Embroidery Adventures

So, I've had my new (used) Husqvarna Designer Topaz 30 since March, and I had yet to try the embroidery functions on it. Until last night...

 

A friend on Facebook posted a picture of a cute little round patch featuring a UFO abducting a bull (or perhaps a triceratops?). It looked like a Girl Scout patch and it make me laugh, so I Googled how to make iron-on patches... which led me to Urban Threads. They have such an amazing selection of modern, cool and stylish embroidery patterns that I really like. I've only had experience so far with my mother-in-law's collection, and let's just say that she has much more traditional taste than I do.


BUT... I don't really see the point in having an embroidery machine if I can't design my own stuff, so of course, I also did some searching for digitizing software. I ended up downloading a free trial of SewArt64, which is kind of old-school and cheesy, but it seems to work well for simple designs.

 

With the help of this program, I was able to take the Ragnar logo (I have a trail relay coming up in a couple weeks!!) and turn it into an 8,000-some stitch embroidery file. After some screwing around with the 4d software that came with my machine, I was finally able to export the file to the USB stick and have the Topaz make me a Ragnar patch!





Well, it wasn't exactly that easy. I was really having thread issues for a while. It seemed like a bobbin tension problem because the thread was knotting up underneath, but it actually turned out that my machine just doesn't like cones of thread. It much prefers tube spools that feed more evenly I guess.

Here's my finished product! It's a little gappy, but I guess I can't complain for how simple it really ended up being. I'm so excited to try making some more THINGS! I'll just need to invest in spools of embroidery thread instead of the cones.


I'll likely shrink this down a bit to make patches for all my Ragnar team mates and friends... this one is about 2.5x3.5" and it took quite a bit of time (and thread!). I also would love to add the year and race name to it, and then perhaps start a tradition of collecting them as a team. I'll have done four Ragnars so far by the end of the month; Chicago and Northwoods last year, and I'm doing Northwoods and Michigan back-to-back in a couple weeks. Yikes! :) That's a lot of running!

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