Puget Sound Sewing & Craft

Crafty Camping (Complete with Crocheted Cat Toy!)

I love camping – this year my sweetheart Steve and I went on our third annual camping trip up to our friend’s family’s lake property near Granite Falls.  The weather was beautiful, the fire was warm, the food was plentiful, and the lake was endlessly inviting.  We swam, fished, kayaked, and just relaxed by the shore.  Our dog, Mariah, loves swimming, and had a blissful if exhausting time.

The mosquitoes were happy to see us, but the one real fly in my ointment was that I cannot, of course, take many of my crafting projects along.  No sewing machine ruled out the quilts I am currently working on, and it’s too dirty to bring my embroidered flour-sack towels project.  So I had my latest granny-square afghan, and my cool friend Julie worked on knitting a fuzzy scarf. 

A girl who was there brought her world-class adorable kitten to the campsite – it mostly stayed on a leash or in the tent, and was much spoiled and adored.  I thought it might need a little entertainment, and used my crafty skills to make it a super-quick cat toy, which kept Peanut happy for hours.  This was so quick, easy, and well-liked, I thought I might share this quick project with you!

You’ll need: 

A bit of worsted weight yarn

A size F crochet hook

Something to stuff it with – I didn’t have stuffing, and I thought the kitty might like something that crackled anyway, so I cut off the top inch of a potato-chip bag, crumpled it up, and used that!

Chain two.

 

In first chain, single-crochet six times.

Starting with your first single-crochet stitch, single-crochet twice.  Repeat for all six single-crochet stitches. You should now have 12 stitches.

 

As you head around the next row, you will alternate single-crocheting once and single crocheting twice in each of your 12 stitches.  When you finish this row, you should have 18 stitches.

 

For the next two rows, just keep going around, single-crocheting only once in each stitch. 

After you have done two rows of 18 stitches, you will begin to decrease.  In your first stitch, you just single-crochet.  In your second stitch, you will single-crochet the next two stitches together.  Continue all the way around the row, finishing with 12 stitches.

In your next row, you will conitinue to decrease, but now it will be every time, you crochet tow stitches together, finishing with six stitches. 

Stuff your little ball, and continue to join stitches together till there is only one stitch left.  Pull out your yarn, leaving a long tail to swing your cat toy by or to tie to a chair leg or the top of your tent.  Peanut was enthralled when I made it “come alive” by teasing it across the grass, but was very happy entertaining herself when it was swinging from something. 

PS – If you don’t know how to crochet, I highly recommend it!  It’s super easy, really creatively flexible, and a great crafty skill for take-along projects.  We offer classes at PacFab stores, or, if you have trouble finding one that works with your schedule, there are several good books on the subject.  There are several simple little booklets, or, if you’d like something more adventurous, Debbie Stoller, the author of Stitch and Bitch: The Knitter’s Handbook,  has a provocatively titled book on crochet:  The Happy Hooker.  It’s got lots of great projects,  and is a fun read. 

Project Runway is here again!

I don't know about you, but I really enjoy the Project Runway series on Bravo. It it the only TV show that I watch regularly - so needless to say I am pretty pumped that Season 5 is here.

For those of you that don't watch the show, each week the designers are given a different fashion design challenge and if they lose they get kicked off the show. The judges are Heidi Klum, Michael Kors, Nina Garcia and 1 guest judge. You watch the designers create their designs, work out their problems and get helpful critiques from Tim Gunn along the way. Finally you see their garment come down the runway and be judged. It is really fun to see the transformation and see how everyone's design is so different.

The first challenge of the season was to make a garment out of items purchased at Gristedes, a grocery store chain. The idea was to be creative and innovative and really push boundaries. So it was surprising that so many of the designers picked table clothes as their base fabric. Not really very innovative or creative. However, some people did do really creative things like Kelli. She used vacuum cleaner bags dyed with bleach and dye for a skirt and coffee filters for the bodice. She used lots of items pretty creatively. I also give super kudos to Daniel who made his whole outfit out of blue plastic cups. Now that is a challenge - can you imagine trying to sew on that? What is the craziest "fabric" you have ever sewn on? I think balsa wood is as creative as I have ever gotten - it works really well with machine embroidery. I know Lana Jones has been teaching some classes about embroidering on wood in case you have been inspired to try out a new "fabric".

This week the challenge was completely different. They had to use eco-friendly fabric that their models picked out for them. Each designer was challenged to make a different "green" cocktail dress in a style their models would like. I have to say I was impressed with what Stella came up with, since she kept talking about how she just wanted to sew on leather and be urban. It was pretty funny when Blayne was teasing her about how she is obsessed with leather. Blayne is from Seattle and totally addicted to tanning. From what I can tell, he will be the Christian of this season - because he is up-beat, fun and keeps people laughing. He just needs to make his designs fierce. Some of the cocktail dresses where pretty bad, however the winner Suede did make a super fun, creative dress using bias strips and tulle. I would love to wear that dress. I am not sure where I would wear it, but I am sure with the right shoes...it would all come together.

