Designer Brilliance 80 Word Sculpt: getting really creative now is easy!

Isn’t it exciting to personalize terry cloth as I showed you in yesterday’s post? I love being able to personalize items, whether they’re for myself, for friends, or the house. Today, I’ve got a fantastic idea for a customized gift to share with you as I play with the Husqvarna Viking Designer Brilliance 80 sewing and embroidery machine.

I’ll start with the PREMIER +2 Embroidery System software again. When I saw this feature, I knew I had to get this software. It’s one of the Wizards called Word Sculpt and found in the PREMIER +2 Extra and PREMIER +2 Ultra levels of the software.

Using the Wizard to make Word Sculpt designs is so easy, and the possibilities are endless. I could play with this single feature for days!

Start with an outline, and there are many included in the Word Sculpt Wizard including two different styles of letters, animals, shapes, transport, etc. Then simply enter the words you want to appear in the outline.

The shape I choose is my first initial in a block style letter. Then I added words that describe myself that all start with the letter E.

Isn’t that a great gift for someone? This design can be stitched out on a quilt block, a wall hanging, a pillow, a bag – or anything else that comes to mind.

Hmm – I bet your friends and family would want you to make one for them. Perhaps you could sell your newly created designs?

Anyway, there are loads of options within the Wizard to allow you to change fonts, move the outlines of the words to precisely fill the shape, upper and lower case, and a whole lot more.

When I was happy with the design, I needed to get it to the Designer Brilliance 80, so I could stitch it out. Hmm – I could use that USB, but where is it? Wait – I have two options. Since the Designer Brilliance 80 is connected to the Wi-Fi and so is my laptop where I created the design, I can save the design file to the mySewnet Cloud, where I’ll be able to upload the file into the embroidery mode on the Designer Brilliance 80. Or I can send it directly to the Designer Brilliance 80 through mySewnet. WOW – I LOVE this feature.

I decided to send the file directly to the Designer Brilliance 80 and look – I could send it to my Husqvarna Viking Designer EPIC 2 as well, which just happened to be on when I was sending this file. I could have sent it to both machines if I wanted. Exciting!!!!

Once the Designer Brilliance 80 senses that a file is waiting to be received, a pop-up message asks if I want to allow it to receive the file from my laptop. I click OK, and the file will download into the embroidery edit screen.

Here’s the file in the embroidery edit. How slick was that? I get so excited over the technology and how everything is connected. It makes life so much easier than finding USBs or connecting with cables or whatever things we had to do in the past.

I should mention that three embroidery hoops come with the Designer Brilliance 80. There’s the DESIGNER Royal Hoop (360 x 200mm), the DESIGNER Crown Hoop (260 x 200mm), and the DESIGNER Splendid Square Hoop (120 x 120mm). That means when you unbox your Husqvarna Viking Designer Brilliance 80, you’ll have immediate access to a large, a medium and a small hoop.

Of course, you’ll want to add other hoops to your Christmas wish list. I like to work with the smallest hoop possible for each design. There’s a wide variety of sizes and specialty hoops from which to choose. Check out this link to find more hoops to add to your list.

The Embroidery Stitch Out screen is important. This menu is where you’ll set the embroidery functions and select the appropriate accessories, so the Designer Brilliance 80 knows how to stitch out your design file.

The Designer Brilliance 80 can sense which stitch plate is on the machine, and it’s best to use the Straight Stitch Plate for embroidery.

We also see that the 360 by 200 hoop is selected and that we’re using the Sensor Q-foot. Make sure that these options match what you have on the Designer Brilliance 80.

If I want to merge the colors or sort them for fewer thread changes or turn my design into a monochromatic design, I can select those options on this screen.

What I love is the flexibility. I can choose to baste around the design or baste around the hoop. If I forget, I can also select those options from the Embroidery Stitch Out screen.

But here’s an option that is priceless when working with letters. I’m using the Automatic Thread Cutter and Automatic Jump Stitch Trim. Hold that thought – I’ve got a picture to share with you.

In this picture, we can see what happens when I select the Monochrome option on the Embroidery Stitch Out Screen. Even though the Color Block List appears on the screen with actual thread colors, the design itself is now totally grey.

If I had forgotten to turn on the Monochrome button, I could also have the whole design stitch out automatically in one color, by turning off the STOP function on the Function Panel.

I choose to use an Inspira Tear-A-Way stabilizer for my project. I’m going to float my fabric, so I’ve only hooped the stabilizer. I’m using a heavy canvas, and it seems to have a high wrinkle factor, and I didn’t want any marks from the hoop on it.

I’m using the ‘baste around the hoop’ option instead of the ‘baste around the design’ option because the piece of canvas I’m using is about four inches larger than the hoop on all sides. I don’t want the fabric flopping back into the embroidery area. It’s so great to have options.

Now let’s go back to the Jump Stitch that I selected from the Embroidery Stitch Out screen. There are a lot of letters in this design. Imagine if I had a jump stitch on the front of my work between each letter. It would take forever to clean it up. Selecting the Automatic Thread Cutter and Automatic Jump Stitch Trim, will make the jump stitches appear on the back of the work, and all the threads will be cut and pulled to the back as well. Using this feature means there’s virtually nothing to clean up on the front. I LOVE time-saving features!!!!

I’ve selected the options for the embroidery stitch out,  the fabric is basted in the hoop, I’ve inserted a full bobbin, and the machine is threaded with the embroidery thread, I hit START and walked away.

I know many people will not leave their embroidery machine when it’s stitching out. I do it all the time. And I feel confident about leaving the Designer Brilliance 80 to work without me around. If there’s a problem, guess what? I’m using the mySewMonitor app on my tablet (or my smartphone), and while I was making breakfast, I could monitor the status of my design stitch out.

If the bobbin ran out, or the thread broke or whatever other reason the embroidery would stop stitching out, it was easy to monitor the progress. I didn’t have any issues, and before long, I had the ‘Embroidery is finished’ message. YEAH!!!!!

Here’s the finished embroidery. It’s still in the hoop, and I need to remove the basting stitches and the stabilizer. I LOVE it. Gosh – I hope I spelled all those big words correctly. I had chosen to have a line of stitching around the entire design, but I could have eliminated that if I wanted to when I was creating the design in the Word Sculpt Wizard.

At this point, I could make any number of things with this piece of embroidery – a tote bag, a block for a quilt (although I wouldn’t use canvas for that), a cushion cover, but this is what I ended up making. I stretched the canvas over an artist’s frame and made a piece of wall art that I can hang in my studio! What a great gift idea for ME!

My canvas is 10” x 12”. Make sure to trim your design large enough to bring the edges over so you can staple them in place.

red canvas

It was so easy with the Husqvarna Viking Designer Brilliance 80 to make that possible.

Today, we technically didn’t add anything to our Christmas Wish List, but you know that you’ll need those consumable items like pre-wound bobbins, stabilizers, and thread. Check your stabilizer inventory against the JoyOS Advisor app – which ones are you missing? Order pre-wound bobbins or extra bobbins and wind your own bobbins.

I know a few people who will want this wall art for themselves or someone in their family. The hardest part?  – Choosing the words to go in the design. Have fun with it!!

Be sure to come back tomorrow as I’ve got a neat embroidery technique to share with you.

Have a great day!

Ciao!!!

This is part 3 of 5 in this series

Go back to part 2: 6 key tips for embroidering on terry cloth using an embroidery machine

Go to part 4: What to know about couching work on the Designer Brilliance 80