Alignment and Placement – Eileen's Machine Embroidery Blog

Archive of ‘Alignment and Placement’ category

Crucial Embroidery Placement with Success!

May 11, 2016 by eileenroche / Alignment and Placement, Current Posts, Eileen Roche, Embroidery Techniques, Embroidery Tips, Planning Embroidery / 8 Comments

Often placement is crucial to embroidery success and little bit of planning will make your embroidery look professional. I recommend printing templates of your design so you can see it in actual size. Once the template is printed, audition it on the garment. In this case, it’s a small flower for a collar point.

Take your time with the placement and try different positions. It’s helpful to use a digital camera (or your phone!) to take a photograph of the placement. Every time you move the template take another photograph.

Do this a couple of times and then review the images on the camera. You’ll quickly know which one is the most pleasing. Tape the template to the collar. Spray the wrong side of the collar with temporary adhesive.

Hoop stabilizer (tear-away, cut-away or wash away depending on your fabric and design). To achieve perfect placement, use PAL, the Perfect Alignment Laser. Place the hoop on a flat surface and turn on PAL. Align the beams with the horizontal and vertical markings on the hoop.

Slip the collar over the stabilizer aligning the template’s crosshair with the beams. Finger press the collar to the stabilizer. For added security, you can always add tape to the edges.

Carefully transport and attach the hoop to the machine, retrieve the design and verify the needle is perfectly aligned with the template’s crosshair. Remove the template and embroider the design.

Using a template, camera and laser ensures a professional finish on your embroidery. What tools do you use when placement is crucial?

Splitting Designs in Perfect Embroidery Pro

December 26, 2015 by eileenroche / Alignment and Placement, Current Posts, Digitizing, Eileen Roche, Embroidery Techniques, Embroidery Tips, Perfect Embroidery Pro / 3 Comments

If you love jumbo designs but don’t have a jumbo hoop, you can easily split a design in Inspirations’ Perfect Embroidery Pro. Follow along with me to learn how.

Open a new file in Perfect Embroidery Pro. Click on the Monogram tool and select Mono17. Type in the letter P. Change the height to 6” and click Apply.

Select the design on the screen and click on the Split Design icon.

The Split Design screen appears. Click on the arrow in the Hoop field and select your hoop. I entered 130×180. The red boxes illustrate two hoopings: 1:1 and 2:1. You can move the boxes to select what portion of the design you want to stitch in the first and second hoop. It’s a good idea to move the boxes to split the design at a natural point. In this instance, where the upper right of the P meets the left leg of the P. Click on Split Preview to see the actually split.

The first hooping appears in the preview window.

When you click in the second hooping area, the preview window changes to the second hooping.

Toggle between the first and second hooping to view each individually. If you want to adjust the split, click on Split Preview again. Move the boxes around each portion of the design. Click on Split Preview again to see you changes.

Once you’re satisfied with the split, click Save and the software will save the design into two separate files and templates of both portions.

Print a template of each design and send the designs to your machine. Splitting designs has never been easier. Give it a try, this is a skill you’ll use over and over again!

Fabric Too Short for the Hoop?

December 23, 2015 by eileenroche / Alignment and Placement, Continuous Embroidery, Current Posts, Eileen Roche, Embroidery Techniques, Embroidery Tips / 10 Comments

Don’t you hate it when the fabric doesn’t fit in the hoop? Recently, I was stitching a faced scallop border on my embroidery machine and the fabric was about 3” too short to fit in the hoop. I find that so frustrating! I didn’t want to waste more fabric so I cut a 3” piece of adhesive water soluble stabilizer then removed 1 ½” of the protective paper. I pressed my fabric strip to the sticky surface. Presto! The fabric strip fit into the embroidery frame and I didn’t have to fill the hoop with fabric or stabilizer.

Stitching a faced scalloped hem on the embroidery machine is no different than stitching one on a sewing machine. It’s still a running stitch and doesn’t require stabilizer behind the stitches. The difference is the scallops are perfect when you leave the measuring and stitching to the digital precision of an embroidery machine. It works for all kinds of projects: towels, totes, quilts and garments. And now you know how to fill the hoop even if your fabric is too small!

Merry Christmas to you and your family!

Multi-Needle Monday: Embroidering Multiple Towels

June 29, 2015 by Marie Zinno / Alignment and Placement, Current Posts, Guest Blog, Marie Zinno, Multi-Needle, Planning Embroidery / 7 Comments

If you follow this blog I would assume many of you own the multi-needle embroidery machine because you have an embroidery business. Although some owners of a multi-needle machine use it primarily for the convenience of thread color changes and durability and do not have a commercial embroidery business. In either case, you will encounter embroidering towels at some point. We have covered proper hooping of towels in recent blogs but not simple logo placement on multiple towels.

