Using color shuffling for machine embroidery designs on THE Dream Machine 2

Yesterday I showed you how to re-size, re-color and add fill stitches to a saved embroidery design that was created on THE Dream Machine 2 by Brother.

Let’s explore how to use the color shuffling feature using one of the designs that’s already in THE Dream Machine 2 library. Here’s how to get started.

Open an embroidery design so it appears on the LCD screen. I chose this fish design, but you have hundreds of designs to choose from when using THE Dream Machine 2.

Here’s how the design looks using the default colors.

Press the edit key, then the thread palette key (it looks like a spool of thread) and the color palette comes up. You’ll also see the color shuffling key on the right side of the screen.

Press that button to see all the color options – random, gradient, vivid and soft. Press any of those buttons to see all the color variations. You’ll have dozens to choose from!

Here’s how this design will look using the soft variation. You can see there are 9 variations of this coloring.

Here are 9 more designs using the vivid variation.

And here it is with the random variation.

You can also put in your own favorite colors. Touch one of the thread colors (spools) on the right side of the screen, choose a different color from the color palette at the bottom of the screen, and the color automatically changes in the design. Of course you can also re-size the design and add other designs to it by pressing the add key at the bottom of the screen.

Another design idea…

I recently took a half-day class usingwatercolor pencils on fabric. This is another great way to use embroidered designs.

While learning to use the embroidery features on this machine, I made lots of samples using different techniques. I made machine embroidered outlines on THE Dream Machine 2 and enhanced them with the watercolor pencils. Below are some samples.

I have really enjoyed using THE Dream Machine 2 by Brother over the past few weeks.

I had never used an embroidery machine before, but it was easy to learn the basics by reading the manuals and “playing” with all the edit screens. There’s so much more that this machine can do.

My fellow blogger, Christine Baker, will be posting more features on QUILTsocial in December through February, you’ll want to see what she discovers and makes on THE Dream Machine 2. Thanks for joining me on my embroidery machine adventure!