Preparing THE Dream Machine 2 for bobbin work machine embroidery

Yesterday on QUILTsocial I showed you 4 simple steps to embroider beautiful quilt blocks using THE Dream Machine 2 from Brother.

Today I’m using the embroidery function of the machine and “turning things upside down” by doing some bobbin work.

The beauty of bobbin work is using a thick decorative thread (that couldn’t fit through the needle of the machine) wound in the bobbin and work from the back of the fabric. The top thread basically holds the bobbin thread in place on the front of the fabric.

Select the embroidery menu on the opening screen of THE Dream Machine 2.

Next, select section 6 on the embroidery menu. All of the preset bobbin work designs that come with THE Dream Machine 2 are found in this section.

Here are some of the bobbin work embroidery designs available. As you can see, all of the designs on this screen have a letter “B” in the bottom left corner of the key. This indicates that these designs are suitable only for bobbin work.

I selected design 014 and then select “edit” on the design screen.

The bobbin work edit screen of THE Dream Machine 2 shows the options available for editing the selected design. As you can see, many of the editing options are grayed out, indicating that only things like the position, rotation, mirror image and color for bobbin work designs can be changed. Also, the speed the machine stitches can’t be changed either – all bobbin work designs are stitched at a default speed of 350 spm (stitches per minute).

I added three more of the same design to the design screen so that all of my embroideries for the setting triangles for my table runner will be stitched on the same piece of fabric. I’ve made sure to position them in the corners as far from the center as possible so that there will be adequate space to cut them apart afterwards.

Getting the machine ready for bobbin work

In order to do bobbin work with THE Dream Machine 2, the machine needs to be correctly set up. Please check out my QUILTsocial post from June 7, 2017 where I explain the main steps to preparing for bobbin work. My NQ900 isn’t as fancy as THE Dream Machine 2, but you follow the same basic steps for preparing the machine for bobbin work.

The bobbin work bobbin case for this machine is inserted so that the white arrow on the case is aligned with the white dot on machine.

Put a bobbin wound with decorative or heavy thread into the bobbin case, passing the thread through the tension spring – do not guide the thread through the groove in the needle plate cover otherwise the lower threading cannot be done correctly. Gently pull the bobbin thread up to the top of the needle plate of THE Dream Machine 2.

For bobbin work, the stabilizer is attached to the back of the fabric and the fabric is placed with the right side down. The stabilizer is therefore on top of the fabric in the hoop.

Mount the embroidery hoop into the embroidery unit of THE Dream Machine 2 in preparation for bobbin work machine embroidery. Since we’re doing machine embroidery bobbin work and not free-motion bobbin work (like I talked about in my June 2017 posts), the embroidery foot “W+” is also attached to the machine.

Now that the machine is all set up and the design has been chosen, we’re all ready to start stitching – see you tomorrow!