Let me know how you feel about Project Runway season 5. Does anyone have a favorite designer yet?

-Carmen
Check out Project Runway on Bravo (channel 66 with Comcast) 9pm on Wednesday nights.

Designer Embroidered Jeans in 4D ~ Part 5 ~ Splitting Design

Time for the final step before stitch-out - splitting the design!  Remember that you can click on any image to see a bigger picture if needed.

First, I will open up the 4D Design Aligner program - the button looks like a multicolored ball.  That, in turn will launch the Load Design Wizard. 

To the left is the first screen in the Load Design Wizard.  This is where you will select the hoop size you plan to use to stitch your design.

You will also determine the amount of overlap (not available when splitting into a Grand Dream/Majestic Hoop).  The overlap can be up to 100mm in some hoops.  The larger the overlap, the more leeway you have in 'cutting' your design into pieces.

Next are options for alignment stitches (again, not necessary/available for use with the Grand Dream/Majestic Hoops).  Corner alignment stitches are recommended for light to moderate density designs.  Baste alignment stitches are recommended for heavier density designs.

Finally, on this screen we have various compensation stitch options.  I have chosen 'high' because I know that denim can sometimes pull or creep a bit.  The greater the compensation, the more stitch overlap (if any) will be stitched at joining points in the design.

Next you will be prompted to load the design you wish to split.  When the design has loaded, you will see detailed information on the bottom of the window regarding the size and stitch count of the overall design.

Once you have loaded your design in this window, click 'Finish' and you will be ready to set your 'cutting line' for separating the design into multiple hoopings.

Shown below is the design ready to be split.  You can see by the interconnected line of squares that there is only one 'cutting line'.  That means that this design will fit into two hoopings of the hoop size chosen.

The interconnected line of squares are your pivot points for creating the line where you will split the design.  Simply drag each small square point to shape the line around various shapes in the design.
 

Generally speaking, most designs looks best if they are not 'cut' on a straight line.  It makes it too obvious if the stitch transition from one hooping to the next isn't perfect.  It's much better to work with your design to create the most efficient and attractive line.  As you can see in the illustration above, you are given a number of pivot points to work with.  If you need more, click the 'Insert Point' button located on the upper right of your toolbar.  Once this button is selected, you can click on the 'cutting line' to add more pivot points as needed.  Click once with your right mouse button to disengage the Insert Point feature.  (I won't tell you how many times I forget that part!)  Similarly, if you have too many pivot points (perhaps because you forgot how to turn off the Insert Point feature), you can use the 'Delete Point' feature to delete any unwanted points.  Again, click with the right mouse button to disengage the feature.

Here is my 'cutting line' working its way through my big rose design.  You can see I've added several pivot points along the way in order to more carefully work along the lines of the motif.  I try to use natural breaks in the design as much as possible to reduce the amount of precise layout I will need to do to ensure that my design stitches out perfectly (or at least close to perfect!). 

Be sure to use the magnifying tools to make sure the line is where you want it to be.  If you use high magnification of your design, you can make very fine separations in your design that will result in a well-stitched transition.

Once you are satisfied with your design, simply click the 'Split Design' button (located at the very far upper right of the toolbar).  Your design will be cut, and then you will see a pop-up window that previews the various hoopings of the design.

Look carefully!  At this stage it is still possible to go back and change your 'cutting line'.  Simply click 'Cancel' if you want to make any changes.  If you are happy with the way the design has been separated, simply click 'Save' and you will be prompted to save the file.  Select the location where you wish the file to be saved and name it.  You will notice that when the file is saved, it will be numbered in sequence.  So, for instance, this design might save as 01rosetrellis.vp3 and 02rosetrellis.vp3, because there are two hoopings necessary to stitch it out in the hoop I have selected for the design.

Wow!  We've come a long way since we measured our jeans and set up our custom hoop.  I bet you can't wait to stitch this design out!  So stay tuned next week for the stunning conclusion of Designer Embroidered Jeans in 4D!

--Katrina

Designer Embroidered Jeans in 4D ~ Part 4 ~ Optimizing Design

So, to recap: we've determined the size of our overall design and made a custom hoop size, we've selected our embroidery motifs, and we've combined the motifs to create our overall design.  Now we're going to optimize our design for more efficient stitch out.

