from the appliqué on the back. 


This is how it looked in the end. 

After that, I've arrived at my own conclusions – not every stabilizer is good for this technique, so you have to choose carefully. And don't forget to additionally secure the layers of fabric with an adhesive. 
I used a simple tear-away stabilizer from Gunold. It turned out that the at this density value it becomes perforated, which was to be expected, and there were leftover fibers after it had been torn away. In other words, it behaves just like a cut-away stabilizer when you try to tear it. The edges become quite frayed, and this fact does not contribute to the good look of the embroidery. The only thing you can do is to singe them with a lighter, the way I did in my master-class on 3D Puff. 
Original text by Marina Belova 
I've always been interested (and hope that I ever will be) not only in conventional machine embroidery techniques but also in (as my Western colleagues call them) various "advanced" ones that help to enrich the look of the embroidery. 
About a year ago I've decided to experiment with fringe after having seen a free embroidery design on one of the websites abroad. It was a funny-looking lamb made with the use of the fringe embroidery. Moreover, I could never have guessed the way it was made unless I've seen it with my own eyes. See how good is to study other digitizers' work sometimes. So I set out to create something like that myself. But left it midway because of time shortage. 
My efforts resulted in this fluffy hare. Now I'm determined to somewhat enhance the technique that I'd seen by adding acrylic threads. So as to get a real good imitation of fur: 

This is how it looks from the side: 

Choosing the right density and stitch length turned out to be the problem. My hare's fur was not dense enough – you could see the fabric showing through. 
Today I decided to finish what I started. 
I chose a simple image so that not to embroider anything except satin stitches and running stitches for tie-offs. I downloaded one of the free images off the Internet: 

Of course, I don't have such a vibrant color. But I have a spool of Gunold black acrylic thread. Sure, it will make the fluffy thing a bit morose. But let's leave it as it is – Halloween’s nearing, right? I wouldn't buy the threads for the test project, would I? 
So, this is how I actually did it. I began digitizing a design from the bottom upward. My decision was driven by the fact that fur usually goes down. 
I digitized my fluffy animal with long satins stitches (10–12 mm) so that it would be easier to trim on the wrong side. Remembering the bald patches on the hare I embroidered in the past, I decided to add some underlay in order to make the fur thicker and opted for double zigzags. I set the density at 2.5 lines per 1 mm (it is the way the density is measured in the Stitch Era). 

I secured satins with running stitches (marked green) so that they didn't unwind after trimming: 

A bit higher I put one more satin column with the same settings. This new column (marked blue) slightly overlapped with the previous one: 

It, too, was secured with the running stitches (marked gray): 

In such a way, little by little, I got to the head of the fluffy thing. At the end of the sequence were the eyes digitized with an ordinary thread. Then, as an afterthought, I drew a manual underlay under the entire design just in case. 
The fluffy thing became rather unsightly. 

I proceeded to the embroidery. Inserted a #100 needle for the acrylic thread. There was much trouble with the tension — I got 3 or 4 "bird nests" and that sent me back to square one. Finally, I managed to find the right settings – no more "bird nests" or thread breakage. But to be on the safe side, I set the machine speed at 450 rpm. The design has a low number of stitches anyway, so it will be embroidered quickly. 
When embroidering the eyes it became clear that the density in the acrylic area was excessive; I was under the impression that the needle sunk repeatedly and that such density was too much for my machine. But none of my needles – and I only use #70 ones – broke. 
This is the look of the fluffy creature had after the embroidery: 

And here we come to the most complicated and responsible part, in which we need to cut the threads on the wrong side and pull the out to the front. 
This is the wrong side of the animal before trimming: 

One look at it made it clear to me that something should be done with my machine so that threads stopped breaking and"bird nests" would be no longer popping up. 
I made a cut exactly in the middle of a satin column as the bobbin thread was practically invisible. It didn't take me long, for the satins were wide and the scissors glided under them effortlessly. 

This is how the wrong side looked after the thread cutting: 

Now I could turn the embroidery the right side out and pull the threads to the front. 

And that proved to be extremely difficult. As the threads were thick, they wouldn't be pulled in bunches. Sometimes it came down to just 1 or 2 threads at a time so that not to rip anything. But in the end I got this cutie: 

Side look: 

It has a long thick fur without any bald spots. I even had to trim it in several places. 
So my summary on the subject is as follows: this technique is sure not for the work-shy. Too many manipulations. Digitizing is easy, though. 
Original text by Marina Belova 
A few days ago I remembered that St Valentines Day was ahead, so why not to invent something special for the occasion (I have already made an embroidered postcard). Though I have plenty of ideas, I settled on another project that doesn't involve a sewing machine. 
As the result, I got this bag for candies with a Velcro. With the candies properly tucked inside. 

Initially, I intended to make a heart with a zipper but abandoned this highly interesting option shortly after. The lack of an appropriately colored zipper was the reason. Therefore, I opted for a Velcro fastener instead. I should try it out, shouldn't I? 
Having measured the Velcro, I drew a very simple picture (very simple was exactly what I needed): 

Then I created 2 simple designs. One for the box itself. With its help I prepared 2 templates which would be then fastened with a Velcro: 

The second one was for the back side and holding all the details together: 

I chose fleece, a knitwear fabric, as a basis for my embroidery. I opted for it not only because it was of an appropriate color (pink), but also because this fabric was highly stretchy so it would be convenient for me to fill it with the sweets afterward. 
Time to proceed to the embroidery. I hoop the stabilizer: 

Load the first half of the design and stitch the guideline that will mark the position of our future embroidery: 

Then attach the first part of the Velcro with its adhesive side in. I secured it with a paper tape, like that: 

Put a piece of fleece on top on the Velcro: 

Started the machine, stitched the Velcro, secured the edge with a zig-zag, embroidered the first part of the front side of the heart and marked the place for the next detail: 

Now it's the time to position another piece along the key lines: 

Then stitch the fleece to the stabilizer. The basting stitch shows where the Velcro is going to be. I forgot to make a snapshot. But, in my opinion, everything is clear even without it, especially if you take a look at the picture containing the first part of the design. I attached the Velcro adhesive side up along the guideline and secured it with tape: 

Stitched it: 

Took out all the details, cut along the perimeter. These will be my templates for the next stage — sewing parts of the heart together. 
Hooped another piece of stabilizer: 

Loaded the second half of the design and marked the places where parts of the heart will be joined together: 

Took the hoop off the machine, turned it the wrong way out and secured a piece of fleece on the layout with temporary spray adhesive – this would be the back side of my box. The fabric should be face up: 

Carefully, so as not to shift the fabric from below,I inserted the hoop back into the machine. 

Time for attaching the front side of the heart bounded together with a Velcro fastener. Which is what I did: 

I started the machine and stitched the heart with the small-scale zig-zag along the perimeter. I was lucky and two zig-zags almost completely coincided. Usually, it is hard to position all the details on the layout and achieve a perfect fit:

Once again, take the hoop off and turn them the wrong side up: 

Trim the extra fabric near zig-zag: 

After that you can replace your bobbin thread with the one matching your upper thread in color: 

Insert the hoop back into the machine and embroider the finishing border: 

Detach the heart from the stabilizer. 