One of my clients is a country club tennis team and they love the quality velour team towels (hand towel size) in a variety of colors. My most recent order was for 20 towels with the logo embroidered on the bottom portion of the towel.

Monogram or logo placement on towels with a woven border is actually easier because you have a straight reference point to align the design. Embroidering towels without a woven border are rather difficult because there is not a reference point to guide you. I will share with you my simple steps to embroidering towels with perfect design placement.

Step 1: Select the embroidery design and test stitch it on a similar weight towel. Check the design for stray fibers of terry cloth poking through the stitches. If this is the case, increase the density or add “under lay” foundation stitches.

Step 2: Use the Perfect Placement Kit- Hand Towel Without Border template and position the template on the hand towel at the bottom center mark. Fold the towel in half lengthwise and place a target sticker at the bottom fold.Insert the target sticker in the center hole of the template. Remove the template and follow the same directions for the remaining towels, keep all target stickers in place until the cross hair on target sticker is properly placed under the needle.Using the template minimizes the guess work of the actual placement of the logo and eliminates wasting time measuring the embroidery location for each towel.

Step 3: Hoop the hand towel in either a standard hoop or Monster Snap Hoop (my favorite) along with tear away stabilizer. Position the hoop on the machine and line up target sticker’s cross hair with the needle. Remove the target sticker and add a piece of water soluble stabilizer to the top of the towel. Use the basting file to hold the WSS in place. (You can create a basting file in software if your embroidery machine does not offer it on screen.). Embroider the towels; remove stabilizer and trim thread tails when embroidery is complete.

*Machine embroidery business owners always purchase one or two extra sets of hoops per embroidery machine. Having multiple hoops speeds up the hooping process and total time devoted to set up.*

Click here to use a $10 coupon to use on my Craftsy Class “How to Start a Machine Embroidery Business”.

http://www.craftsy.com/ext/MarieZinno_4963_D

Embroidering for Small and Plus Size Figures

April 22, 2015 by eileenroche / Alignment and Placement, Clothing, Current Posts, Eileen Roche, Embroidery Techniques, Embroidery Tips, Planning Embroidery, Wildcard Wednesday / 172 Comments

In my first attempts at embroidering a blank garment for a small child, I must admit I struggled. I often made the design too large for the small figure and it always landed in the wrong place. Oh, it looked great when the garment was flat but when worn, it was an entirely different story. The design usually hit closer to the belly button than up near the neckline. And a good portion of a left chest embroidery pretty much always wound up in the armpit. Once the Children’s Perfect Placement Kit was available, I was saved. I just rely on that handy tool to get the embroidery in the right scale and location for young ones.

At the other end of the scale, embroidering for plus size figures gave me the same trouble. So what’s my problem? Familiarity. I know what works on a garment that fits a person about my size, give or take a few sizes up or down the scale. But adding a left chest logo to say a man’s XXXL shirt, is not something I do every day. So finding the right location is difficult. I was relieved when the Embroiderer’s Big Helper was released. Everyone deserves to look their best when wearing embroidered garments and it’s up to embroiderers to make sure they do. After all, it’s the stitchers who set the look. The common man (those poor souls who don’t stitch) don’t know any better. They need to be led, steered in the right direction when it comes to embroidered garb. After all, they are a walking advertisement for your skills. So help them look their best – use the Embroiderer’s Big Helper when stitching on plus size shirts.

Let me show you how easy it to use.

Fuse Sulky’s Soft N Sheer Plus to the wrong side of the design area. Use enough to fill the hoop – you can trim the excess after stitching.

Place the shirt on a flat work surface. Align the Helper’s straight edge with the center of the placket and position the curved cutout at the neckline. Align a target sticker to the corresponding size notch.

Remove the Helper and stitch the design.

Remove the shirt from the hoop. Turn the garment inside out and place it on a terrycloth towel on a pressing surface. Press the stabilizer. Once it’s heated, gently lift it away from the shirt and trim away the excess leaving about ½” stabilizer around the design. Press again to fuse it back to the garment.

Present the shirt to the lucky recipient!

Here’s your assignment this week:

Every sewing studio runs more smoothly with embroidery essentials. For today’s blog, Eileen reached for Sulky’s Soft N Sheer Plus to complete the garment. What’s your favorite go-to Sulky product?