First of all, I make sure to save my design - this will also combine the designs and remove any overlapping stitches.  Then I Color Sort to combine colors.  Sometimes this works better than others!   In this particular combined design, although I used Color Sort, there are still 53 colors listed - 53 thread changes!  This is because this is a complex design with multiple motifs combined together in a somewhat random order.  So the software thinks that the various designs should be stitched out in the order they were opened.  I'm not that disciplined/organized when I create a large design so I use other tools to make my stitching more efficient.

So my next step is to click on the Edit tab so that I can combine my colors manually.  I do this by selecting the button that looks like a rainbow - this allows me to change the order of and combine my color blocks.  I keep the color blocks in order, but I combine the duplicates in order to eliminate as many thread changes as possible.  As you can see on the right (click on the photo to see a larger image), color/thread #2 is Sulky #1227.  I have gone down the list of thread changes to find all of the #1227 threads.  I used the Move Up button to stack them all (in order).  Now I can use the Merge Colors button to merge them (a set at a time) into one #1227.  NOTE: Because my motifs were placed in random, not sequential order, my colors do not necessarily fall in a logical order.  If I wanted to further optimize my stitch out I would have made note of the best possible order for these color blocks to be in.  But that is a lesson in itself. I am willing to put up with a few more jump stitches!

Once I am finished combining my color blocks, I only have 9 color changes to make. 9 rather than 53 - now that is a savings of time.  As I stated above, you will have increased your number of jump stitches.  You may also have some areas where the embroidery was intended to be stitched on top of another color.  By changing the block order, you may not get quite the same effect.  But I am willing to put up with those possibilities in order to save time overall.  In my experience thus far I have found that any drawbacks were very minor and did not impact the overall effectiveness of the design.

Now is when I would change the colors to my preferred embroidery colors.  I did change the threads in this design to reflect the brands I used (Floriani, Yenmet and Hemingworth) and I used a slightly different color palette.

When I'm happy with my choice of colors, I save the design once again.  I then open it in 4D Stitch Editor (for those of you who have the 4D Suite).  I click on the Modify tab, and under the Modify Design section, I first look at the design with the Density Advisor tool.  This tool enables me to change the density of the design to lighten areas of very high density, if desired.  Then I use the Design Optimizer button to optimize the design for better stitch out.

Next week: the final step before stitch out - splitting the design! 

Designer Embroidered Jeans in 4D ~ Part 3 ~ Combining Designs

I've mentioned in a previous posting how much I enjoy many of the new machine embroidery designs.  There seems to be a trend developing away from 'single motif' embroidery toward more modular designs that can be combined in a number of ways to create many different looks.

It's this 'mix and match' ability that makes the Fashion Roses design set from Anita Goodesign perfect for embellishing clothing, especially a long, narrow design such as a pant leg. 

To begin, I go to the File menu and select 'Open'.  I open the file which contains the designs and, using the Ctrl key, select a number of designs I think I might want to mix and match into my overall design.  Using the custom sized hoop mentioned in Part 1, I begin the process of combining designs.

When combining these design motifs, I like to play around with various combinations.  I use the Rotate, Mirror, and Resize tools quite a bit to try out different combinations.  If I'm doing a lot of resizing or other types of editing of a motif, I will often select the design, copy and paste a duplicate before beginning any major alterations.  That way I have an unaltered copy of the motif on the screen for reference or use without having to use 'Open' to fetch another one.

I also cut designs apart when needed.  Sometimes, such as working with a floral like the Designer Roses, there will be leaf or bud that lands where I don't want it.  When this happens, I simply edit it out.  To do this, I first select the motif that I want to edit.  Then I  go to the Edit tab at the lower right hand of the screen, which gives me a view such as in the illustration.  As shown, I will select (by checking only the boxes containing the colors I am editing) the color(s) of the stitches I want to edit.  In this case, I am only editing out a one-color tendril, which is easy to do.  I use the Lasso tool (Freehand Select, under the Select tools), and circle around the area to be deleted.  Once that is selected, I hit the Delete key and voila, the tendril disappears.

When you are truly happy with your combined design, select 'Combine'. This will merge the designs together and eliminate any overlapping stitches.  Remember that you will not be able to work with individual pieces of the design after this point.  Save the design, and then select ColorSort.  I will go into more detail about optimizing your design in the next part of the series.

Have fun with the design process.  For me, this is definitely 'the fun part'.  When you are combining motifs, consider some of the following:

Does the design have good flow?  Does your eye move around the design easily or does it get 'stuck' in places?  A good design is harmonious and has good 'rhythm'.

Is the design in proportion to the size and scale of the area to be stitched?  When doing jean designs I have a tendency to go a little overboard.  Fortunately, I am 'large scale' myself, but you don't want to overwhelm your garment.

Have fun!  Next week - Optimizing your design for stitch out.

--Katrina