Then do the cleaning: remove the threads that stick out, also connectors, and singe the edges with the lighter so that to get rid of the protruding fibers. I haven't removed the stabilizer and left it as it is. Almost ready. 
Fill the heart with the sweets: 

After that, act according to the situation. 
As a result of my impromptu, I've come to the following conclusions: 
Don't stitch the Velcro with a finishing border — the result will be too dense. You can avoid it by using a smaller piece.  If you slightly change the sequence in the second part of the design, you can embroider the back side of the heart, too. In that case, it won't look so empty. 
This would also reduce the number of steps.  But, as they say, the first pancake is always a failure. 
Original text by Marina Belova 
Let me tell you how I made my first free-standing appliqué. I never had any reason to do such a thing, so, having perused several sources of information on the subject, I decided to give it a try. Curiosity, you know. 
It took me some time to choose a design, and in the end, I opted for a free one from one of the Western websites. I don't remember which one.
This is the original design: 

As I needed to create an insect, I settled on organza leftovers as a fabric for my appliqué. Gray for the back side of the wings and milk-white for the front. I thought it would make the appliqué look better. 
A separate 2-stage file was created for the wings. 
I outlined the wings with satin stitches of the constant width. 

Separated the wings from each other and placed them in a row so that it would be easy to cut the fabric near the border. 

I decided against satins in the areas covered with mosquito's body in order to avoid excessive density. In the original design, the wings were superimposed, and 2 layers of satin borders would result in a bump under the element on top of them. Therefore, in the lower part of the wings, I replaced them with running stitches. 
After that, I created the main file with the rest of the design: 

This is where the machine goes in. 
For the wings, I hooped 2 layers of organza without any stabilizer whatsoever. 

Embroidered them: 

Trimmed carefully along the satin border. I left a margin in the lower part of the wings that was to be covered with mosquito's body. I reasoned in this way: better to leave a margin and be sure that everything would be firmly attached. It could be carefully trimmed and the leftovers singed afterward: 

After that, I hooped my basic fabric and began to embroider the rest of the design. When digitizing, I placed all the background elements first in the line: 

This instantly showed me where to place the wings on a mosquito's body in order for them to be properly covered: a small empty wedge under the head. I tried to arrange the wings inside this wedge, securing them with pins. It would be much more convenient to attach them with the help of temporary spray adhesive, but it wouldn't hold organza in place. So I made do with what little I had: 

After that, the machine did a tacking stitch that attached the wings to the chosen place. Right after an appliqué was topped with an element that was supposed to cover its edges. I had to trim the organza margin, after all, to prevent it from sticking out. 
Then the embroidery proceeded to its end. 
Here's the mosquito I got as the result: It has some weak points, but overall looks impressive. Thanks to the wings, of course. 

The embroidery process when employing this technique is rather demanding and requires diligence. But the effect is worth it and, besides, it only takes 7500 stitches. 
 
Original text by Marina Belova 
As I wrote in my article about different types of appliqué in machine embroidery, there is a rare kind of appliqué covered with a low-density fill for the purpose of shading or saving of the stitches. 
The making process is rather simple, being an exact replica of the one of the traditional patched appliqué: 
First, you embroider an outline that will show where to place the appliqué fabric. Then the machine makes a stop and the hoop comes out for the fabric.  The appliqué fabric is secured with running stitches or zigzags. Then the machine makes a stop and the hoop comes out for trimming of the excessive fabric right in the hoop.  After trimming your embroider the fill on top of the appliqué fabric and the finishing border that covers the edge.  Digitizing is also simple and differs from the ordinary appliqué only in the creation of an additional fill:  First, we create an outline that will show where to place the fabric and digitize it with the running stitches (for economy reasons).  Then insert a stop and the hoop coming out for the fabric.  After that, we create an outline for the appliqué fabric.  Then insert a stop and the hoop coming out for trimming.  Now we add a low-density fill, through which the stitches will show. Remove about 30–50% of our standard density and also all of the underlay.  Having done that, we create a finishing column.  Everything is very simple and can be achieved in any embroidery editor. 
I've long scratched my head over the possible use of this technique, and the only thing I came with was creating flowers: 

Today it dawned on me, where I could use an appliqué of this kind, with the lightweight fill on top of it. It's rather obvious – such fills will be good for saving the stitches in big objects with gradients and also for reproducing color gradations with the help of two- and three-color gradients. 
So I immediately decided to embroider this helicopter to see how it works: 

As you can judge from the image, it only contains very simple shapes. But one wants to give zest to it. So I decided to replace the helicopter rotor with a button (pinched the idea from the Smartneedle designs). I put an appliqué on the background and filled the areas with density gradients in order to make the sole-colored fabric more interesting: 

This 13.1x10.5 cm design has about 8000 stitches, which is not much for the design of this size. 
In the end, it turns out that such a design doesn't require too much effort, but the result is quite good, especially if you bear in mind the fact that the fabric changes its look under different kinds of stitches (compare the windows and the cockpit). 
P.S. My husband says that helicopters do not have rotors in that place. But it's too late now. I'll just let it be. 
Original text by Marina Belova 
Yesterday I was embroidering a basket for the Easter egg on organza and, while creating a file, thinking if there were some digitizing peculiarities for this type of fabric or you could do the same as with other fabrics like calico or denim that don't pose any problems. 
In the end, I used the standard density and underlay settings. I didn't notice any embroidery defects except the yarn slippage inherent to this fabric. 

Today I set out to look up the recommendations for digitizing for organza. As usual in the machine embroidery field, there is an information shortage on the subject. That's notwithstanding the fact that the whole world and his wife embroiders on organza. This is a perfect fabric for the interior decoration, you know. 
Organza is a semitransparent plain weave fabric. It can be made of silk, polyester, nylon or blended, depending on the manufacturer. According to Deborah Jones and other machine embroidery masters, the fiber characteristics (their strongness and thickness) call for the careful choice of needles, simpler designs, looser upper thread tension and invisible stabilizer. 
Almost every recommendation I've found hold that a design for organza should be as simple as possible: no understitching except jumping stitches, and much less density. The reason for dropping an underlay is clear: it will be visible through the light finishing fill, which will, in turn, have a damaging effect on the look. 
That is, the embroidery should be very light and semitransparent; as for the "heavy" techniques, they should be replaced by the "lighter" ones, such as the use of sequins, sparkles, open-work, various types of appliqué, simple stitches, low-density satins with and without splits. To all appearance, it is necessary to avoid ruining the pliability of the fabric, reduce the level of pulling and also for economy reasons. 
But it turned out there are many examples of non-transparent and even multiple-colored embroidery on organza. This means that all you have to do is to test the digitized design and not be scared to experiment. 
General recommendations on light machine embroidery on organza: 
Needle — the thinner, the better (#65–75 is optimal). Needlepoint — sharp (K, R SPI). The choice depends on the type of organza.  The fabric should be hooped with extreme care so that not to skew the transverse or longitudinal fibers and to prevent the appearance of the loose stitches (see the photo below): 
The defects of this kind may be the result of turning the hoop screw too tight or pulling the organza in the hoop to optimize the tension. You can also wrap your hoop so that to avoid traces and to keep the fabric in the hoop. Read more about it here. 
Use either water soluble film or other water soluble stabilizer. Hoop it together with the organza if there is just one layer of it. In case there are multiple layers, you can drop the stabilizer.  Loosen the upper thread tension until you get 2/5 + 1/5 + 2/5 (upper/lower/upper) on the wrong side.  Thread – rayon or cotton one; they are the softest.  Density values should start at approximately 0.6–0.7 mm. But you should still do a test sample. I set the density at 0.44 mm, and nothing bad happened. But my basket maintains its shape thanks to the number of stitches.  The stitches shouldn't be longer than 5 mm.  Underlay should be removed, even on edges (the edge run).  Of course, you'll still have to test every design and select the parameters suitable for it alone. 
 
