Embroidery is spectacular with the Husqvarna Viking Texture Hoop (tutorial)

Oh my goodness, I’m having so much fun with the Husqvarna Viking Designer Ruby 90 and experimenting with various sewing and embroidery techniques to make a fidget quilt. I hope you checked out the blocks I made yesterday.

I had all intentions of making the remaining six blocks today, but then I got pulled down a rabbit hole, and I only got one additional block made! But that’s OK; it means I’ll have to finish off the rest of the blocks tomorrow. But wait until you see what I made!

So, what piqued my curiosity? I threw some ribbons and lace into my basket of odds and ends, and I decided to try the Husqvarna Viking Texture Hoop.

The Texture Hoop looks like a traditional two-part hoop, but there’s a difference. Note the notches along the inside of the inner hoop. The notches make it easy to position your ribbons and yarn vertically or horizontally and keep them straight by matching the numbered notches.

I’ve played with the Texture Hoop, but not recently, so I looked at the JoyOS Advisor tutorial. Through the JoyOS Advisor, I located several built-in designs to try. I swear, it’s so easy to learn something new or give yourself a refresher with the built-in help system.

The ribbons need to lay under the stitches, so using the plastic template in the package and a paper printout of the design is good. In this design, the ribbons need to lay beneath all diagonal lines.

Technically, you could stitch this motif out without using the ribbons; however, the ribbons provide added texture. And you could position ribbons under any motif you want as long as it fits in the Texture Hoop. You can also use the decorative stitches from the sewing mode to stitch down the ribbon. There are endless possibilities.

It helps a lot if you tape the plastic template to the paper pattern, so nothing shifts. Then use a template marking pencil and a ruler to draw the lines. The template already has two diagonal lines from corner to corner, so I didn’t have to mark those. You only need to mark the template if you need lines other than those on the grid.

I confess I got so excited, I placed my ribbons before I hooped the fabric and stabilizer. So, hoop your fabric and stabilizer (I used Inspira Tear-Way Stabilizer), then position the ribbons. Having the material in the hoop helps to stabilize those ribbons during the placement process. Oh dear – I need to slow down next time.

There are clips to keep the ribbons in position, with the neatest little clip for the corners, should the ribbon need to be held there. I love them!

I didn’t take a picture once the hoop was ready to place on the embroidery arm. The Texture Hoop is similar to a traditional two-part hoop, so this inner part fits inside the outer hoop. You’ll see the hooped fabric later in this post.

To check the motif’s placement relative to the hooped fabric, use the Corner Check function in Embroidery Stitch-Out to help position the ribbons.

Each time you touch the Corner Check function, the hoop moves to one of the four corners of the embroidery area. It’s a great function to use. How cool is that?

OH! The other thing I should mention is, if you don’t know what a particular icon does on any of the screens, you can touch the Quick Help function (question mark) in the top right-hand corner and then touch anywhere on the screen to know the name of the icon. In some instances, you get directed to the built-in User’s Guide should you wish to have more information! WOW!!!!

I’m still working on the tension of the ribbons, and I found some of them were a little bit off. It didn’t help that I put the ribbons in the hoop before hooping the fabric and stabilizer.

Using the Corner Check function, I lowered the needle manually to check the position of the ribbon in the corner. I removed the clip and repositioned the ribbon if it wasn’t correct. Then I lowered the needle (again manually) into the ribbon to help hold it in place while I reattached the clip. Typically, this would be tricky as there’s not a lot of room under the head of a sewing machine. However, the Designer Ruby 90 has enough height near the needle that I can put my fist there, so fiddling with the clips was easy! You have to love all the room under the needle.

At last, I was ready to go. I placed a piece of water-soluble stabilizer (I like to use Inspira Aqua Magic Stabilizer) on top of the ribbons so the embroidery foot wouldn’t catch, and I selected the Baste Around Hoop option in the Welcome to Embroidery Stitch Out screen.

It’s always super exciting to watch the designs stitch out.

Here’s the completed design, and it looks fantastic even with the water-soluble stabilizer.

Those little clips are tight, which is good as you don’t want the ribbon to move. A small tool is included with the hoop to make it easy to remove them.

Then I removed the basting stitches and the Tear-A-Way stabilizer and cut away a good portion of the water-soluble stabilizer on the front. Some of the ribbons are not as centered as I thought they were, but it’s likely due to the learning curve, and the ribbon is wide and slippery! Perhaps a quick spritz of glue might help, or the tension on the ribbons should be greater. More experimenting!

All of this went super well, except when I measured the motif and realized it’s larger than the other squares I used for the rest of the fidget quilt. OH NO!

I did have the paper printout for the motif, and I should’ve measured it before I started, but not to worry – I’ll make some design changes! That’s the beauty of learning by doing. The only way you get to understand something is to do it. And if you don’t get it right the first time, you need to figure out where you went wrong and try another way!

So, I tried another design.

I didn’t check the size of the motif before I started, but there was a circle that went around the entire motif, and I thought if I didn’t stitch that out, it would reduce the size.

There are several ways not to stitch part of an embroidery design. You could take the design into the mySewnet Embroidery Software and cut out the stitches you don’t need. Or if the section I don’t want is an entire Color Block, I skip that Color Block.

It’s easy to determine which color block is for which part of the design. You’ll see the stitches highlighted on the touchscreen for each color block when you activate the Highlight Current Color Block function (the green icon).

In this case, the second color from the top of the list is selected (outlined in green), and you can see the large circles are highlighted, with the rest of the design grayed out as those parts belong to a different color block. It’s a HUGE time-saver, and with the large capacitive screen on the Designer Ruby 90, it’s a snap to see what you’re stitching in each color block.

The third option to skip parts of the design is to watch the motif as it stitches. When it reaches the part you don’t want, you can use the plus and minus keys to skip those stitches. I had to use this option for two of the outer circles, and the remaining two circles were in a separate color block which was easy to skip.

I love the total flexibility I get from the Designer Ruby 90, and the large screen makes it a breeze to see everything.

OH – and take note of the icon with the four small arrows on the left. That’s how the Corner Check function icon looks when not in use. Once you touch that icon, you see a single arrow pointing in the direction of each corner of the embroidery area. It’s a great tool, so be sure you use it.

Let’s talk about notifications. A pop-up message appears on the screen if the bobbin is running low or a thread color change is needed and other notifications. I also use the mySewnet app to monitor what’s happening, and these notifications come to my smartphone.

But as I’m sewing, I often wear a pair of headphones as I listen to an audiobook. At first, I couldn’t figure out why I was getting so many notifications for e-mail, but then I realized the little beep was the notifications coming from the embroidery machine! So, I’m always aware if something needs to be done, even with my headphones on. I LOVE it.

Both designs are ready to be rinsed to remove the excess water-soluble stabilizer. It’s always exciting to see the final design.

I have to say, I LOVE both of them, and at first, I was going to cut them to fit, but I’ll rejig the rest of the blocks I need to add to make one of these fit. I’ll use the other one in the next fidget quilt.

Wow – I love when it’s so easy to learn something new or brush up on a technique I haven’t used in a while. And all I had to do was refer to the JoyOS Advisor on the Husqvarna Viking Designer Ruby 90. Plus, it was loads of fun to play with the Texture Hoop.

Be sure to come back tomorrow to see how I compensate for this larger block and what other fantastic techniques I’ll discover.

Have a great day!

Ciao!!!

This is part 3 of 5 in this series

Go back to part 2: 6 fun blocks for a fidget quilt with beads, buttons, ribbons (and more)

Go to part 4: 4 more texture blocks for a fidget quilt using odds and ends