A new machine, a new challenge

Hello, everyone.

In December, a large box arrived for my sweetie, and someone else wrapped it up in paper. There it sat until Christmas Eve, when I opened it to discover a new machine!

This not-so-little beauty is the Janome MC500e, which does embroidery. It does not do sewing, other than what sewing can be done as an embroidery project. Here it is working on the in-the-hoop coasters on the Sew4Home web site.  I used a different color of linen, from stash, and different colors for the threads. The actual pattern was developed from a canned border design, which the ladies at Sew4Home made into an intricate decoration for the square coaster.

I see some non-fattening Easter gifts here.

The machine came with some canned alphabets and designs, and I found some more freebies to try  out as well.

I put this test piece into a three-ring notebook my sweetie gave me. The text was done with the canned lettering alphabets in the machine, and the shell is a freebie I found online. (The person giving the shell away free has it as a part of a beach-y ensemble for a bathroom floor mat. The shell is around 3 3/4 inches across.) Long time readers know that the Camino de Santiago made a big impression around here, so the shell just reached out and grabbed me through the computer screen and said "just think what you can do with me!"

I wrote notes on the test piece, as y'all can see. Which threads were used, the file name of this project--which I envision as a pillow front--and some comments on the way the quilting cotton behaved under the needle.

Very recently, I learned out to print out a placement template, actual size, to see how things work out.

This was an exploration of various sizes of the canned letters that came with the machine. I broke out my little ruler and measured the height of the capital D for the different alphabets. This little trick is done on my machine's software by clicking the little icon at the top, rather like hitting "file" in Word, and a list of options appears. One is Print and it sends what you're working on to the printer, with the centering arrows and everything.

It's been so exciting discovering what can be done with my embroidery machine! And  my local quilt shop has classes on various techniques, explored through projects, as well.

This was from a class that introduced me to in-the-hoop applique. It's a Kimberbell design. Four of us came and worked through it. The little bunny is just as cute as a button, IMHO.

Thank you, Santa!