Original text by Marina Belova 
I got an idea of making a passport cover. Not a common one, with a thick satin border, but of a more elaborate kind, with all seams closed – like the ones made on a sewing machine. It all began when my daughter obtained a passport and bought a funny cover for it. The cover was clearly handmade, vivid color with a button. I turned it this way and that, feeling glad for the creator of this eye candy. Tonight it suddenly dawned on me how to make something like that on an embroidery machine, together with the embroidery. 
I got this as the result: 


The making process is very simple. Anyone who practices sewing can guess its structure. But let's begin with choosing of a design. Having measured the passport and left some fabric for the turn-ups, I dug up yet another free design on the Web and fitted it to the resulting pattern: 

As always, the embroidery sequence contains several stops. The first stitch outlines the future design, and the second one stitches the cover.
The line is not closed. I left an opening through which I'll later turn the cover the right side out. 
The number of the stitches in the design is not high – about 9000. In my step-by-step demonstration, I'll use the test sample (you can see the final variant in the photo above). 
The first step is to hoop the tear-away stabilizer: 

Then I load the design and stitch the outline: 

Place my fabric on top of the stabilizer, face up, and secure it with an adhesive. This is how the front side of the cover looks like: 

I start the machine and embroider the entire design as planned. After that, stop. 

This is where the things get interesting. I prepare the fabric for my eyelet. I chose a plain hair tie, the only elastic thing of the matching color I could find: 

Away with the metal thingy on the hair tie – I won't need it: 

I place the hair tie approximately in the middle of the embroidered side and secure it with paper painters tape: 

Time to add the flaps (or how are these things called), which will hold my passport. While preparing for the embroidery, I cut out 2 square pieces of fabric: 

I folded them in half and pressed them with an iron, face up: 

What I need to do now is to secure them with an adhesive on the front side of my cover: 

Add another layer of fabric, for the inner side, face down: 

Stitch this "sandwich" with a running stitch along the perimeter. Unhoop the whole thing and turn the wrong side out: 

Trim the extra fabric to the outline, which is the outermost stitch: Also, I cut the corners diagonally: 

I decided against removing the stabilizer because I thought it would help the cover to maintain its shape. Time to see how the result looks like.
This is the front side: 

This is the inner side: 

I sew up the opening by hand. Now I grasped how I should have done it. You can use the machine if you want. I sewed the button on, aligning it with the eyelet. 

Removed the jump stitches and ironed the embroidery: 

The cover is ready for the passport. 

This is how it looks like with the passport in it: 

Nevertheless, I didn't like the sample. So I decided to choose another fabric, add one more cm for the allowance and modify the pattern. 
The design didn't change much, but the embroidery became way easier: I added the marks for the flaps. See the small vertical ticks that mark their position: 

I align my flaps with them, and I also stitch them before the fabric for the inner side: 

The whole thing takes about an hour. But the result sure is cool enough. Find out how to make a cover for a school diary by using a similar technique. 
Original text by Marina Belova 
Sometimes I think that it is strange to even ask how to embroider on velvet, for everything seems to be obvious here. This is because I have some experience of the embroidery on velvet and can share these simple rules with you. 

The main (commonly recognized) rules of machine embroidery on velvet are as follows: 
No hooping: the hoop flattens the pile and leaves visible traces. Use only a magnetic hoop or an adhesive.  There are different kinds of adhesives. You can use an adhesive stabilizer with a sticky side covered with a protection layer; it doesn't need to be pressed to the fabric with an iron – Filmoplast, for example. I, for one, don't like Filmoplast – it is hard to remove. Especially if you embroider a big design and leave it for a while – in that case, the pile will come off with it. But it secures the fabric well. 
You can use an ordinary stabilizer, sprayed with temporary spray adhesive, and then stick the fabric to it. But with designs containing a large number of stitches you can only use this one at your own risk – the velvet will detach during the embroidery. 
I've seen lots of recommendations on choosing a stabilizer. Some write that a heavy-weight cut-away should be used for chevrons, and some – that a tear-away middleweight one. I think that the suggestion to use a cut-away looks strange here. I use a tear-away one. Or nothing at all if the velvet itself is thick and stable so that it can withstand hooping. 
There is also a very popular advice – to additionally secure the velvet already attached to the stabilizer with a basting stitch along the perimeter of the design. In my view, not every kind of velvet will endure the additional needle penetrations, and there will be leftovers after ripping the thread out. Better to test every time. 
The velvet should be covered with a water soluble stabilizer (film) so that the pile doesn't peek between the stitches. This film should be removed after the embroidery. This may prove not to be the easiest task. There are the designs with the small details, you know. And the velvet shouldn't get wet, so you'll quite busy with it.  Besides, there exist contradictory opinions on when to remove the film. Some people write that it should be removed after embroidering the underlay and before the finishing layer of stitches. But the majority insist upon waiting until the embroidery is completed. I'm with the latter, because, to me, the first option only complicates the design. Also, you won't stop the machine just to tear off the film, will you? 
Alternatively, a heat sensitive stabilizer is suggested in such cases, for instance, Thermogaze. That seems more than questionable to me, though. 
The embroidery threads may vary greatly in composition and thickness.  The most standard needles like R or SES should be used. Their thickness should correspond to the thickness of the threads.  Velvet fabric may vary in composition – you can find silk, cotton, rayon, polyester velvets and so on. Some of these are very stable, and some very stretchy (knitted velvet). In the case when velvet is secured on a sticky base and not hooped, it does not matter. But if you are going to hoop your velvet, then its stability is of a great importance. 
I think everybody knows that velvet is a piled fabric. The pile ranges from very short, almost invisible, to considerably high. I used to embroider on velvet with the pile about 5 mm high. Such velvet is very similar to the fake fur, yet it is velvet. 
Besides its height, the pile may vary in direction (nap). It is very easy to know if the pile has any – just slide your hand across it in several directions. 
How can this knowledge help or hinder you in machine embroidery? If you don't hoop your velvet but use the adhesive instead, it is no help. But if you do the hooping, it is very important to know how the pile is inclined. 
No, I didn't mention hooping by mistake. A long time ago I, too, was surprised by the possibility. But, as the experience has shown, it can be done. But instead of the hoop, where we don't have any influence over the character and direction of the pressure applied, use the frame, as on the industrial embroidery machines. That is, the one that has special clamps. The clamps should be fastened in the direction of the pile. In this case, the damage to the pile will be minimal (provided that you use a Tajima-like frame). Also, of course, you should add a piece of soft fabric for protection – flannel, for instance. Clamps leave traces, too, but they are much less visible than the ones from the usual hoop. Besides, if you have a good steam-generator with a brush, you can put everything right. Yes, it requires a great deal of experience, no argument here. Nevertheless, it is possible. 
Also, last year I encountered a cheap velvet, on which the hoop left no traces – what a pleasure it was to embroider. But to frame stretchy velvet instead of sticking it onto the paper is sheer agony. 
While I was writing, one more way of securing velvet sprang to my mind – pinning it onto the hooped water soluble film. One hell of a task. But can be used for extremely delicate velvets. 
There are no digitizing recommendations for the ordinary velvet except the following: 
Avoid small details, especially the ones embroidered with the running stitches – remember that you'll need to remove the film from under them. Besides, they will sink in the pile because of their size.  Avoid big areas filled with lots of stitches – there is no stability in sticking the velvet to the paper, it will begin to detach, and the embroidery will be distorted as the consequence. This means that we'll need to substitute the fills for something else, such as an applique, which, by the way, looks fantastic on velvet.  The underlay should be of the most ordinary kind, corresponding to the size of the elements and stitch lengths. And to the desired effect, of course. Although, I've frequently seen the recommendation to place at least zigzag under the finishing layer of satin stitches and the lattice under the fills. But if you use film on top of the pile, even the ordinary designs will look good on velvet without any strengthening layer.  The density of the finishing fills is also standard – 0.4–0.45 mm. The main thing is to prevent the fabric from peeking through. 
Original text by Marina Belova 
I've long wanted to raise a question of push compensation in theory and in practice but didn't get around to it until today. And last week I faced it head-on in connection with 3D Puff embroidery on baseball caps, so it would be utterly wrong to linger even more. 
Well, about a week ago I received an order for a cap with puffy. Sounds like nothing unusual. It's only the 3D Puff, I've embroidered designs with 3D Puff before. But now it turned out that all the knowledge I have about adding volume to the embroidery is good for the flat surfaces, and not for the rounded and flexible one like a baseball cap. 
I think it is common knowledge that the open ends of 3D Puff should, too, be penetrated by the needle (along the direction of the stitch). For this, you need to draw special "caps". Like the lavender ones in the photo below: 

