Finding the Right Embroidery Machine

Finding the Right Embroidery Machine

Where does the time go?  I have finished several projects since my last blog but never found time to sit and tell all about them.  A special occasion has brought me back.  Anniversaries are always special especially when they are family.  My husband’s brother and his wife were married forty years ago this past September.  They invited all the family to San Diego to celebrate with a beautiful dinner in a lovely setting and hotel.  The evening was filled with numerous stories and songs from their blended family of children and grandchildren as well as great grandchildren.  The children are all very talented.  We all had a wonderful time celebrating their love for each other.

This occasion inspired me to learn to use my new Bernina embroidery machine.  I have resisted an embroidery machine as I always wanted to embroider by hand.  You know, the old-fashioned way.  When I would look at embroidery machines I did not like the simple motif designs on a pocket or other small bits. It was easy to turn away and not be interested in a machine that could not duplicate to a degree the intricate work that I could do by hand.

I could only decide on which brand after I saw a booth of lovely children’s clothing at the Houston Quilt Festival.  The gorgeous dresses stopped me in my tracks.   The designs looked like intricate embroidery similar to English Whitework embroidery and even Swiss embroideries that I so love.  The lace patterns are the prettiest I have ever seen and have the capability of sewing around the hem of a skirt.  Most embroideries that I had seen by machine before were simply 3 or 4 inch motifs.  Her software is designed to complete a dress hem as though it was by hand meaning done in one complete length of embroidery.  Some of her designs for infants will even sew the ouline of the pattern shape on the fabric as it stitches the lace work. I was in awe of her designs and had to know what machine she had used to create such beautiful clothing.

When she told me she used a Bernina 640E, I immediately went over to the Bernina booth to see this machine.  I eventually bought the machine from my local dealer.  Are you as excited to learn the name of this designer and her software as I was?  She is Kathy Harrison of Custom Keepsakes.  Here is a link to Kathy’s designs.   http://www.customkeepsakes.com/Default.asp?Redirected=Y  

 Her newest collection of designs is for ladies and children’s nightgowns as well as for 18” dolls. Oh my!!  I love making ladies nightgowns, smocked as well as heirloom sewn ones.  Kathy’s designs are so beautiful and look like the expensive Swiss embroideries that sell for $30 and more a yard.  I cannot wait to make a gown!!

My first attempt at machine embroidery was the pillow that I designed and made for my husband’s brother and his family.  The pillow was for a 40th anniversary hence the red satin. The design that I used on this pillow is a single stem of a rose bud.  The software and the 640E has the advantage of making the one bud into a wreath of that one single design, inserting the names and curving them with the shape of the wreath.  I used a gold poly embroidery thread for the center embroidery and gold piping around the pillow inside the ruffle to pull the embroidery and pillow together as one unit. My brother-in-law and his wife were sufficiently pleased and delighted to have a memento of their special day.  

I love sewing for special occasions, don't you?