… for the trees. That’s sort of the way I feel right now, after finishing the machine embroidery of some lovely Christmas trees; now I need to figure out how I want to set them into a quilt — the “forest”. 😉 These trees were inspired by a quilt my friend Phyl and I saw last February, so I bought the designs from Kreations by Kara.
The next challenge was how to use metallic thread for some of the embroidery. I’d used Floriani metallic before for some free-motion quilting, and it was trouble-free. However, for some reason it kept kinking and then snapping and breaking when I tried to embroider. After trying everything suggested by the embroidery gurus at my local shop, Quiltique, without success, I finally began to think that the problem lay in how the thread was feeding from the spool. Pulling it from the top of the spool, either on a horizontal spool pin, a vertical one placed on the floor, or on the vertical one from the multi-spool holder seemed to have the same results: kinking and breaking. Logically, it looked like the thread needed to feed straight across from the spool to the tension, but it needed to feed sort of the same way a vacuum cleaner’s roll-up hose feeds from its mount. Phyl came up with a workable solution: wind the metallic onto a bobbin and feed that directly to the tension from a vertical pin. The only downside to that is that I had to guess how much thread I’d need so as not to waste too much or run out mid-tree. But someone else had apparently also run into this problem in the past and created a little tool that does exactly what’s needed: this spool pin adapter! This is a plastic tool, so some care is involved in not over tightening the screws and breaking them, but it works like a charm. Yay!
So now my trees are finished, and I’m pondering my layout with some sashing fabric I think will work. Stay tuned for the “forest”!
12 thoughts on “Can’t see the forest …”
The trees are beautiful. I am so jealous because you will finish your quilt long before I even start to embroider my tree blocks. I have my fabric and I purchased 8 colors of Floriani metallic thread, so I am glad that the spool holder attachment I found solved your thread problems.
Thanks, Phyl — and thanks so much for your help in resolving the thread problem! You saved me from becoming bald as I yanked out my hair in frustration. 🙂
When I took a class from Floriani a while ago they told us to always turn our metallic spools upside down on the thread stand and we wouldn’t have any trouble. I don’t know if you tried that but it is what they recommended. Your trees are very pretty.
Thanks, Ellen, but I did try that. Maybe it works sometimes, but it didn’t this time. :S
Trees look wonderful, and I’ll look forward to seeing how you set them into a quilt!
Thanks, Peggy — I will too! 😉
Way to go Sandy. Love the black background really makes the trees stand out. What beautiful designs very envious. As to the thread my go to choice for metallics is a brand called Isacord, made in Germany. I always put a net around the spool (1000m spools) use a metallic or topstitch needle and thread the bobbin with Brother bobbin thread for embroidery. This thread, Isacord, is also brilliant for hand embroidery, just tried my hand at Hardanger. What’s the plan for the quilt design? can’t wait to see.
Thanks, Suzanne. Quiltique has stopped carrying Isacord metallic thread; they said too many people had too many problems with metallics. The Floriani is lovely stuff, and their poly embroidery thread is gorgeous, with a beautiful sheen. I can get poly Isacord at the quilt shop, and I can get Floriani at a sewing machine shop nearby.
I don’t yet know what the quilt design plan will be, but I’m thinking …. 😉
Just talked to a friend who does a lot of machine embroidery. Her advice was to thread the metallic thread through a sewing needle before threading the machine, then’ here comes the magic’ pass it through a piece of polystyrene, then continue to thread the machine. Keep the polystyrene on the thread all the while you are using it. No-one knows why this works but it does, apparently she had this from an embroidery Yahoo group.
Where do people find these little nuggets of useful facts????
Wow! That certainly sounds interesting! And you leave the thread in both needles and the polystyrene? Amazing!
Sorry, Sandy. After you have threaded the metallic through the polystyrene you take it out of the sewing needle and thread machine as usual. Jackie has a floor stand for her spools of thread, another handy hubby, and leaves the small piece of ‘poly’ on the thread before it enters the machine. Hope that makes sense. She assures me that it works, which I do believe as she does ‘try-outs’ for machine embroidery designers. The ‘poly’ pieces are the little bows or ‘peanuts that are used for packaging.
Jackie uses Mediera (sp???) thread and Isacord.
Off to bed after midnight here, hope that helps
Thanks, Suzanne! That does help — I really wondered at leaving the sewing needle on the thread. LOL!