Embird and Why I Love It

Hi, Gail and Tami! Thank you for your comments on yesterday's blog. Yes, I've matured and am more interested these days in getting points pointy and matching seams :-). I was mad at the old me; some of those seams are miiiiighty narrow in order for the thing to come out right. Gail, I looked at the photo of your Aliner. The small, compact, light trailers are so fascinating. Tami, to answer your question, I digitized the applique process in Embird Studio: with the background fabric in the embroidery machine hoop, the machine stitched the first applique outline (the vase in this case) as a guide to place the fabric, then with the vase fabric laid on top of that outline, it stitched the same outline again, then you trim the fabric very, very close to the outline, then the machine stitches whatever decorative stitch over that you specify, in this case, blanket stitch. Then you go on to the next piece. Don't know if it saves much time, but one plus is that once you have it digitized, you could remake the design in any size you want. Embird Studio has an applique stitch that is all set up with this process, but I usually set up each element myself as I have little refinements I like to include. Most of the pots that are dipping down to the right at their base are done by hand and most that are dipping down to the left are done by machine.