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Selecting and editing a machine embroidery design on the Dreamweaver XE

by Christine Baker

Yesterday on QUILTsocial I showed you how easy it is to switch the Brother Dreamweaver XE from a regular sewing machine into an embroidery machine by installing the embroidery unit. Today I’m playing around with the Embroidery Edit function to design a customized monogram for the tote bag I’m making this week.

The Brother Dreamweaver XE

The Brother Dreamweaver XE

Step 1 – select Embroidery Edit

When the Dreamweaver XE turns on, this is the first screen that appears on the LCD display. Up until now I’ve been using the ‘Sewing’ function exclusively. Today I’ll select ‘Embroidery Edit’. Unlike the ‘Embroidery’ function (in which you can embroider designs exactly as they are saved in the machine), this function allows you to combine, move, edit and rotate designs on the LCD screen.

Select Embroidery Edit

Select Embroidery Edit

You’ll notice that some of the icons on the embroidery screen look like they are ‘stacked’ on top of each other. This indicates that another screen will appear when this icon is selected and allowing for further options to choose from.

Stacked icons

Stacked icons

Step 2 – find a design

I selected the first grouping on the screen, and this is the next screen that came up. Whenever you see this up/down arrow bar on the right side of the screen, this means that you can scroll through the many designs available by pulling up or down on the cursor in the arrow bar.

Scrolling through designs

Scrolling through designs

Once you see a design you like, select it by pressing its icon on the Dreamweaver XE LCD touchscreen.

My Fiber Friend has been to Ireland a few times and absolutely loved it, so I picked the shamrock design to work with.

Selecting a design

Selecting a design

Next press set to save your selected embroidery design on the embroidery screen.

 Press SET


Press SET

Step 3 – change the size

To make the design bigger or smaller, select the ‘size’ button on the Dreamweaver XE. You can shrink, enlarge or even stretch the selected embroidery design.

Select SIZE button

Select SIZE button

Press the enlarge button to make the design larger equally in all directions.The other buttons will make it smaller or stretch/shrink it in one direction. Check the measurements shown on the screen to see how big it will actually be when it’s stitched out on the fabric.

Enlarge button

Enlarge button

Step 4 – make a copy

For my design, I want to have shamrocks at the top and bottom and have her name in the middle. To make another copy of my selected embroidery design I press the duplicate button on the LCD screen.

Duplicate button

Duplicate button

The duplicated image shows up on the Dreamweaver XE‘s LCD embroidery screen just below the original design image.

Duplicated image

Duplicated image

Step 5 – rotate the design

Now I want to rotate the design so that it’s upside down. The rotate button on the Dreamweaver XE will bring up the rotating options that are available.

ROTATE button

ROTATE button

Press the 90 degree button to rotate the selected image on the design screen. To rotate 180 degrees, just press it twice.

90 degree rotate button

90 degree rotate button

Now that my two shamrock designs are where I’d like them to be, I want to add her name. To add another element to your design just press the “add” button at the bottom of the screen.

The ADD button

The ADD button

Tomorrow I’ll show you all of the different fonts that are available on the Brother Dreamweaver XE and I’ll finish designing the monogram for my bag. This machine is so much fun to use! I can’t wait to see how my design looks stitched out on the side of the tote bag!

This is part 2 of 5 in this series.
Go back to part 1: How to convert the Brother Dreamweaver XE into an embroidery machine

Go to part 3: 7 simple steps to add words to your machine embroidery design

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