I got off on the wrong foot

Credit to Larry for the pun.

Momma's table is still in the garage, but I did clear a space on the 'L' of my desk for my sewing machine and, taking a deep breath, I prepared to do battle again.

As I mentioned before, I decided to go back to basics, got a pieces of plain cotton fabric, actually a sheet we bought and didn't like - probably a topic for another blog entry - how fussy we are about our bed sheets. Anyway, plain cotton.  I cut out a square so I had no issue with excess fabric in my way, I applied my iron on stabilizer and selected some of the built in letters on the machine. As threading the machine is quite a chore, I decided to go with the green already there. Color is the least of my problems right now.

Looks a bit like Aljeen to me.

So, I fiddled around till I had spelt out Aideen on the little screen, carefully inserted the hoop according to instructions in the manual, and pressed GO and go it did. It did seem to be doing something intelligent, at least the hoop was moving and the needle was not pounding up and down in the same spot as it had previously. However, while the end result was the best yet, and it did closely resemble my name, it more resembled how my name would have sounded had the speaker been extremely inebriated.

Hmm.. maybe I was still being too ambitious.  How about just an 'A', nothing more. I prepared another cut from the unpopular sheet and again applied the stabilizer. Still with the dull green, I select a nice 'A'. Off we went. Nearly better, maybe a little better, still decidedly drunk looking.



I decided it was time to do something sensible and search for a class where I could speed up this process. While googling for classes specific to my particular sewing machine I came across a number of tutorials on YouTube, and one web site that I immediately bookmarked.  Kamala Embroidery - a blog - and there was a video of a Brother SE400, doing almost an identical 'A' - as I watched in fascination, I saw where I was going wrong.  I had the wrong presser foot, the step by step instructions in the manual failed to mention which presser foot to use, and I just sailed ahead with the one fitted to the machine when it came out of its box.

I am not new to sewing machines, so I knew better, I searched through the accessories that came with my machine and found the presser foot Kamala was using in her video. This I considered to be the high note to finish up today's lesson.  Next week I will put the correct foot forward and hopefully get better results.