Also, stitches in the upper layer, according to several push compensation theories, should be shortened by a certain number of mm or stitches.
See the example below (marked in the photo): 

In this case, I removed the commonly suggested 5–9 stitches (~1mm). 
I've always been confused by the fact that by using this technique we consciously create a non-penetrated segment on the open end, through which the puffy will undoubtedly peek: 

Reality shows that 3D Puff does indeed stick out, and there is nothing you can do about it: 

All this brings me to the upsetting conclusion: information that can be bought or read for free about digitizing for 3D Puff is not always correct and lacks many details for the fear of competition. 
Oh well, any theory is good enough so long as you are able to analyze it and expand on the subject after digitizing. 
In my opinion, according to the simplest laws of geometry, the aforementioned "caps" should have not one but at least three sides with lines of needle penetrations through 3D Puff, just in case. 
But to me, the question of shape is not the main one related to the 3D embroidery on caps. I'm much more concerned by what remains unsaid about pull compensation. 
Here's the example. In the photo below you can see one of the 3D elements with the canonical caps and shortening on the open edges in order to prevent the stitches from slipping off the edge and onto the cap surface. I painted the upper layer green so that to make it visible that I'd done everything according to the theory. That is, a capped corner + 1 mm off both edges: 

What should look perfect really looks like this: 

In the upper end the cap is insufficiently covered by the specified number of stitches, and at the lower end, they slip off the edge and onto the fabric. Starting and end points are to blame for that. In this case, I arranged them as follows: the starting point (green triangle) below and the end point (red triangle) above. 

That means that the stitches always slip at the beginning of the embroidery and stay in place at the end of it. And this repeats every time I embroider something. Even if it is something of an ordinary density. Though in the latter case it is less pronounced, because there is less push in the direction opposite to the one in which the embroidery goes. 
This contradicts all established theories on the push compensation, where an equal number of stitches should be spared on both ends. 
I even counted the stitches that had slipped off the caps at the beginning of the upper satin layer – there was always 10–15 of them. This means that I should lop off additional 1–1.5 mm from the upper layer's starting point. And on the contrary, to add some at the opposite end so that the cap didn't look so bare. This is how the upper layer should be constructed in order for the embroidery to look neat and clean: 

And not like this: 

At the same time, if I remove 2–2.5 mm from the cap inside, it will enlarge the are where there are no needle penetrations. This will cause the cap, in its conventional form, to stop working completely. 
The reality doesn't always conform to theoretical rules, at least my experience says so. 
Here is the list of possible reasons: 
I use the wrong settings while digitizing – density, for example – and, consequently, create faulty designs.  I don't stabilize properly.  My machine doesn't work quite the way the others do.  P.S. All 3D Puff embroidery theories work fine on a flat surface, at least this is my case. I consciously omit the method with the use of the parallel underlay, loved by many embroiderers, which makes design creation much easier, as it is not compatible with all fonts. It visibly distorts straight elements so that the letters begin to stretch diagonally and extend over the baseline. 
Original text by Marina Belova 
I've written on the subject of color blending in machine embroidery several times, covering the basic blending principles and also 2 methods of doing it. Today I'll add one more method to the aforementioned two. 
You can see the examples of this technique in the works of at least 2 famous embroidery persons: Bonnie Nielsen of Madeira and Niamh and her team embroidery. I like the ingenuity and the expressiveness of this color blending style, its devil-may-carishness, and chaotic nature. 
Its key point is to superimpose low-density layers of fill stitches (either flat or motif ones). The density, stitch direction, and texture of each layer may vary. And the most important thing – the design is not filled completely as it is custom in standard digitizing (from one outline to the other), but instead, the layers are put on top of each other in blots of a different shape. The next layer may or may not be of a different color or shade, they may all be of the same color, it's the density that creates the color depth. 
I.e. you should get something like in the case: 

In this case, not only the fabric but also its texture and color play an important role. All this is visible between the stitches and makes embroidery especially beautiful. I also like that registering of the outlines is not important here – it is a different digitizing style. 
Of course, it is not applicable to any kind of embroidery, but for the works in a modern style, it is rather good. This style bewitches me. And I understand that I cannot use just like that, but at the first sight, it looks easy enough. 
Original text by Marina Belova 
Several days ago I was thinking if there was a difference between machine embroidery on a net and on a loosely-woven fabric. Technically, both of these materials have enough of empty space for the design to have rather an unappealing look, because the stitches don't have much to hold on to. And the most important task is to achieve even borders instead of jagged ones. 
When you come to think of it, you can embroider on anything at all and still get good results. You just need some effort. That is, choose the right stitch parameters and meet all technical requirements. 
The technical requirements in our case are simple and widely covered in the variety of sources: 
Stabilizer under + stabilizer on top. Obviously, these fabrics being semitransparent, an ordinary tear-away or cut-away stabilizer isn't suitable for them. That being so, there are not many options left – either semitransparent spunbond (no-show mesh) or water-soluble stabilizers (among them even the adhesive ones with a protective layer, such as Filmoplast) or, as I have already mentioned in my article about embroidery on knitwear, a piece of organza of a matching color. You need to additionally secure this "sandwich" with a thin water soluble film on top and hoop it to prevent wrinkles.  You can use the threads of any thickness and structure.  Loosen the upper thread tension.  Use the most ordinary needles matching the threads and the fabric in thickness. Needlepoint – sharp.  Lower the speed a little so that not to pull the loosely woven yarns.  In my opinion, following these rules allows us to embroider almost any kind of design except the ones with a large number of stitches. The fabric is a very flexible thing, and it is better not to play with it. 
There are some special aspects of the machine embroidery on this kind of fabric: 
It goes without saying that you should pay close attention to the basis of the embroidery – the underlay. Debora Jones, for instance, advises applying 2 layers of underlay, consisting of the edge run and zigzags for satins and the lattice at 90° under the finishing fills. But if you want my opinion, I wouldn't be so keen on strengthening the fabric under the thin satin outlines – better to leave just one underlay of the two.  Use a standard stitch density. Don't increase or reduce it.  It makes good sense to increase the pull compensation a bit. For example, I set pull compensation at minimum 0.5 mm on each side of this mosquito, plus the artificial shape distortion (the outlines widening) mentioned here.  No extra-long stitches on these fabrics; the length should be limited to 3-4.5 mm. Anything longer than that should be split. 
Nevertheless, the amount of overlapping of the object and its outline (shape distortion + compensation) just barely avoided the appearance of gaps.  Based on this experience, I would exclude the running stitch outlines from the design and use only simplest fonts like Arial.  Also, the most important thing is to test everything.  I used organza as a stabilizer for my mosquito because a tear-away one would be visible through my fabric (it is like cross-stitch canvas, but not quite). On the right you can see the fabric with the stabilizer under it and on the left – without it: 

While in this photo there is organza on the right, and you cannot really tell which is which: 

I hooped the fabric together with the organza: 

And put a piece of water-soluble film on top: 

The ready embroidery: 

After that, I removed the film from the front and trimmed the organza along the perimeter. 

