4 essentials for proper machine embroidery

Yesterday on QUILTsocial I finished designing the embroidery that I’m putting on my wireframe tote bag. Today I’m prepping the Dreamweaver XE for machine embroidery by making sure that I have all of the essentials in place.

Essential 1 – an embroidery foot

To do any machine embroidery you need to have the embroidery foot in place. Before changing the presser foot on the Dreamweaver XE, make sure to press the ‘lock all keys’ button to prevent possible damage or injury.

Check out my QUILTsocial post on August 23, 2018, where I share the 6 easy steps to correctly change your presser foot on the Dreamweaver XE.

The presser foot holder on the Dreamweaver XE is removed by loosening the screw on the left-hand side.

We can attach the embroidery foot ‘W+’ by aligning the notch of the presser foot to the large screw.

Next we need to plug the embroidery foot connector into the jack on the back of the Brother Dreamweaver XE. Now the machine knows that we’ve attached the embroidery foot and it will allow us to do machine embroidery.

After changing the presser foot, we press the unlock button to unlock all of the keys and buttons on the sewing machine.

Essential 2 – the embroidery bobbin case

The needle plate cover must be removed in order to replace the regular sewing bobbin case with the embroidery bobbin case. The embroidery bobbin case comes preset at the appropriate tension that is needed when using embroidery bobbin thread.

The Dreamweaver XE comes with two different bobbin cases, one for regular sewing and one for machine embroidery. The one on the left (with the blue dot) is the embroidery case.

Once we’ve removed the regular bobbin case, the embroidery bobbin case is slipped into the machine and then the needle plate cover is replaced.

Essential 3 – embroidery bobbin thread

The Dreamweaver XE comes with one spool of embroidery bobbin thread. The tension on the embroidery bobbin case is set for this weight of thread.

Essential 4 – embroidery needles

Machine embroidery needles should be used when doing machine embroidery on the Dreamweaver XE. Use a 75/11 size needle when doing most embroidery and a 90/14 when embroidering on heavyweight fabrics or stabilizing products. Since I’m embroidering through the thick foam interfacing in the tote bag, I’m using a 90/14 needle on the machine.

Now that I have all of our essentials in place, I’m ready to embroider! Check back tomorrow to see how the embroidery looks on fabric and how the tote bag turns out.