Post a comment and one very lucky winner is going to score BIG courtesy of our friends at Sulky! Prize includes:

8” roll of Tear Easy
8” roll of Solvy
8” roll of Soft ‘n Sheer
1 can of KK 2000
A set of 12 Rayon Threads

The retail value is approximately: $105

The winner of last week’s assignment answered the following question:

Which approach do you most identify with? Are you the experienced machine embroider that begins a new quilt like Eileen or a more novice embroider like Denise who used the quilt designs to finish existing projects? Post your comments and one random winner will be selected to win Windmill Garden Quilts designs. And the winner is: Beth R. – “I am more of a novice type – plus I have plenty of existing projects to finish!”

Multi-Needle Monday: Text Tools at Your Fingertips

April 13, 2015 by Marie Zinno / Alignment and Placement, Current Posts, Embroidery Techniques, Embroidery Tips, Guest Blog, Monograms, Multi-Needle, Uncategorized / 0 comment

One of my favorite features about my multi-needle machine (Enterprise or Entrepreneur) is the touch screen text tools. As an embroidery business owner I wear a lot of hats; marketing, finance, designer, and operator so if I can save a little time to stitch a name on a hat back or the sleeve of a coaches shirt I am elated. Using the programmed fonts and editing tools to accomplish this task makes professional looking lettering at your fingertips.

Convert horizontal text into vertical text.

There are a handful of occasions when a vertical name is needed such as: bat bags, locker bags and a length of a sleeve. This is how I create the vertical text on my 10 needle embroidery machine.

Step1. Select the lettering icon on the main screen and type in the word “Coach”. Generally the vertical name or word would be all caps.

Select the Array icon and diagonal choice.

Step2.Select and hold the lower bottom bold diagonal line. The letters will move from a diagonal into a perfect vertical line. Touch close and embroider the text. Size and spacing can still be adjusted as needed.

Array Text

Select the horizontal line icon and the arch icon. There are many different ways to position the text with the array keys. The arch feature is the perfect tool to use if you add a name to the back of a baseball hat. You can easily squeeze the letters to fit around the opening.

Slice Tool

This feature separates each letter in a line of text.

Type in the name or text needed and select “Spacing” icon. Touch the picture of a knife and you will notice the knife moving between each letter in the word.

Use the “select” key to highlight a letter to be re-sized or moved if needed. Touch edit end and embroider the text.

Learn more helpful machine embroidery business information by taking my Craftsy class : How to Start an Embroidery Business by Marie Zinno.

Click the link to save $10 on this class.

https://www.craftsy.com/ext/MarieZinno_4963_D

Multi-Needle Monday! Roulette Table Cover!

February 16, 2015 by Marie Zinno / Alignment and Placement, Guest Blog, Lettering, Monograms / 24 Comments

If you are using your multi-needle embroidery machine for a hobby or as a business, I’m sure you have some interesting and unique requests. Through my ten years as a commercial embroidery business owner I have had my share—believe me!

Recently one of the interior decorators that I embroider for asked me to meet their client who had remodeled his living room into a small casino room. The man was widowed and decided to change his formal living room (which he never sat in during his 25 years in the home) into a real casino room; complete with a regulation size roulette table!

The roulette table has an unusual shape and the table cover was customized to fit in one direction. One end of the table is narrower than the opposite end; therefore after playing and replacing the table cover (which is 15 feet long) it was difficult to know which end would fit properly. The client suggested I embroider a monogram on the one end of the cover and then he could easily tell how to replace it on the table. Easy enough!

Yikes….the table cost thousands of dollars and the custom cover was hundreds as well. The fabric was a medium weight vinyl and he wanted a six inch tall monogram in gold metallic thread. We decided on the font (Old English) and placement which I carefully marked with masking tape while still on the roulette table. I also took photographs with my phone so I could easily envision the layout when I returned to my workroom.

Steps to success:

I used PAL2 to precisely plan the embroidery layout. In my workroom, I placed the cover on the floor and attached the PAL2 to a small table at one end. I used masking tape (not painters tape because it would not stick to the vinyl) I did not want to use pins or chalk. I measured the distance from the edge seam; which we decided while on location and checked for accuracy.
The best hoop for this heavy fabric was the 8”x 8” Snap Hoop Monster. I was concerned about marks from the frame so I placed foam wrap on the bottom of the frame on top of the magnets. I used medium weight cut away stabilizer. I attached the hoop to the machine and placed the bulk of the table cover on a chair to ease the movement of the hoop.

The metallic thread was placed on my counter, not on the spool rack, in a small mesh container I use for other notions. I have read many different tricks to working with metallic thread but this trick works for me 99% of the time. (Wish I had those odds when playing on a roulette table!)
I slowed the speed of the embroidery machine down to 700rpm and embroidered the monogram without a hitch!

