Trish's Machine Embroidery Designs

How to make it possible to sew a rectangular sewing field on Bernina 430/440, 630/640 and 730E for a Hoop-it-All.

Instructions:-
Cut down at the inside edge of the 2 outer teeth with a hacksaw as far as the edge of the rail sliding part. Then with a tiny grinding attachment on a Rotary Tool (Dremel,Triton etc), grind away the 2 inner teeth. Smooth off with a fine file. All done!

This method does NOT require a Mega Hoop. It only requires a few tools to modify your existing Hoop-it-All bracket to remove the 2 middle teeth. This hoop and modified bracket will be read by the machine as a hoop the size and shape as the middle sewing field of the Mega Hoop. That is - 150mm x 255mm (5.9" x 10")

This what the finished modified bracket looks like.

To see it in more detail you can download a PDF file here that has bigger and better photos.

I was just reminded that not everyone is able to digitize their own basting stitches.

This is a 149mmx 254mm rectangle with 6mm stitch length and no tie offs.

Screen shot at the left shows the area covered by the basting stitch. (The heavy blue line.)

You can download it here in
ART-V3 and ART-V5 formats

Updated 15 April, 2007

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Starch as Glue

This is how I have been doing large designs in my Quilter's Square Hoop-it-All

1. Stuck the stabilizer to the hoop (Water Soluble Vilene with double sided carpet tape.
This lasts about 4-5 hoopings before losing its stickiness)
2. Pre-starched and ironed fabric. I've found I can do it without pre-starching but for
a reasonably dense design it's better to pre-starch. It's more stable.
3. Sprayed the batting with made up liquid starch. See recipe below. (I'm using Matilda's cotton
batting)
4. Placed this on top of the fabric and ironed it dry from both sides (This
'must' be ironed dry to act as glue)
5. Then 'scribbled' with glue stick all over the stabilizer already in the
hoop. (I've been using Bostik brand water soluble glue stick. If you are thinking "Why not use the liquid starch" - it's too wet and will dissolve the WS Stabilizer!)
6. Placed the fabric/batting (now stuck together) on the stabilizer and ironed
this dry (in the hoop!)
7. You 'can' leave this to air dry but I'm too impatient to wait and it seems
to stick slightly better if ironed dry.

This combo is working extremely well and all the starch and glue will wash out easily.

You can use this method for other hoops too but I usually 'hoop' the stabilizer at least and use glue stick on it.
You can also use this method on tearaway stabilizer - but then you are stuck with (pun intended!) having to pull off tiny bits of stabilizer.

Liquid Starch Recipe

I made this by mixing old fashioned powdered starch with a little cold water and added boiling water till just runny enough to spray though a trigger spray bottle. It works beautifully! Needs to be ironed dry to work as glue - otherwise it's just starch.

Lining up help

I have developed a better way of lining up designs in a QS Hoop-it-all. This is better than the way I described on Page 1 especially in Bernina V5 SW because V5 does not have a function to end at the first stitch. You have to specify "end at last stitch". This provides that last stitch in a convenient place manually.

Each set of triangle and straight line starts and ends at the pointed end of the triangle. That is - in the centre.
Only one 'set' should be included with each split part of a large design.
It also enables use of the full width of the available embroidery space.

Updated 21st Feb 2008

The design is grouped in sections of 2 parts each. A triangle and a straight line. The triangle should be arranged to stitch first and the straight line to stitch last. They will need to be ungrouped to do this.
(Picture shows 1mm stitches only to show colours)
You can download it here in ART-V3 and ART-V5 formats.

More on how to use this alignment design.
If you have arranged the straight line to sew last - the machine will stitch just one stitch and move to the last needle position and stop. I place a small strip of Magic Tape under the needle and drop the needle through it (no thread) It gives you a hole in the dead centre to line up the next section of your design. After lining up - remove the Magic Tape and sew!