Machine embroidery in the hoop!

Today is the last day with the Husqvarna Viking Designer Ruby Royale and to finish off we’ll have embroidery in the hoop!

Can you see my sad face? Well not too sad since I had a weak moment and bought a new sewing machine, but SHHH – don’t tell my husband! I’ve enjoyed every minute with the Ruby Royale. There isn’t one thing that it hasn’t been able to do for me. I’ve a few skill sets that need to be upgraded, but the Ruby? Nope – she was perfect!

There’s one area of embroidery that I’ve been wanting to try for a long time, but never got around to it. I thought it would be good to experiment and let you see what happened.

Actually, I wanted to show you how easy this is.

There are projects that you can create right in the embroidery hoop! Yes – projects that are basically embroidered and sewn in the hoop!

I’ve never done this before although, I had a basic idea of what needed to be done, so here goes – let’s check it out together.

Keep in mind that I had basic instructions, no training and used what supplies I had on hand – yes – I did it late one night, so one must use what one has. Admit it – you’ve done the same thing. That’s our reason (excuse) for stockpiling so much stuff so that when we sew in the middle of the night, we’ll never run out of supplies!

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

The first step is to load the project design into the Ruby Royale. This was an easy process. I saved the file that had been sent to me by e-mail to a USB stick and inserted the stick into the USB port on the Ruby Royale.

Then I brought up the design onto the screen. It really couldn’t have been easier to get that design. And there are MANY projects that you can buy on-line and they’re sent directly to your e-mail account. It’s easy to store them on your computer or USB stick and have easy access to them when you want to use them.

The project instruction sheet indicated the size of the embroidery – 3.3″ x 5″ – I guess that’s going to have to go into the Royal Hoop. I was about to hoop the fabric when I thought – nope – I’m hooping only the stabilizer. I was going to hoop only one layer, then I thought better of that idea and hooped two layers of stabilizer.

Remember – this is the first time I’m doing this type of project so I had no choice but to follow the directions – well sort of!

The Ruby Royale stitched the perimeter of the piece several times and stopped. Hmmmm – now what do I do?

Ah – this is where I add the outer layer of fabric. The outline of the stitching shows me where to position the fabric. I measured the outline of the shape and cut a piece slightly bigger and laid it over the stitching.

Then hit START/STOP button

Let’s see – what’s next? AH – time to add the lining fabric. Take the hoop out of the embroidery arm and turn the hoop upside down. Yes – I can see where the lining fabric goes.

I cut the lining fabric slightly larger than the outline of the shape. The instructions said to pin it in place, which I did, but I only used two pins. Surely that’s enough?

Now that the top and bottom fabrics are stitched in place, what happens next? Can’t wait to see (although if I really wanted to know – I could look at the order of the stitching on the right hand side of the screen and I would have known, but I wanted each segment of stitching to be a surprise!)

When I hit the START/STOP button again, the embroidery stars were stitched out. So far this is a painless and super easy process.

Perhaps I should call the next section “how to save a project” because of course I ran into “issues”. However I was able to recover from both of the issues and the project turned out just fine! Just watch what happens. Who said sewing/embroidery/quilting isn’t exciting?

And perhaps starting with a more full spool of thread would help!

While I did not have the same color of thread, I did manage to find something that was so similar that you can’t tell I ran out of thread! Since it was late at night, stores are closed – I got creative and did what I could with what I had. Trust me – that’s when creativity kicks in!

Happens to me all the time. Don’t try this at home unless you have a high tolerance to stressful situations. Thankfully I’m immune to most stress.

I had to trim the excess fabric from the top piece and at the same time, managed to fix that little boo-boo on the back.

A bit more stitching and then trimmed the excess fabric from the lining.

The inside of the embroideries are always a bit rough to the touch, so I fused a piece of lightweight stabilizer to the inside of the piece. Notice that I was able to “fix” that boo-boo with the lining fabric.

Folded the project in half (there was even a stitch line showing where the item was to be folded) and sewed the side seams with matching thread on the sewing machine. Notice that the boo-boo with the lining fabric doesn’t show?

And you have……..

A neat pouch for your cell phone.

Now isn’t that exciting? I was very impressed and can’t wait to try another project. There are all kinds of bags (even with zippers) and other items that you can do in the hoop. Now that I’m “experienced”, I’ll be able to do an even better job.

This post brings to an end my adventures with the Husqvarna Viking Designer Ruby Royale (at least those adventures I’m sharing with you). I hope you’ve enjoyed the journey as much as I have. The sewing machine abilities are incredible – there are so many possibilities, it’s hard to sleep thinking of all that you can do with it! And the fact that the Ruby Royale is also an embroidery machine – well I just can’t live without the ability to do machine embroidery.

I think I just added a few more projects to my to do list.

Stay tuned – I will be back with another Husqvarna Viking sewing machine. Can’t wait to see what the next one can do and I’ll have more great projects, tips and tricks for you.

Have a great day!

Ciao!   PS – keep those comments comings. We love to hear what you are working on, send us pictures of your projects – we love to share.