As a business owner, it is not wise to play “embroidery roulette” on such custom items because of the risks involved. This is no time to “learn” or “experiment” on the job – the costs are very high. I try to steer clear of embroidering on items that I do not supply but I was confident that I had the most amazing tools, embroidery technology and experience. When you’re in a similar situation consider your experience and the risks involved.

My client was thrilled when we placed the cover on the table and he now enjoys taking the cover off and replacing.

A New Year’s Gift

December 31, 2014 by eileenroche / Alignment and Placement, Continuous Embroidery, Eileen Roche, Embroidery Techniques, Quilting, shortE, Uncategorized / 118 Comments

If you’re like me, you might be experiencing a reprieve now that the holiday season is over. My shopping, decorating, wrapping, cooking and cleaning are done and yesterday, I finally had time to give myself a gift I’ve been longing for: the time to finish my quilt, Sun-kissed, on my embroidery machine!

The thought of finishing that pretty, sun-splashed quilt has gotten me through many household chores, magazine deadlines, blog posts and more. I’ve been saving this task for a block of time that I could devote to quilting it properly. I wanted to audition several different designs on it and take my time in making the decision. You see, I feel in love with this little quilt during the piecing process. I worked on it last summer during a sad time in my life and those bright colors and modern prints kept me going. They helped me focus, pray for better days and hope for a bright future. I don’t normally get emotionally attached to projects I’ve made (well, maybe a little) but this one was different. Some tasks come to us for a purpose we never intended. This was one of them.

First, I auditioned the Chandelier designs that come with the purchase of shortE. I thought they would be perfect but after careful consideration, I was concerned the geometric pattern of the Chandelier repeats would compete with Sun-kissed’s strong graphic pattern. Sun-kissed called for softer quilting designs – something fluid but more interesting than plain stipple. I rummaged through my design stash and found one I had previously sketched and digitized. Happy Flowers are big and small loopy flowers that run in a continuous line of stitches and align easily from hoop to hoop. Perfect!

I took a few steps to get ready for the actual quilting:

Fill several bobbins with my thread of choice: polyester white embroidery thread and thread the machine
Print a template(s) of Happy Flowers on Print & Stick Target Paper (gee, how did I live without that stuff all these years?)
Turn on the machine, retrieve the design and attach the bottom frame on Snap-Hoop Monster to the machine
Load Sun-kissed on the shortE
Position the Sun-kissed template on the upper right corner of the quilt (the first hooping on all shortE quilts)
Center the top right corner of the quilt in the hoop

Stitch the first design, and the second and the third…Oh my gosh, it was so much fun. It’s such a rewarding experience to see the first half of the quilt come to life. I love this process; I call it ‘working the quilt’: filling the hoop, aligning the designs and advancing down the quilt.

In future posts, I’ll share some secrets to success on making this process smooth, like what to do when you get this frown:

I wish each of you a happy and healthy New Year!

Here’s your assignment this week:

If you had a day all to yourself to spend on a project, what would it be? Leave a comment and one lucky winner will receive an autographed copy of my latest book, Today’s Crazy Quilting with Your Embroidery Machine (to be released January 2, 2015).

Last week’s winner answered the question, “What memories do you have that you could convert to stitches?” Elizabeth is the winner of a copy of Calligraphy Project Designer with her comment: My dear friend and I are in recovery together. I would love to put together a wall-hanging celebrating our sisterhood. Congrats, Elizabeth!

It’s Sew Easy TV: Monograms for Men

October 9, 2014 by eileenroche / Alignment and Placement, Clothing, Eileen Roche, Embroidery Techniques, Lettering, Monograms, Quick Gifts, Wearables / 39 Comments

On October 10, log onto http://www.ItsSewEasyTV.com and watch me show you how to make any men’s garment distinctive and personal by adding a monogram in episode 703. The key work is discretion to assure great results. I’ll discuss the variety of types and shapes available for monograming, and show how to perfectly position the garment in the hoop before you start to embroider. Then, I’ll create the monogram on the screen of the Quattro® 3 NV6750D by selecting the font from the built-in lettering and resizing and moving the letters. Check out how to use the snowman sticker to assure the pocket flap is perfectly positioned.

