No sewing involved

I had an early start yesterday.  Not quite as early as the deserted station might suggest, for most of the regulars had already gone, leaving their cars in a very full car park.

Fortunately, I had my hero to drive me to the station so I didn’t have to spend time looking for a space.

It was one of the days in the year when the other bits of my life come together; when I get to spend time with old friends and to chat about things that few would associate with me.  But I really enjoy this opportunity to use my skills and my knowledge in an altogether different forum from the norm and yesterday was no exception.

The picture on the wall is the clue.  I spent the day as a member of Panel F, judging the annual UK Bus Awards at the Society of Operations Engineers in London.  It’s a great opportunity to hear some of the most inspiring young managers and I always leave feeling optimistic about the future of an industry which has always been dear to my heart. 

Afterwards, I walked with a couple of colleagues through the hot and sticky streets for a quick chat and catch up in a cafe before going our separate ways.  Whilst they were off to catch their train, I was heading for Oxford Street and a much needed visit to Blink in Selfridges!

One of our topics of the day was never far from view.

Meeting Edward for drinks and dinner in Fischers was fun, even if the food was disappointing.  Never mind, the company was good, of course.

Time to return to Paddington on the bus (of course) and to smile at Isembard Kingdom Brunel, sitting there behind his protective fence as the Crossrail construction carries on apace behind him.  What would he have made of it all, I wonder?

Nearby, the other lone figure stood on Platform 1, centre of attention recently as a result of this.  I took another look at it before catching the train home with some of those letters on my mind.

I ran out of time

This could be the last sewing-related post for a few days because real life is kicking in again and believe it or not, I can’t spend any more time sewing because I have other responsibilities!

Today, I’d set myself the task of bringing some artwork from Photoshop into the Bernina software with the intention of stitching out a couple of the designs on some fabric before making it into a bag.  Avening WI have been working on a table runner as our entry to the Tomorrows Heirlooms competition to celebrate the centenary of the WI and, having completed our cloth, we needed a protective bag to put it in.  Our design includes several figures which I cut out on my Silhouette machine before applying them on traditional slips and stitching by hand.  We loved the idea of working with the technology whilst also utilising the age-old techniques at the same time.  Tomorrows Heirlooms, see?

In between a supermarket run and a few loads of washing, I managed to wrangle the software and actually got as far as stitching out five different figures with my machine.  But I’d left it too late to tweak them to my satisfaction and late this afternoon, with the deadline looming, I decided to forget about embroidering the figures on the bag and did a quick stencil instead.  Mind you, the bag is beautifully made with french seams and all that

So, not much to show for the day today, then, but these few days have got me off to a good start, I think.  No more worries about threading or sorting out the occasional snafu – I feel quite at home with my machine now, even if I do have to sit and think about every process.  It will be interesting to see how much of it all I can retain until my next opportunity to play on Friday.

Of course, I might have forgotten everything by them.

Marginally less incompetent

I began the day with a determination to move forward and get to grips with a simple project I’d seen in one of the Bernina publications, issue #19 of Through the Needle.  It was a straightforward looking project using the software and though it was based on an earlier version, I thought it’d be fairly easy to follow on version 7, too.  But before I did anything else on my computer, I had to do as we all do – check my email!

I found a lovely surprise there in the form of a Bernina Embroidery file from my guru Ros.  I kept everything crossed as I opened the software and loaded the stitch she sent me.

Ros had created a test design using one of the Bernina tassel stitches for me to play with and so, with a clear purpose in mind, I set about stitching it out.  First though, I had to transfer it to my machine on a USB stick.  Simple!

Sadly not!  For some reason, my machine didn’t see the design.  Though I’d loaded two stitches on the stick – a freebie from Bernina for registering the software and the stitch Ros sent me, only the Bernina pattern showed up.  I tried saving in a different file format, to an earlier version, moving to and fro from computer to sewing machine and getting more and more frustrated.  What was going on? 

Eventually, I spotted a format/file extension I’d not noticed before – .exp “Bernina USB stick” (I know…) and thankfully, this was the one.  In no time at all, I’d stitched out the pattern Ros sent me in a couple of different threads.

Cute isn’t it?

Quite good in a variegated thread as well, though I’d need to tweak those stitching marks in the fabric if I were to use it on a project, I think.  Still, I was away, on a roll!

Now to tackle the software.  I had no problem opening a new file and following the steps given in the magazine article to create this design and now I’d sussed the USB bit as well, it was soon on my machine.

After another false start involving several broken threads (well, self inflicted…I should know better than to use Natesh threads without using every trick in the book to make it behave, shouldn’t I?)  I returned to the Robison Anton I had been using and sat back and watched my first masterpiece develop.

I was pretty pleased with that, I’ll admit and felt that I ended the day feeling a little less incompetent than I started.

