Guess what

I found the knitting mojo.

I think it was behind the sofa, hiding from a sewing machine with a cutwork attachment fitted.

With renewed determination

I opened the Designworks software this morning to complete the next exercise, the Cutwork Border Design.  The objects of this exercise were:

• Working with Create Shape tools
• Circular Array
• Horizontal and Vertical Alignment
• Sequence Manager
• Tips for sewing out

Hmm, I could have used those last tips before now, but hey, I’m starting the project with a positive frame of mind and an air of confidence!  I created a new file and began the exercise, starting by drawing a circle with a diameter of 15mm and a 15.6mm x 13mm trapezoid below it.

Bearing in mind the relative sizes of those shapes and that the design fits in a hoop which is 255mm x 145mm, how would you interpret the instruction to adjust the positioning of the trapezoid so that it’s centred 73cm below the circle outline?   Yes, I imagine that, like me, you thought “oops, typo there” and made it 73mm instead?  But a little further consideration and I realised the most sensible measurement was 7.3mm.  Not one typo but two for the price of one!

But it didn’t end there.  The next row of shapes was to be positioned .5mm from the previous row.  Now, I admire precision, but .5mm?  I think that was supposed to be 5mm.

(I thought the Swiss were pretty accurate in such things but I’m beginning to reassess)

By now, I was getting used to the typos and the inconsistencies, so I immediately adjusted the instruction to position one small shape 5cm away from the tip of the trapezoid to 5mm, but with each mental adjustment, I lost a little more confidence in the likelihood of a successful outcome.

Anyway, I completed the design, so I saved it and exported to the USB stick.  It was my intention to cut it several times from the same fabric but to vary the starch/stiffening method to identify which worked best.

Having cut it once, however, my plans were revised.  Once again, the end result was sub-optimal though actually, the cutting of the shapes had been pretty accurate and rather neater than the photo above suggests.  What made it look especially raggy was the satin stitches on the edges – or just off the edges in some areas.

I thought I could do better.

Firstly, I created a smaller design to fiddle about with.  What’s more frustrating than watching a huge shape being stitched out having recognised within the first five minutes that it’s not going to work as hoped?  So, I used the basic idea in the Bernina workbook to create something similar and worked my way through it whilst thinking carefully about the suggested settings.  Where the exercise stated a cutting offset of 0mm, I made sure the stitching line was offset by 1mm so the machine didn’t stitch in thin air.  I created a wider satin stitch around the cut areas and watched the “slow draw” of the design very carefully to make sure the edges were going to be covered.  I included a couple of extra passes around the shapes to create a stronger edge to each cut out area and held my breath as it stitched out.

The end result isn’t perfect but it’s far better than before and I feel that at last, I’m getting somewhere.

My problem lies with the prescriptive instructions in the workbook, from which I’m supposed to learn how to create successful designs and understand how to manage the settings.  I don’t learn well from being told to “set x at 0.5mm” without an accompanying explanation of why I’m setting it at 0.5mm and not 0.7mm….that’s assuming there isn’t a typo in that instruction anyway. Without an explanation of these settings how can I understand why it might be better in some cases to adjust x or y depending on the fabric/the design/whatever.  By simply following the step by step instructions slavishly, I learn nothing except confirm that I can follow a sequence of written instructions – something I’m pretty confident about already.

So, as the afternoon draws to an end, I feel that I am getting somewhere at last and I’ve learned a fair bit.  Mostly, that is to ignore the workbook and use my own experience/common sense to work it out for myself!

Today’s masterpiece

Is nothing to write home about (as my Mum would have said).  I’d hoped for better, I’ll admit.

and then?

My bleat for help to the Designworks FB group received an almost instantaneous reply from a couple of people, including the genius Adeline.

What more could I ask?  Thrilled with such a speedy answer – and keen to crack on whilst it was all still in my head – I shot back down into the studio and followed her advice.

It worked a charm!  I saved and resisted the temptation to try stitching it out there and then, for it was late Sunday evening and probably not the best time to begin.

This morning, I prepared the fabric carefully but couldn’t wait to try it out.  I had some work to do first though, so exercised a little self discipline and completed that before switching my machine on

My first attempt wasn’t too bad.  I didn’t hoop the fabric as accurately as I might have done – you can see the cross that’s supposed to be the centre.  But it didn’t matter, because my main interest was to see what happens when by simply stitching it out.  First the outline of the shape was stitched in a running stitch as a placement guide.  I ironed the shape in place then, and watched as the shape was stitched another couple of times.  The next step was the decorative stitch, which covered some of my earlier inaccuracy in placing the shape.

The precision is impressive as is the way in which the stitches are formed consistently.

I quickly lined another one up to reinforce my learning!

So, I need to sort something out about that puckering in the middle, but apart from that (and the poor colour in this last photo, taken in a slightly different place from the others – sorry!) I’m pretty pleased with the results.

Couldn’t have done it without a great deal of support though, for which I’m grateful.  What would we do without online friends?

One step at a time

Learning new software is always a challenge and unfortunately, the program which accompanies the cutwork tool isn’t the most intuitive.  I mean, “hit the spacebar to select the hexagon” ?  So, it was with as much patience as I could muster that I sat down yesterday afternoon to work my way through a step by step project.

Assuming no previous knowledge and taking everything one step at a time, what could be easier?  

All went well, though a couple of occasions required close reference to the manual.  It took a while and I didn’t stray from the prescribed sizes and so on because I just wanted this to work!

And then I came to the bit where it says “Save as Hexagon_Cut. Export to machine and cut.”

Cut what?  How?  I need more advice, because if you recall from my last post, the cutting hadn’t been terribly successful.

At this point, I went back to the place where I’d found the original idea – Adeline’s blog.  Adeline has recently begun a FB group for users of the Designworks Program and though there is already a Designworks Yahoo Group which I read regularly, it was this picture on FB which caught my eye.  Thankfully, she had shared a step by step process for cutting the shapes so gathering up my bondaweb, my adhesive stabiliser and a few small bits of fabric, I created a sandwich to put in my embroidery hoop.

As soon as I began to sew, I felt more confident that this was going to work.  To begin with, the design had an initial running stitch around it, to hold everything in place before the cutting process began.  Replacing the needle with the cutting tool, I took a deep breath and started the next stage of the process.

The result was better this time.  Rather good in fact.  I cut six layers of fabric which seemed to work better than a single one and that line of stitching made all the difference.

I was pleased with the result and was ready to move onto the next stage – to create the applique stitching file which would instruct my machine to do the sewing.

That’s when I hit the brick wall.  After an hour or so fiddling about with the program, I simply could not access the part of the menu which I needed.  I tried all kinds of things, read the manual again, searched online, closed the program and restarted, had a cup of tea, said a few choice words but nothing worked.  Then I remembered the FB group and posted a question.  Could anyone help me, I wondered?

I hope so!