Materials

Men’s shirts
Adhesive tear-away stabilizer
Perfect Placement Kit
Perfect Alignment Laser

If there’s one word to describe monogramming on menswear, it’s discreet; discreet in size and contrast. Now don’t go by my samples – my samples are done for photography – highly contrasting so you can see them well on camera. But when stitched for someone to actually wear, a discreet monogram is the one most gentlemen will be comfortable wearing. You have several choices when it comes to placing the monogram. Some very popular choices are on the pocket, above the pocket, or on the pocket flap if there is one, on the left cuff, inside the placket between the second and third button or on the placket at the bottom, just below the last button on the top placket and just for identification purposes: inside the collar. There are countless ways to arrange the letters but I’ve focused on three versions of the three-letter monogram. The traditional diamond shape: first name initial, last name initial and middle name initial. The two outer letters are proportionally smaller than the middle letter. The standard order: first, middle and last initial – all the same size. On the pocket flap, go for a contemporary approach with the first initial stacked over the middle initial. This ‘tower’ of letters is equal in size to the last initial. Take this approach when the garment is a casual shirt like flannel, worn every day. Let’s take a look at how you do it.

Pocket Flap

Find the vertical center of the flap. Place a target sticker just right of the edge of the flap. Hoop sticky stabilizer and place the hoop under the Perfect Alignment Laser. Turn on the laser and center the hoop under the laser. Position the flap on the sticky stabilizer. Smooth the flap on the stabilizer making sure the shirt is not caught under the flap. Support the weight of the shirt while transporting the hoop to the machine. Attach the hoop on the machine and verify the needle is centered over the target sticker. Remove the sticker and embroider the monogram.

Cuff

Button the left cuff and place it on a flat surface. Place the Perfect Placement Kit Cuff template on the cuff, aligning the fold with the template fold line and the topstitching line with the topstitching. Slide a target sticker under the template – use A for sizes small and medium and B for Large and extra-large. Cuff Unbutton the sleeve and pull the sleeve inside out. Hoop adhesive stabilizer and center the hoop under the Perfect Alignment Laser. Slide the cuff under the beam, aligning the crosshairs. Attach the hoop to the machine and embroider the monogram. These small precise monograms take under three minutes to stitch – you could do a whole closetful in an afternoon!

Here’s your assignment this week:

What is your most prized monogram project? Tell us your favorite and one comment will be chosen to receive a $25 gift certificate to spend on the DIME website. Thank you for reading and good luck!

Gift-Card

The winner of last week’s assignment is:

What foot do you have that you wish you knew how to use? Post a comment to let us know! One comment will be chosen at random to receive a $25 shopping spree on the Designs in Machine Embroidery website!

And the winners is..Barbara. “Gee, I wish I knew where to start! Between my sewing machine and serger, there are so many adventures afoot that I can’t begin to choose! How about the ones that came with the last update?”

Multi-Needle Monday – Centering on Quick-Snap

September 15, 2014 by eileenroche / Alignment and Placement, Multi-Needle / 8 Comments

Recently, my Stitching Sister, Marie Zinno, showed me how she quickly centers an item on Quick-Snap. Since the Jnaome, Baby Lock or Brother multi-needle machines do not recognize Quick-Snap, it’s up to the user to ‘embroider responsibly’. Embroidering responsibly means taking complete control of the machine and telling it what to do instead of letting the machine tell you what it can do. When you attach a Quick-Snap frame, be aware of the size of the frame opening and the design you are trying to fit into that space because the machine thinks a large hoop is attached. Always select a frame that is at least 1” larger than the design and trace the design before actually stitching.

Here’s Marie’s tip on the easiest way to center the design. Select your design (1” smaller than the frame) and attach just the bottom frame to the machine. Retrieve the design and trace the design watching where the embroidery foot will travel. In the image below, you can see the first needle is dropped during the tracing motion. This needle is your indication of where all the needles will travel during all colors of the design.
If it looks like the foot will clear the frame, you’re in good shape.

If not, use the positioning keys on the screen to move the design and retrace.
Touch the camera icon on the screen and a view of what the needle sees appears on the screen.
I have a target sticker designating the center of my design on a knit ski cap so I slid the hat over the frame.

On the screen, I watched as I move the hat to align the target sticker with the machine’s green crosshair. Perfect!
I attached the acrylic top, dropped the magnets in place.
How sweet is that? Thanks Marie!

So what do you do if you don’t have the camera? If you don’t have the camera, follow all the steps above but instead of using the camera to align the crosshair, use the needle. Slide the hat over the frame and position the target sticker directly under the needle (the one in the dropped position), verify the crosshair is square to the frame and trace one more time. (If you don’t have the camera and it’s available for your machine, I strongly suggesting upgrading, it’s a worthwhile investment.) If the camera isn’t available for your machine take comfort in the fact that you’ll be a more skilled embroiderer.

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