Farewell to My Red Pen
By Denise Holguin
As Managing Editor, a portion of my time is spent editing the magazine. This includes making sure advertisements are placed, the Buyers Guide has the correct page numbers and the Table of Contents leads readers to the proper articles. I do all these tasks with a red pen.
And as strange as it sounds, I have only one (favorite) red pen that I use issue after issue. I was at a great loss the day it ran out of ink.
I penned a poem to commemorate the ‘passing’ of my red pen. Humored by the absurdity, I decided to take it one step further and embroider the tribute on to fabric.
Goals for this article:
- Inspire you to start thinking about custom gifts you can make for family and friends that only they would understand.
- Help you to discover your inner poet!
- Practice your lettering and layout skills in embroidery software.
- Problem solve on the fly.
Embroidery Products
Make Something UT5084 from Urban Threads (3.39” x 3.86”)
Free Skull Design courtesy of Designs in Machine Embroidery.
Embroidery software (Perfect Embroidery Pro was used)
Hoop Size: 300×200
At the Computer
First, we will type each line of text. Then we will rearrange and add other elements.
In Perfect Embroidery Pro, select the Text icon and type the words, “arewell, my friend.”
Click on the Text icon again and type, “You’ve served me well.”
Click on the Text icon and type, “When we, upon the page, would dwell”
Click on the Text icon and type, “To an editor, your color”
Click on the Text icon and type, “Was heaven, but now you’re dead.”
Select the Hoop icon on the left side of the screen. Select the 300×200 hoop. This will establish boundaries to rearrange the poem.
Select all the text. (Control-A). Change the font to “Times.”
Click on the first line of text. Go to the Transform tab and change the height to .69 inches. Repeat this step for each line of text.
Once finished, your text will look similar to the sample shown.
Click on File / Merge. Select the Urban Threads design. Place the design in an open space. We will be editing the design to fit our needs. Select the design. Right click and select Ungroup.
Select “Make Something” and delete it.
Since this is a tribute to a red pen, I selected and deleted the other tools that didn’t fit the pen theme.
You should only have two pens remaining.
Slide the last pen to the left of the marker. Then copy and paste the same pen and place to the right of the marker. Flip the last pen Vertically.
Copy the marker and place it to the right of the pen. Flip it vertically. Copy the first pen and marker and paste them to the right. Your version should look similar to the image shown.
Select all the pens and markers. Right click. Select Group.
Rearrange the rows of lettering to fit within the hoop. This isn’t the final stage of rearranging but it’s the first step.
Slide the pens to the right side of the hoop as shown.
Click on the Text icon. Type the letter “F”. Select Old English. Size the Width and Height to 1.77 inches.
Position the letter in front of “arewell”.
Select the Text icon. Type the word “red”. Select the Athletic font and resize it to 2.05” wide x .80” tall.
Position the word after “color” as shown.
Go to File / Merge Design. Select the Skull design.
Place the skull at the end of the poem.
Change the “F”, the word “red” and the set of pens to red.
I decided to change the word “heaven” to blue. There are three ways to do this:
Inconvenient & Hard:
- Stop the machine before it stitches.
Too Much Work:
- Edit the line of text so that it’s made up of three designs.
Easiest! (but you need to be responsible)
- Select the last line of text. Right click. Select Break up text. Note, when you do this, the text is no longer a font.
Each letter becomes an individual design.
Select all the letters for the word “heaven”. Change the color to blue.
The third line of the poem is a little tight in the hoop. Change the height to .67 inches. Make any other last minute adjustments to the layout of the design.
Select All. (Control-A). Go to Edit / Optimize Sequence.
Save the design and send to the embroidery machine.
I framed the design and added the red pen to its final resting place.
An exaggerated spacing of 12.0 results is wide open spaces between the rows.
This backpack stitched in under 8 minutes. Vintage Embroidery Software takes gift-making to a whole new level.
Up until, a home embroiderer couldn’t get this look on an embroidery machine without some serious digitizing skills.
Serious machine embroiderers never let hoop size hold them back. When they think big, they stitch big. But that doesn’t mean they have to have a big hoop. No, they just need the right software and some handy notions (okay, the notions are optional but really helpful!) to get the job done. Here’s how to do it.
Wasn’t that easy? I often approach splitting designs with a bit of intimidation but I’ve learned if I take my time and pay attention to the details (like aligning the fabric with the laser crosshair), the results come out as planned.Splitting designs is very rewarding – people will think you’re an embroidery rock star!