I am quite satisfied with the result, though it has been my first attempt at embroidery on this fabric and that I chose a design with borders and very thin outlines. 
Original text by Olga Milovanova

The word "puff" derives from the French verb "bouffer" – to puff up. Puffs are rows of pleats arranged in a certain way.

The fabric for them is gathered manually.
The puffs were especially popular in the 70s and 80s: so-called "waffles", a type of handmade puffs, were used then for dresses and blouses.

Nowadays we witness the second wave of popularity. Modern designers use this type of decoration in their collections. Puffs are becoming a fashionable detail of the clothes.


Thanks to the innovations, it became possible to make puffs and create embroidery designs with crashing on the embroidery machines. 
Brother Innov-is XV embroidery machine has an unusual library of designs with 3–5 mm stitches, which are repeated 3–5 times. 
These are crashing designs that imitate puffs. (Crashing effect is also called crinkle effect). 



Madeira Smoking thread is used for that. After washing and ironing the threads on the wrong side gather and create wrinkles on the fabric. 

These are what we can call «designs with crashing effect». 

Let's play around! 
Wind the Smocking thread on a spool, hoop the fabric, pick a crashing design from the library and start embroidering it. You won't need a stabilizer here. 
After unhooping, the embroidery looks just like usual. Iron it. Set your iron at the maximum temperature for your fabric type and gently slide across its wrong side. No pressing down! The thread will gather about 30%. 

The lighter is the fabric, the more pronounced will be the crashing effect. 
I used a ready shirt as a test sample. 

I aligned my future embroidery with the waistline. Framed the shirt, without a stabilizer, and embroidered it. 

Set an iron at "Cotton" and "heated" the embroidery through, from the wrong side. This resulted in a "crashing" effect. 


I decided that I wanted more volume and made changes to the sewing pattern. 
I cut the pattern for the back bodice along the princess line and the waistline. On the lower side of the back bodice, starting from the folding line, 5–10 cm were left for allowance. No allowance in the upper part; I cut it from the folding line. 

Gathered the fabric with the basting stitch along the waistline, and pinned the lower and upper sides face-to-face. Stitched the upper and the lower parts of the back bodice. 

Time to embroider! Frame the fabric so that the seam line runs parallel to the edge of the frame. Position the design in such a way that the design will cover the seam joining the two details. 


Stitch several times to make it more expressive. 

Unhoop the whole thing, iron it with a hot iron from the wrong side. The smocking thread will shrink 30%, gathering the fabric, and the allowance will add the volume. 

Now sew up the item. 

This is the ready item embroidered on the back. 

The experimenting continues )
Original text by Marina Belova 
I think that many people are familiar with origami — everybody I know had made paper fliers, pompoms, tulips, etc., in their childhood. Today I suggest to refresh our memory about this art and make the simplest possible box called "masu". 

Of course, the biggest attraction of this project for me is that I won't have to sew. I'll just embroider the fabric and make a three-dimensional figure out of it. 
So. I plan to embroider only 4 sides of the box. I drew this simple design and fitted it into a square: 

It is very easy to calculate the measurements of a square piece of fabric and the position of the embroidery on it using this formula: 
L=1.41х (S+2xH) 
Where L is a square side length  S is bottom length  H is the box height  Why the diagonal position of the embroidery? Because I folded the paper to create a box, marked the sides where I wanted my embroidery and unfolded it back again. Then I did a drawing in Corel, based on the proportions I calculated using a formula above. 
I digitized my drawing: 

Hooped the fabric together with the stabilizer: 

And embroidered the entire design: 

Two red stitches on the right and on the left of the ornament are parts of the borderline of my future square visible in the frame. Tacks mark the centers of the sides of my square. According to them I'll draw the required square and cut it out. I didn't tear away the stabilizer from the wrong side. It is necessary for making the fabric coarse. 
I extended the embroidered lines so that they formed a square: 

Cut the square out: 

Now it's time to make a box. I turn the fabric the wrong side up and fold it in two and then again to get proper creases. They will help me to make the box. 

This way: 

Then open the square up and fold the corners into the center: 

You'll get an envelope: 

After that I fold every edge into the center of the square and unfold them back again to make the sides of the box: 

Like this: 

Now it's time to assemble the box: For this, I need to unfold two corners diagonally: 

And then form the sides by folding vertically along the creases: 

This way: 

Now I fold the fabric in along the creases and also fold the corners into the center of the bottom the box: 


This is all, in a nutshell. The box is ready. It is harder to fold the fabric than paper but not impossible. Especially if you harden the fabric so as to make it coarse. 

I put a piece of ordinary cardboard on the bottom of the box to cover the edges of the fabric. But, in my opinion, it is possible to turn this into an advantage, too. Fox example, to embroider on the heavyweight fabric and harden it with the interfacing material and then finish the edges to prevent fraying. 
Original text by Marina Belova 
I'm giving a serious thought to creating cutwork on the embroidery machine. Once and for all I decided to work out the technique to the last detail and to learn all the secrets of cutting out the holes by hand. 
I've encountered this embroidery technique many times before. Even drew the designs for it in Corel Draw. Though I'm not an artist. Like the majority of designers that create their own embroidery designs, I've never thought how to make a drawing of such quality that it could be embroidered right away. To take into account all the slight and subtle differences (what should be done and what shouldn't), one must understand both the digitizing and the embroidery processes. Well... that's why the embroiderers offered some criticism of my designs. After all, the resulting look of the embroidery depends on the original idea a great deal. 
In my grandmother's coffers, I found a cutwork curtain, make in a free-motion embroidery technique. This machine made piece was created 40 or 50 years ago. 

