Machine embroidery options and quilting

Hello everyone! I’m excited to be back. This week I’ll be exploring some more machine embroidery options and quilting with the Designer Ruby Royale.

I’ll also be giving you an update on the What’s Good for the Gal is Good for the Guy quilt challenge.

I’ve said before that my sewing history indicates that I’m not a big embroiderer, but boy – do I like having the ability to do embroidery if I need it (and my daughter does too – just wait!). I’ve got some really awesome examples to show you where I’ve incorporated machine embroidery into my work.

I like machine embroidery and would do lots more, but there are only 24 hours in a day. Can you imagine having “nothing” to do all day so you spend your entire time in the studio creating stuff? Count me in!

Let’s get started by looking at the built-in editing abilities of the Husqvarna Viking Designer Ruby Royale.

Many quilters think that all one has to do is hoop the fabric, hit the start button and the embroidery machine does all of the work. AH – if it were only that simple!

You, as the operator, must still be in attendance as threads can break, threads need to be changed, some designs need to be trimmed. Oh yes – stitching out machine embroidery is like watching children! Which is why I really, really want that video baby monitor so I can keep my eye on the embroidery machine when I physically can’t be in the room.

While you can purchase embroidery designs which do not require any editing, it’s fun to create your own stuff or modify the purchased designs.

The Designer Ruby Royale does not disappoint. The editing abilities built into the sewing machine are unbelievable. I’m going to walk you through some of the editing options today.

Please note – this is no where near a tutorial! I’m just trying to show you how flexible the built-in editing capabilities are. And by now you should know that I love pictures! There are lots of pictures. Sit back and enjoy.

To get started you need to toggle into the Embroidery Edit screen. If the embroidery unit is attached, the Embroidery Edit screen will automatically appear when you turn on the sewing machine. Otherwise you can toggle into Embroidery Edit even if the embroidery unit is not attached.

I’m going to start by selecting one of the 182 built-in designs on the Designer Ruby Royale.

If you want to get a better visual of these built-in designs, there’s a color picture of each design in the sampler book.

I chose Design Number 102. The Designer Ruby Royale automatically selected the smallest hoop appropriate for this design from the list of hoops that I had entered in the Hoop Selection.

Entering only those hoops that I own or came with the embroidery machine helps take the guess work out of choosing the hoop size. The Designer Ruby Royale will choose the best one based on the hoops you own. Sew smart!

If you’re an occasional embroiderer like myself, you may forget what all those menu options mean. I simply used the stylus and touched the Quick Help (the question mark in the top right hand corner of the screen). Then I touched each and every one of the icons on the screen. I soon knew what the purpose of each button was. That Quick Help is an awesome feature.

I can re-position the image on the screen. I should mention that what we see on the screen is how the image will be embroidered. Notice in the picture above that I have the Position function highlighted (in blue) and notice the numbers in the blue bar. They indicate that the image is centered within the hoop. .

In the screen above, you can see that the center of the image is now 29.9 mm above the center and 29.3 mm to the left of the center of the hoop.

It’s easy to move a design element on the screen. I can start by using the stylus to drag the image to where I want and then I can use the arrows on the big white dial (Control) to fine tune the position of the design.

If I want to recenter the design, I can hit the large blue dot in the Control and my design will be centered.

I can duplicate an image by selecting the image I want to duplicate (in this case there is only one image on the screen). I select the Duplicate icon from the right hand side of the screen. If I want to duplicate the image once, I tap the Duplicate icon once, but if I want multiple copies, I can activate the pop-up menu which allows me to enter in the number of copies that I want.

Now I have four identical images on the screen. I can modify each image individually or I could touch the Select All icon and all images would be selected. Whatever changes I make will be made to all the images as if they were a single design.

In this next screen shot, the four images have been positioned within the hoop so they are not overlapping each other and are somewhat centered around the center of the hoop.

To help me visualize the positioning in the hoop, I can turn on the grid feature. Now I get a grid in the background to help me position my designs. I also fine tuned the position of all four designs so that they are 30 mm to the top/bottom and left/right of the center of the hoop.

In this next screen shot, I’ve selected ALL four designs. See how they are all highlighted by a red box. Notice the numbers in the blue bar. The four designs are now being treated as one unit which is centered in the hoop.

I have the ability to rotate the designs to any degree that I want. The rotation function is selected (highlighted in blue) and you can see in the screen shot below that the designs are currently straight. The angle is 0 degrees of rotation.

I rotated the embroidery design to a 45 degree angle. The group of four designs were rotated as if it was one design. Now the design is out of the hoop area. This isn’t the look I was going for, but I wanted to show you how you could rotate multiple designs at once.

This time, I’m going to rotate the individual designs.

Like the previous example above, I duplicated the design so I would have four identical images on the screen. Instead of using the Select All function, I’m going to rotate each one individually. Alternatively, I could rotate the single image and then add duplicate designs so when the additional designs were added, they would already be rotated. Obviously this would be a lot faster than rotating each one individually.

I could then go back to the Position Function and fine tune (move) the designs into the position I would like them to be stitched out in.

I can also change the size of the embroidery designs. By selecting the scale function, I can change the size by up to 20 percent.

There are so many others ways that I can change the embroidery designs with the Husqvarna Viking Designer Ruby Royale built-in editing software.

If I want to increase or decrease the size by greater than 20 percent, then I can use the Resize function. I can edit the colors in the design, use the Edit Stitch program and create Basic Design Applique.

I can see many hours spent just playing with all the features. Hard to believe that all this is possible right on the embroidery machine screen. This is AMAZING!

If I have created a design that I would like to keep, then I can save it to My Files. I can save it to the built-in memory on the embroidery machine or on an external USB stick.

And what would be the point of creating the design and not stitching it out?

If you feel that there aren’t enough bells and whistles with the built-in editing functions on the Designer Ruby Royale, there are software packages available. Check them out at this link. I think it will be a long time before I even crack the box on the software. I’ll be so busy trying out all the features on the built-in software.

Whoa – who knew an embroidery machine could be so smart? It sure makes me want to explore those features a bit more and well – I’ll start looking around the house to see what I can embroider. Hmmm – there are tea towels, sheets, oh – my family better watch out!

Tomorrow, I’ll be exploring the written word. Yes – words are my thing, I’m going to use the Husqvarna Viking Designer Ruby Royale to explore how to put words on various projects. Machine embroidery options and quilting unite!

Have a great day!

Ciao!