Silver Seams

Doing things you shouldn't do on an embroidery machine

Mon, 22 Apr 2019

Iā€™ve been doing those things again.

Not things that might break the machine (probably!) but rather, ā€œthings that might be easier to do on a conventional machine,ā€ or ā€œthings the manufacturer really didnā€™t consider you doing and so the user interface kind of works against you.ā€ Those kinds of things.

An eyeless plush seal with a too-long neck.

Okay, some of them are things that just shouldnā€™t have been done, period. That seal patternā€¦ whoof. The first draft is rough.

A plush seal with a too-long neck and a too-short posterior. It's a mess.

I mean, eventually itā€™ll be fine, probably, but right nowā€¦ Iā€™m going to classify that one as ā€œthings that at least shouldnā€™t be tried within the constraints of a 4Ɨ4 hoop.ā€

And then thereā€™s ā€œthings that shouldnā€™t be sewn in that fabric.ā€ I begin to be of the opinion that nothing should be sewn in this fabric, actually. This dates back to a discovery in Designer (or maybe Decorator?) Fabric Warehouse, a short-lived place in Wichita that sold home dec fabrics and did custom upholstery and drapes, and was within walking distance of my house. (Dangerous, right?) Anyway, I grabbed a yard of interesting upholstery fabric that looked like a distressed/curly mohair but was a much more affordable synthetic.

A black, unfinished teddy bear head next to a snarl of yarn as big as it is.

See that snarl of fiber at the top? Thatā€™s what has shed from the cut edge of the yardage. Turns out itā€™s a plain weft, and the warp is an eyelash yarn. And itā€™s a silky synthetic (not even sure what) so it ravels if you breathe on it. Also, being nearly black it of course photographs really badly. The bear does have a muzzle, kind of a big one, but you canā€™t really make it out.

A top view of an unfinished teddy bear head.

Better? Yeah, not much. But hopefully you can tell that itā€™s a fairly large, nicely rounded bear head (or maybe rat, it never looks like much at this stage). And thatā€™s the important thing. I didnā€™t want to risk an actual mohair on this test, but itā€™s working: 100% of the sewing happened on the embroidery machine, and none of it involved matching curves or pinning things in the hoop or any particularly advanced techniques.

Itā€™s going to take a lot more testing, and maybe Iā€™ll just use muslin for awhile.

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