The curtain has been washed and washed again many times but the embroidery is still there: nothing has frayed, nothing has worn away! I also want to point out that the embroidery on this particular piece is very delicate. Which cannot be said about machine embroidery designs created on a computer. Here's a typical design from one of the most popular Russian embroidery shops, Advanced Embroidery Designs. (Nota bene: you can also find a variety of such designs in our shop). 
Thin borders are not perhaps the best-looking but their main advantage is that nothing will fray or detach. Such items are not excessively thick, the embroidery is very soft and looks more delicate. 
Having seen all this once again, I decided to create my own design and achieve as thin bridges as possible. 
So I found 2 designs. A flapper for sachet: 

A rosette-shaped drink coaster: 

I digitized the first design, for the sachet with a flapper: 

After two unsatisfactory attempts and further corrections, I arrived at the conclusion that the density should be reduced to at least 0.7-0.8 mm and the number of running stitches under the bridges narrowed down to just 2. The bridges themselves should be made with two narrow zigzags running in the opposite directions. 
A special focus should be on the first part of the design which contains the first parallel underlay with very short stitches and small zigzag stitches over it. This is the basis for the embroidery. The stitches should interlink so that the bridges won't detach and the satin borders around the holes won't fall off. You need to plan your embroidery sequence so as to keep the number of trims to a minimum. 
An even greater attention should be paid to the choice of fabric. My first fabric was so battered with old age that it raveled out in my hands when I started to fiddle with it after the embroidery: 

In the end, I embroidered this design on a linen piece and then sewn the sachet. I showed the photo in my article about cutwork creation: 

I'll elaborate upon my second design because it turned out so much better than the first. Below is the preview of the ready design: 

I planned to embroider it not with a rayon or a polyester thread, but with a cotton one (~30–35 g). In my opinion, lustrous embroidery threads are not suitable for cutwork because they make it look like a cheap Chinese product. 
First, I hooped a heat-away stabilizer called Thermogaze from Gunold together with a piece of linen fabric. 

Hit the start button and stitched a double outline along the perimeter of the design: 

Right after that I added a small zigzag on top of it: 

I took the hoop off the machine – time to cut out the holes. Cutting out took as much time as the embroidery and didn't please me the slightest bit.
One hell of a task, not for the weak-nerved! In spite of all effort, I cut the stabilizer in several places: 

Then I inserted the hoop back into the machine and embroidered the rest in one go: 

This is the wrong side. It is rather neat. 

Then I trimmed the rosette along the perimeter. 

I now have little left to do – to remove the stabilizer. I put my rosette between two layers of paper: 

And then place a very hot iron (no steam!) on top of it: 

Wait for about 2 Tequilajazzz songs until Thermogaze will get darker. This is what I got on the wrong side:
 
Rumple and pull the embroidery to remove the stabilizer. Also, this will help you to test the embroidery for endurance and resistance to wear.
 
Here is the ready rosette: 

It has the most ordinary look, and the bridges are not as thin as I wanted. But neither are they the thick monsters from the other designs. I believe that if embroidered with the ordinary #40 threads the bridges would be much thinner. A very pleasant fact is that nothing shifts or comes apart. 
Why did I choose Thermogaze as a stabilizer instead of a water soluble film? Because it's much easy to use; the film would be very hard to wash away afterward. The only thing I like about embroidery on film – it is practically impossible to snip it with scissors when cutting out holes, which cannot be said about a heat-away stabilizer. 
My entire design had only 2 trims: the first one for cutting out holes and the second one for trimming after completion. This was not easy to achieve. Also, I had to rack my brains over joining the parts of the embroidery with the underlay so that it would keep it together after the embroidery. My only mistake was not enough reinforcement of the edges. Satin border, in my opinion, insufficient. You need more reinforcement along the perimeter, like in a festoon. I'll do that next time. 
Now I understand that the experienced pros of free-motion embroidery would make the best digitizers. They, too, try their best to avoid trims and plan the embroidery sequence right in the course of the embroidery. 
In general, I learned that there is no sacral knowledge behind this type of the design. A cutwork design can be created in any embroidery editor.
All the digitizing laws are just as relevant here. The only thing you need is to use your brains. 
Download the ready design here. 
Original text by Marina Belova 
An embroidery machine can do many interesting things besides the common embroidery. Not by itself, of course, but with the help of a person sitting at it. Nowadays there are many projects called Piece in the hoop. If asked to explain what it means, I would answer in that way: these are projects that allow getting a ready item or a semi-finished product without the use of the sewing machine. 
What you can do in such a way: 
Almost ready soft toys: you'll only have to stuff them and sew up the opening.  Eyelets of different shapes with double-sided appliqué for towels.  Various embroidered accessories that are sewn up right on the embroidery machine – smartphone cases, eyeglass cases and so on.  Semi-finished quilts. Both with the embroidery or not.  Could be many other things, for all I know. 
All of them, of course, are made in a proper sequence tailored to their individual purposes. You can easily find all the instructions on the Web.
The designs are necessarily digitized in a proper technique. 
I've long observed how the quilt on an embroidery machine is made. Today I, at last, decided to create a square with a very simple design myself.
In my opinion, quilt can be regarded as a type of appliqué, so why not to make it in the hoop? Especially if you dislike sewing as much as I do. 
Here's what I got as the result: 

a quilt square made on the embroidery machine
Below is the step-by-step guide. 
First, I created a simple design containing the running stitches only. About 1020 stitches in general. 

Design preview from the quilt editor 
I selected 5 different kinds of fabric and went with them to the machine. 
The first thing I did was to hoop a stabilizer. Not long ago I bought a 60 g/m Chinese perforated tear-away stabilizer. It is very soft, despite being rather dense. I decided to use it. 
Quilt: step 01 
The first thing I embroidered was an outline for my future quilt. I settled upon the black threads – so that everything would be visible. 

Quilt: step 02
Then I placed the basic fabric so that it completely covered the embroidered square. 

Quilt: step 03
After that I stitched my fabric along the perimeter so that it didn't shift, crease or fold. Perhaps I shouldn't have done it, I don't know. But I thought it would be right. 

Quilt: step 04 
Then I embroidered the upper ornately shaped border and also the first outline to which I'd fit my first piece of fabric. 

Quilt: step 05 
I picked up the fabric and placed it face down with its edge to the stitch: 

Quilt: step 06 
I started the machine and stitched this piece of fabric to the one that was already there: 

Quilt: step 07 
Now it was an interesting moment – I folded the fabric into the face: 

Quilt: step 08 
Then I embroidered one more stitch on top of everything, to which I would trim the extra blue fabric and with which I would align the next piece: 

Quilt: step 09 
I trimmed all the extra material: 

Quilt: step 10 
Put the next piece of fabric: 

Quilt: step 11 
Again and again, I stitched, folded, trimmed and added new pieces of fabric – until the embroidery was completed. 

Quilt: steps 12-25 
In the end, when everything had been stitched and folded, I decided to add one more black stitch along the perimeter of my square. Now I think it was unnecessary. The stabilizer is wrong, too – it shows through the fabric. I should have used a different one. Something like spunbond, I think, which wouldn't be visible through the fabric. You need to test every time, you know. 

This technique requires quite a lot of effort. But me having tried it suggested the following: I could add ornaments to the jointing edges to get something akin to crazy quilt. Must look interesting. Also, there are tons of patterns for this purpose on the internet. 
Original text by Marina Belova 
To be honest, I don't like to sew, despite the fact that I'm fairly tightly bound to the sewing industry. Therefore, I've long set my eyes on creating a freestanding double-sided appliqué where you don't have to sew anything and a ready item comes right off your machine. What's more, this item is embroidered on both sides. Last year I tried to create New Year trees using this technique but something went wrong. Now I'm ready to try again. 
This is the doorknob hanger I got as the result (the inscriptions say, accordingly, "Occupied" and "Vacant" — translator's note):
Side 1: 

Side 2: 

For avoidance of doubt, the two sides view of the embroidered design: 

Let me tell you about the making process. 
I started, of course, with choosing a design. I found these free smile-shaped oranges on the Web, added some letters and drew my doorknob hanger: Here is what I got: 

I created 2 embroidery sequences: First was the design itself. 

