Sewing techniques with the Husqvarna Viking Designer Ruby Royale

Welcome back everyone!  While I’m predominately a quilter, I’ve been side tracked from time to time (OK – a lot of times) into sewing other things. Could be a garment, a bag, a rug – whatever. I love to try new things. There’s nothing more frustrating than wanting to try something and not having the right tools to do a good job.

I put the Ruby Royale to the test. I have put in many zippers, made meters and meters of piping, sewn through heavy layers of interfacing and so far, it’s been an exceptional experience trying sewing techniques with the Husqvarna Viking Designer Ruby Royale.

Sit back and relax while I walk you through some of my fun.

It’s a tradition in our house for family members to get new PJ pants for Christmas. And I usually end up making them on Christmas Eve.

When I was running through the stitch menus before Christmas I came across Menu T – 8-way Stitches. I was wondering where I could use them. Then as I was making my PJ pants – it dawned on me that I could use the 8-way Stitches to attach the elastic in the waistband.

My method for the elastic is to make a casing, then insert the elastic. It’s always “fun” to join the two ends of elastic together as I turn the whole mess under the presser foot. Well – that’s no longer an issue with the Menu T – 8-way stitches. 

You insert your project under the presser foot and start to sew in the direction indicated on the screen. When you need to change direction, you hit one of the little blue arrows  – the line of stitching on the screen changes to reflect the direction you’re about to sew. This means you can go completely around the join of the elastic without turning the project.

What a brilliant feature! I love this and wouldn’t it be great for sewing on patches? perhaps a label on the backing of a quilt (if you sew them on before they are quilted)?, or a label in a bag? Love this feature!

Once the elastic is joined and safely sewn inside the casing – I like to do a three step zigzag through the entire waistband. Yes – I realize that the new elastics are not supposed to twist, but that doesn’t stop me from keeping my old habits. Besides I like how it looks.

On the Ruby Royale, I have the choice of a three step zigzag or a four-step zigzag. I chose the four step zigzag (because I had never used one before), gave that elastic a bit of a stretch, and sewed through all layers.

Next up was a rug. I took strips of fabric layered with strip of batting. The layered strips were folded towards the center several times to make a fat tube. I used the 1/4″ Edge Stitching foot to sew right down the middle of the thick tube to secure it.

Because of the thickness of the tube, I chose Woven Heavy in the Exclusive Sewing Advisor. The sewing machine chose a longer stitch length (3.0) to accommodate the heavier fabric and set the tension.

Next up, I joined the fabric tubes together using an Edge Joining Foot. There is a metal guide in the center of the foot which worked perfectly to keep the tubes centered as I used a three step zigzag to stitch the tubes together.

I used to hate making piping. Well I didn’t really hate making the piping, but I could never get it to turn out nice. I was determined that with the help of the Ruby Royale, I could at last make decent looking piping.

Of course to make my life more difficult, the fabric I chose for the piping was a heavy outdoor weight fabric and the diameter of the piping was large. I set the sewing machine up using the Mega Piping Foot and started to sew. Again, I used the Exclusive Sewing Advisor to help me choose the appropriate stitch length and tension.

Once the piping was the made, the challenge was to sew the piping to the project.

This is the part that I could never get right. I think I have it figured out now. Again, I used the Mega Piping Foot and I stitched the piping in place on the project, but I wasn’t too worried about getting my stitching real tight to the piping. More like basting it in place. Why didn’t I think of that before? Then I moved the needle to the left-most position and jammed that piping against the foot and guess what? I’m thrilled with the results.

I figured if I could sew big piping, then small piping would be a snap. This time, the cording was much smaller so I was able to use the regular piping foot. Again, I adjusted the needle position to get the stitching as close as possible to the edge of the piping when I was sewing it to the project.

Again – I am thrilled with the results and I will never shy away from piping again. Good thing – because my daughter has a new project lined up for me and YES – it has piping on it.

I did get a chuckle when I was working on the big piping project. There were many thick layers and several times I got the following pop-up message. I think that’s the Ruby Royale’s way of saying – STOP – let’s get things under control before we continue. Once the message cleared off the screen (in well under a minute), the sewing machine continued on like nothing had happened.

This was a good excuse to take a tea break!

Zippers – another favorite of mine. I’m surprised by the number of people who never inserted a zipper. I think that’s one of the first things we did back in Home Economics (a few years back). We had to make a pencil case with a zipper. Thanks Mrs. Sealy – I have never forgotten how. 

Quite often a project will call for a length of zipper that doesn’t exist or you have an 18 inch zipper when you only need a 14 inch zipper. It’s simple to make the zipper the correct length. You simply make a new zipper stop where you want and cut off the excess.

Normally I will set the stitch length of the zigzag to zero so the sewing machine will stitch the zigzag in place. The minimum setting was 2.0 for the stitch length. I simply dropped the feed teeth and I got my zipper stop with no problem. I love having flexibility to solve any problem.

Just so you don’t think I am totally uncoordinated, when it comes to color,  I did change the color of that zipper. I thought it looked fabulous when I first put it in, but then I looked at it the next day and got out the stitch ripper. The new zipper is orange and blends right into the fabric. Much better!

I had another project to be completed. This time, I had to pre-quilt some 14 inch squares (no backing, just a very thin batting and the applique background fabric) in order to do some applique.

The squares were small enough that I wanted to try quilting them using the Edge/Quilting Guide and a regular presser foot instead of using the walking foot. The squares were trimmed down after they were quilted.

Well that was too easy. Time to try something a bit harder. Each of the backgrounds for this quilt will be quilted differently using stitches on the sewing machines.

I thought I would try one of the Omnimotion stitches. I must admit that this was a bit harder because of the sideways motion needed to complete this stitch, but I’m ecstatic with the results!

I had to laugh because when I presented this sample to my class, one of the ladies said she did NOT do free motion quilting. I said “neither did I!”  I think this is a brilliant way to use the stitches in the Ruby Royale and I can’t wait to give some more a whirl. 

Making buttonholes is a breeze. Once you attach the Sensor One-Step Buttohhole Foot, you get to select how long you want the buttonhole to be. Obviously that is based on the size of button you’re using. Once that is set, you place the fabric (reinforced) under the presser foot and press the Start/Stop button on the Function Panel and you get an awesome buttonhole.

Note: I always do a practice stitch out on a scrap as I can never remember which way the buttonhole is going to go. Better to be safe than have to stitch rip!

As you’ve seen from some of the examples above, the Ruby Royale does a super job of top stitching. Even when I required it to top stitch through a LOT of layers as I went over this bag handle.

There you have it. The Husqvarna Viking Designer Ruby Royale is a work horse! I tried all kinds of different techniques and not once did it disappoint me. I was even “forced”  to learn some new techniques and I have learned how to successfully sew in piping!

What I love about the Ruby Royale is that if you tell it want you want to do, it will help you. The Exclusive Sewing Advisor sets the stitch length and the tension and that really takes a lot of guess work out and produces a wonderful result.

I hope you enjoyed seeing the sewing techniques with the Husqvarna Viking Designer Ruby Royale. Tomorrow we’re going to start looking at the embroidery functions. I can’t wait to show you all that it can do.

Have a great day!

Ciao!