I chose embroidery for my Wildcard week, not only because it is cool, but also because I can use it for my final project.

I will be working with Bernina 790 Plus.

This is how the machine looks like when I use it for sewing:

We have this lengthy and very informative manual with it, so I started by reading the section of how to change it to the embroidery mode.

I lowered the feed dog, changed the foot and needle to the recommended one for embroidery, attached the embroidery arm and an embroidery hoop of an appropriate size. You should select the smallest hoop possible that still fits your design for best quality. The machine is smart enough to register what hoop, foot and needle you are using (or prompts you that it does not recognize it), but you should check it in settings once again just in case.

I wanted to see how the embroidery works, so I first picked one of the pre-made designs from the catalog, and found it in the files on the machine.

The machine urged me to check if everything is set up well (upper thread, and lower thread full). I then pressed start (the 2 dot button that was blinking green).

Video of the embroidery, the machine moves rather fast and all by itself:

This design tool almost 10 min to embroider. It is a simple single color design, but I think it turned out beautifully.

While the machine was making the design, the upper thread snapped. The machine recognized this and stopped. I then reattached the thread, and there was a really nice used interface where I would indicate what was the last stitch that was still visible on the fabric, so the machine would co back to that stitch and continue from that point. I think that was really cool, when you look at the picture above you can’t really tell where the thread broke cause the machine recovery was so good.

Ink/Stitch

It is now time to make my own design. I will be using the Ink/Stitch open source embroidery software based in Inkscape, mostly because the official Bernina one does not work with my operating system.