And second was the edge finishing (same as in the traditional appliqué): 

Now let's embroider. 
I hoop the basic fabric for my hanger with the stabilizer. I commonly use a cheap Chinese cut-away middleweight one — it works well. 

Embroider the main part of the design: 

Unhoop the whole thing (carefully!) and trim very close to the stitch that shows us the edges. 

Proceed to the second part of the embroidery. Hoop only the cut-away stabilizer. 

Put the pieces of fabric with their wrong sides facing each other and fix them with a temporary spray adhesive or an ordinary paper glue (we won't embroider them anymore, only finish their edges, so you can use the glue if you like). 

After that, I changed my standard bobbin thread for the upper thread specially winded on a bobbin. After all, my item has two faces, so it won't look good if one side of a thick satin column is embroidered with an ordinary white thread: 

I load the second part of my design to the machine and embroider the outline: 

Sprinkle the hooped stabilizer with the temporary spray adhesive and stick my semi-finished product onto it by either side so that it fit the hoop: 

Now I do an E-stitch that stitches my item to the stabilizer perimeter-wise: 

At this stage, you still have a possibility of adjusting the hoop if the stitch shifts. Because if it does, it is highly probable that the finishing border won't cover enough fabric, which will result in it falling off the item. For this reason, you need to carefully check everything and, in necessary, adjust the hoop. 
I embroidered the finishing border: 

Having embroidered the finishing border, I checked whether the fabric didn't fray and found that it did in a couple of places, in spite of all the hoop shifting. I've arrived at the conclusion that I was too skimp – the border would do better if it was a couple of mm wider (mine was only 4 mm).
Then indeed nothing will fray and the border won't detach from the fabric. Also, the black outline that I stitched for the purpose of trimming, is exposed. It had better be covered. 
So I created an additional embroidery sequence with a wider border and embroidered it right on top of the already existing ones. Just how much wider it was, you can see in the photo below: 


This is my hanger still in the hoop, front side: 

This is the wrong side: 

After that, I unhooped the item, thoroughly tore off the stabilizer, cut the ends of the tie-offs, and singed the leftover fibers sticking out of the satin edges with a lighter. And get this hanger as a result: 


All my efforts resulted in the following conclusions: 
Such an item is quite easy to make. The finishing border should not be less than 6 mm.  The letters didn't come out good enough but if I ever going to make a hanger in the future, I'll correct my mistakes.  Gradients painted along a straight line look very crude on round objects. I should master the technique of painting gradient along a curve. Or, I should have blended all 3 colors instead of 2. But this is another topic. 
Original text by Yelena Kraftwork 
The history of napkins goes back for centuries. People used them to clean their hands in the times when forks and spoons hadn't yet been invented. Napkins come in various shapes and sizes: rectangular, square, even round. Even the simplest napkin may become a nice decoration for your dinner table if you machine embroider it. This master-class will tell you how to embroider 4 napkins in one go. 

Embroidery on napkins Materials: 
Tearaway adhesive stabilizer  Embroidery threads  Machine embroidery design  Embroidery or sewing and embroidery machine  200*200 mm frame (or larger)  Four 300*300 mm napkins or pieces of fabric 
In this masterclass, I used a custom design from Brother Innov-is 1E sewing and embroidery machine's memory. You are welcome to choose any of embroidery designs from our shop. 
Embroidery on napkins The making process: 
Cut a piece of stabilizer slightly bigger than your hoop. On the adhesive side draw the central lines with a fabric marker. Put your napkins onto the stabilizer in accordance with the lines. 


Provided that you have a frame over 200*200 size, you can embroider all 4 of them in one go. 
Place the napkins onto the stabilizer and press them together with an iron. The temperature depends on your type of fabric. Hoop the stabilizer together with the napkins so that the center lines register perfectly. 



Choose your design and place it at the angle of 45° on all napkins. 


Embroider the designs. Finish the borders with rolled hems on your overlocker or in some other way. Now you have a set of embroidered napkins that can make your friends envy when you invite them for tea. 
 



Original text by Marina Belova 
I decided to embroider a postcard. I somehow don't have the mood for a Christmas postcard — perhaps, the reason is that I haven't found a proper design. But I stumbled upon a design for a Valentine's Day postcard instead. Here's a step-by-step report of me making it. 
This is how the drawing looked like after some manipulations over the size (the original image came from an open source): 

I settled upon 20.5x20.5 cm. 
Here is the design preview: 

It has altogether 7 colors: 6 for the hearts and the 7th for the stitch along the perimeter: I need this stitch because I'll trim to it. 
I set a low density: 0.7–0.9 mm. I also removed the underlay. All connector stitches between the segments and the outlines were hidden on the edges of the objects and were made with running stitches. The stitch length was no less than 3 mm. I drew the tie-offs manually on hearts and inserted them automatically on letters. You can see the result in the photo below. 
Naturally, I embroidered on paper. Read here on how to make a design for the embroidery on paper. 
I chose the handmade paper, not a heavyweight variety but with long fibers that can be seen with the naked eye. 

I chose the threads of the same thickness (#40) but of different structure: rayon, polyester, metallic. 
The first thing I did was to frame a cut-away stabilizer. 

Then I sprinkled it with temporary spray adhesive and stuck the paper to it: 

I must point out that this adhesive is bad for securing the paper on the paper. They unstuck practically right away. I thought of that in advance, therefore, the first thing in my embroidery sequence was an outline that stitched the base of my postcard to the interfacing material.
Having embroidered the squares, I trimmed the extra paper along the perimeter using scissors: 

Now I could embroider safely – nothing would shift. 
The design was embroidered rather quickly – hardly surprising as it only had 6105 stitches. The embroidery went well, the thread laid smooth, the paper didn't become perforated. 
This is the embroidery still in the hoop but (almost) without the connector stitches: 

After that I unhooped my semi-finished product and trimmed it along the outline: 

This is how the wrong side looks like: 

One should notice the tie-offs. If I wasn't lazy and drew them manually everywhere and not only on the hearts, the wrong side of my embroidery would be clean and I wouldn't need to cover it. But I decided to automatically insert tie-offs; the only thing I did was to increase the stitch length compared to the default one in my editor. 
In the photo above you can see the ugly knots almost everywhere in the letters, and these are not easy to get rid of. 
So the ready postcard looks like this: 

The only thing left is to glue some interesting-looking paper to the inside, write something and give as a present. 
Converters is a small but pleasant bonus from the embroidery software manufacturers. A converter is a small app that allows users to watch, scale and save machine embroidery files in a variety of formats. Besides the aforementioned functions, some of them have additional options.
For example, they allow you start/finish the embroidery designs, remove the short stitches and change colors. Some apps even have a simple in-built stitch editor.
Judging from the information on the official websites, all converters also include a stitch generator that is a part of their "older brothers" – machine embroidery editors. This feature enables the apps to recognize not only the machine embroidery files but also the native ones. That is, the converter is able to open an object file that was created in the embroidery editor by the same manufacturer. An inbuilt stitch generator will recount the stitches every time you make some changes.
Not all converters are alike. I use converters a lot because I often work with the ready files. Sometimes it is more convenient to use more than one. Looking back at my article on how to choose machine embroidery software I decided to write a review for every converter that can be downloaded and/or tried for free.
To make everything I said more clear, I suggest you consult these:
Download the trial version of the Wilcom TrueSizer converter here. Register and use the Ambassador on the official website.  Register and download My Editor on the official website or  Download a free trial version of MelcoSizer. Download TESViewer for free on the official website or  Register and download an old Coats EDV converter, My Editor analog with fewer possibilities. The last two are based on WingsXP.  In the table below you can see the parameters I used to compare converters. 

