Learning to Sew

With tons of guidance from my co-worker, A.K.A. the Sewing Guru, I created this beautiful art piece just in time for St. Patty’s Day! I’m calling it ‘Sew Lucky to Hang on my Wall’. I used the SINGER Legacy SE340 Sewing and Embroidery Machine, and let me just say this is not a machine for beginners, BUT with help from an advanced sewist this machine is amazing!!!

Before I got to the fun part of embroidering, I had to do some prep work.  First, I had to adhere (by pressing) interfacing to my pre-cut fabric, this was done to stabilize the loosely woven fabric.  I used a linen as the base and a regular cotton weight for my applique design.

Next, I hooped my base fabric with stabilizer underneath, the stabilizer helped my fabric from puckering as it embroidered. Then, I set my hooped fabric up on the machine to start embroidering.

My Sewing Guru highly recommended that I first embroider the text because this would help me decide placement and size of my applique design.  So, I typed in the text, chose my size and location and voila’ the machine was ready to do the work.  So easy!

I had to embroider the 2 words separately as they were different fonts and sizes, and I wanted them placed above one another.

After the text was complete, I placed my 4 leaf clover where I wanted it using fusible web and sewed it on using a zig-zag stitch.

Sewing on the clover was a bit tricky as there were a lot of curves and corners, but the Sewing Guru advised that I take it slowly and ensure my needle was down when I needed to pivot (it took me removing the stitches a few times and starting over before I got it right).

All in all, I think my first project turned out pretty amazing and I can’t wait to take on another project!