I did it!
Sew....today was my first class at Prairie Quilts taking my free machine embroidery class. I bought my new Pfaff 3.0 about 5 months ago and have not taken it out of the box until last night. I was holding out until I had time to take a class to learn how to use the darn thing without breaking it. Funny thing is, I was not the only one that had the same idea. It was a full group today 12 ladies ready to tackle their chosen pattern. Mine was a Lunch Box Quilts pattern called "OOH LA LA." There were a few that were a bit more anxious than I am, so I let our two fine ladies from the shop get them situated while I figured out how to wind the bobbin. 30 minutes later...I found I like the ole' pedal was easier to use that the auto feature as I had a loose mess on my hand. Next, I needed stabilizer*, one of many trips downstairs. I got that hooped after I added fabric grip** to the inner hoop. Ready to go... Almost!
Reason 1 why this was a good class: My machine would not read my USB stick***. Cause my USB port was not connected from the factory. Seems to have been a common issue. Luckily the shops sewing machine maintenance guy Kent, was working to day. After a brief outpatient surgery I was ready to get started.
Reason 2 why this was a good class. My machine was stopped in the middle of the basting my fabric to the stabilizer. Cause I did not take this red plastic shipping pin from my embroidery unit.
After all that, here are some pictures of my progress. I need to finish the blocks by adding the fabric frame to these below and I'll be ready for the next blocks in the quilt.
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| Machine Applique in the hoop to add the fabric for the heel. |
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| Satin stitching around the shoe. |
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| Adding the pink bow to the toe. |
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| Completed 2 very snazzy high heel shoes. OUi!
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This year in my blog posts I like to share tips about notions I use in my quilting endeavors. (So I can remember for next time I have a similar application)
* Stabilizer I used for this project was inspira Fast & Easy Tear A Way. When you are machine embroidering you use stabilizer so your stitches won't cut through the fabric. I'm going to store the label in the middle of the roll and wrap it in Glad Press n Seal to store it so it does not become an unrolled mess.
**Hoop Grip Tape was shown to use to add to the inner ring of our embroidery hoop. It has an adhesive side and a grippy side that keeps your hooped materials from shifting in the hoop keeping it taught. Works great.
*** USB Stick used for transferring designs from a design media for patterns, fonts, etc. to my Pfaff 3.0. One major thing I learned is that they don't like USB stick larger than 1G. If you run across one buy it they are hard to come by. For this use bigger is not better.