The conclusion offers itself when you look at the software capabilities. No explanation needed. A lesser known free MyEditor converter outshines all the others. Bravo. However, MelcoSizer comes a close second. 
Original text by Marina Belova 
I've long set my sights on mylar (wrapping film used for presents) as a possible material for machine embroidery. The manufacturers in Europe and the USA have been producing the machine embroidery variety for ages, but where I live only the wrapping film can be found, or, as a last resort, you can turn to the old kids' balloons filled with helium. 
The film, of course, is not a durable material, so you hardly can use it for clothes. But it will be good for the items that don't require washing and pressing with a hot iron, for instance, bags or embroidered postcards. It is said that you cannot have the film dry-cleaned, but it can endure 10–20 washing cycles. On the other hand, this film comes in all kinds of colors and ornaments, and it also has a shine, which is its undeniable advantage. 
This is a spring tree with birds that I created today, but, unfortunately, it is hard to capture that shine with my camera: 

The most important thing is, this film is very easy to use. It can be used as an appliqué, topped with low-density fills, through which the shine is visible. 
The design digitizing is even more simple than for the traditional patched appliqué because you don't need to do any trimming; the films tear off easily along the line of needle penetrations: 
First, create an outline where the film should be.  Then, create the rest of the design.  Settings recommendations are very similar to the ones for machine embroidery on paper: low density, the use of motifs, removing short stitches and so on. 
I'll show you how to do it, using my own attempt as an example. 
I hoop the fabric together with the stabilizer: 

Stitch the outline: 

Put the film on top of it. I have sprinkled mine slightly with a temporary spray adhesive to prevent it from slipping and creasing at the very beginning: 

Then embroidered the entire design. The film, as I found out, can be torn off even along the running stitch line: 

But it is better to tear it off along the satin stitch line. The rest can be removed with pincers, which is not difficult: 

The most important thing is to keep an eye on the embroidery so that the folds on the film do not appear, otherwise, you'll get a ribbing under the fills. You cannot spot it in the photo, and that's why I don't show it, but in reality, it is very much visible. 
Before my second attempt, I decided to iron my already wrinkled film to smooth it – mine is of a simple wrapping variety, remember? It turned out that you can smooth it a little. I set my iron at the most delicate regime and used a thin piece of cloth for protection. The result was splendid. 
I used the most ordinary SES needle, but a thin one – #70. The threads were both rayon and polyester, the most standard #40. 
Such are the secrets of working with this film. 
Original text by Marina Belova 
Yesterday I was writing an article about the embroidery on paper and remembered an old video on YouTube that described the embroidery on toilet paper. My American colleagues regard embroidery on the rolls of toilet paper as a joke gift or a gag. And they also match the designs to the various dates and holidays so that it did well. 
And not only Americans! Last year (or was it the one before last?) on Textillegprom you could see an embroidered roll of toilet paper on the
Amaya exhibition stand, which was demonstrated to everybody who was interested. Like Amaya was the only paper on which this stunt was possible. 
I'll show you my own attempt at that step by step. 
For this, may I say, intimate item, I chose the design carefully. This is the one I settled upon (naturally, it came from an open source): 

Then I picked up a roll of the ordinary cheap toilet paper: 

Checked the size of one section to fix upon a size of the design: 


Having done that, I created a simple design containing only satins: 

I set the stitch density at 3 lines per mm (In Stitch Era), used no underlay and tried to avoid jump stitches between the segments. The stitch density value depends on the quality of the paper, I guess. 
Anyone can create a design like that in no time. 
Let's go to the machine. 
Hoop a cut-away stabilizer only: 

Find a center of the section of the paper and mark it with a dot – this will be the starting point. I decided to embroider not the first, but the second section so that I could later roll it properly. 
Then I took a temporary spray adhesive, sprinkled my stabilizer and stuck the paper onto it, trying not to skew it. 

I started the machine and began embroidering. 

The embroidery is ready! Sure thing, in only has 770 stitches: 

I unhoop the embroidery and carefully so that not to ruin the paper trim the extra stabilizer from the wrong side: 

In the photo below you can see the result of my efforts: 

I didn't fold the paper in several layers, like my American colleagues do, but decided to embroider on just one layer. And everything went well. As a gag gift to someone, it will do. Not everybody will be glad to receive such a present, but you know who will, don't you? 
Original text by Marina Belova
Synthetic satin (polyester or acetate) is for some reason considered a rather tricky fabric, prone for puckering and other embroidery distortions, the one that does not tolerate any mistakes. So I decided to check if that was indeed so and why: to me, the fabric seems quite stable and not likely to present any problems. Except that it is very smooth and able to slip out of the hoop; there also can be hoop marks, like on silk or organza.
But first, let's see some general recommendations on working with this fabric:
When choosing the image or digitizing the design you should not forget to lower the density (0.45–0.5 mm would be OK). Understitching should be kept to a minimum. Although, in you ask my opinion, sparing the underlay seems strange for such a slippery fabric. Satin and filling stitches should not be over 3–4 mm in length. It is important to stick to the embroidery sequence (from the center onward). In order to avoid gaps, filled objects should be embroidered in one direction and not in multiple crossing ones. Read more about it in my article about digitizing complex shapes. The fabric should be hooped together with the stabilizer, trying to keep their contact to a minimum; also, don't forget to wrap the hoop in the fabric or paper prior to that. The stabilizer should be of a tear-away middleweight variety. Or, you can use an adhesive stabilizer like Filmoplast + an additional tear-away stabilizer under the hoop to avoid hooping the satin. Any kind of threads can be used, but everyone seems to prefer rayon. Needles should correspond in thickness to the thread and the fabric. SES light and round needlepoint is preferable. I created a flower design and embroidered it on the satin. The result, in my eyes, is very good:

That is, despite the rather dense fill, all puckering and distortion were easily removed with an iron. There was no hoop burn whatsoever on any of these satin pieces. A slightly visible ring on the fabric was easily ironed out in both cases:


I probably didn't problems with this because I usually wrap the smaller ring of the hoop in order to prevent the fabric from slipping. About this and other little things that make hooping more easy and efficient, read my article called "Hooping minutiae".
The only embroidery defect I saw was shifting of the fibers along the perimeter (which is not a rare occurrence). The embroidery being dense, this defect is visible, but it doesn't bother me:

I also want to point out that the design of a lower stitch density, embroidered on the same fabric, puckered as well. But, again, it is not a big problem and can be removed by washing and ironing:

I think, this fabric is nothing to be afraid of. I used the ordinary threads and #70-75 needles with SES needlepoint present on my machine. And one layer of 40 g tear-away stabilizer. But I added temporary spray adhesive because I thought that my fabric, a very fluid one, needed it. I didn't use any additional fabric or paper between the rings, and the front side of the satin touched the hoop.
I digitized the design as usual, except lowering the density in the fills. The resulting density was 15–20% lower than the default one in my embroidery editor. And it is usually set at 5 lines per mm (~ 0.4 mm). To prevent the fabric showing through the stitches, I added density to the underlay.
The bottom line is, the more I embroider on different fabrics, the more intuitive I get considering both the digitizing and embroidery processes.

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