When I went to open a new file, however:

Another day, another challenge!

One small step

Before I loaded the software and began fiddling about with that, I thought that I would explore the potential of the on-board toolbox.  After all, there’s no point in making something more complicated than it need be, is there?  I watched the YouTube video first and worked out the process so that I might manage without stop-starting the tutorial.  Sure enough, in no time at all, I’d created a pleasing motif.

Or is it?

As it stitched out, I wondered what I’d done to make the machine begin to stitch each motif at A, finish at B and then travel to C to begin the next one.  Why didn’t it take the simpler, shorter route and work anticlockwise around the circle? * (I’ve had further thoughts on that – see below)

To get the process established in my head I repeated the exercise once or twice more, discovering that the same process occurred with the first two circles I stitched.  Strangely, without my fiddling about with any of the other options, after each of the leaf shapes on that outer circle, the machine secured and cut the thread before moving on to the next one.  Hmmm.  I wonder why?

So, one step forward from the “unconscious incompetence” (aka ignorance is bliss!) into the “conscious incompetence” zone.  Things are not quite as simple as they first appeared and the more I learn, the more I realise there is to learn.  But I’m not giving up, I’m going to load the software because the answer may well lie therein.

But after two hours of loading the software, downloading and installing an update, uninstalling and then repeating the whole process once again it to try to coax the Corel part of the program to play nicely, I called on my hero for some technical support.  He had the answer and was able to sort it for now, but this morning, when I tried to follow a simple project tutorial, it crashed and won’t now reopen.

I’m glad it didn’t cost me almost a thousand pounds to remind me how consciously incompetent I am.  However, this blog post can still be filed under “fun”…

*  I wonder if that pattern is better stitched out like that, with the long space thread to cut? If it were worked from A to B in an anticlockwise direction, there’d still be a thread to cut, but it would be a shorter one and therefore more tricky to snip.  Hmmm?

30 000 stitches and counting

Of course, I couldn’t wait to open the boxes and as soon as I’d tied up all the loose ends from Friday’s judging, written one or two letters, changed the beds and hung the washing on the line, I was free to play.  Is it our upbringing that means we can’t allow ourselves to play until the work is done?

Anyway, the small box was the easy part.  Inside was the new DesignerPlus software 7 – a really great gift from Bernina, thank you!  (Have you seen the price?!)  I put it on one side for later!

Opening the big box revealed an assortment of hoops, a box of embroidery needles, foot 26, a USB cable and a box of stabiliser samples.

 

Underneath was the real deal – the embroidery module.

For my non-sewing friends, this is the bit which fits on the side of the machine and holds the hoop in place.  It’s pretty large and rather heavy and increases the length of the machine set up to about a metre.  My sewing table is now pretty full and is going to need a little rethink!

Anyway, I’d already watched the YouTube videos and for this first go, I thought I’d just follow them step by step.  It was great having my old ipad at my side so I could watch and go over tricky parts once again, such as the additional step needed when threading the bobbin.  Though Frank had explained it to me and walked me through it step by step, it was over a week ago and I’ve had a few sleeps since then.

I was happy with the results and delighted to be able to leave it stitching away.  It’s quite noisy; possibly because the table is not 100% stable, but I like the stitch countdown and the timer which shows how long until the next thread change or whatever.  I didn’t need to babysit it at all.

And then I changed thread.  The machine really didn’t like the different (unknown) brand of pale blue I threaded up and it broke twice within a short space of time.  I wasn't ready for a fight at this stage; wasn’t ready to employ all the tricks we use to coax a difficult thread to behave itself, so simply unthreaded and got another reel of the brand I’d been using successfully so far.

Except that the pale blue thread broke as I tried to pull it through.  Even though I was doing as recommended, and pulling it through from the spool, it snapped and the piece of thread was somewhere in the machine.

Oooer!  Time to get out the book.

Time to get out the toolkit too!  I can’t say that taking the front off my brand new shiny “sewing computer” was exactly what I wanted to do, but sure enough, there was the thread.  Not that it was going to come out easily, though.

Gently gently, hoping that it wasn’t going to break again, leaving some bit left inside, I held my breath as it gradually came unstuck and came free.  Phew!

So, the colours are wrong – I didn’t have the right colours to hand and as this was only a practice, I wasn’t too worried.  I’m not sure I intended it to be a stripy flower, though!  But for a first go, I was fine.  18 000 stitches on the clock, a couple of thread breaks mid-stitch which meant I had to navigate the pattern and retrace my steps to start again and of course, the major thread retrieval.  I felt I’d achieved my objectives for the morning.

So, whilst on a roll, I did another 15 000-odd stitches and stitched out another of the designs on the menu.  Thank you, Switzerland!