What to do when your bobbin runs out mid embroidery design

Yesterday on QUILTsocial I talked about 8 great features on the Brother Dreamweaver XE that make machine embroidery a breeze. Today I’ll put these features to the test and stitch out an amazing Disney embroidery design.

To find the correct spot to embroider, first fold the gift bag fabric in half to make a rectangle that is 23″ x 18¾”. Measure up 8″ from the bottom and 9⅛” from the folded edge and mark with a pin. Iron fusible tear away interfacing to the back of the fabric and place the fabric in the extra large embroidery hoop with the bottom edge of the hoop pointing towards the bottom edge of the fabric.

Thread the machine with the first thread color listed on the right side of the screen (cream). My machine is threaded and it’s ready to go.

After threading the machine, first press the presser-foot lifter button to lower the presser foot.

Next, press the stop-start button on the Dreamweaver XE. The machine will move to the correct position and start stitching.

The top of the embroidery screen on the Dreamweaver XE shows the total stitches in your selected design, the time it will take to stitch and the number of thread color changes that will be required. The numbers in red show what has been done so far. As you can see, the machine says that it has stitched 76 stitches which has taken 3 minutes and I’ve done one color change.

TIP If you’re having trouble seeing what parts of the embroidery design will be stitch in white, view the LCD screen of the Dreamweaver XE from an angle. It’s easier to see what white sections of the design the machine will stitch with this thread change.

The bobbin empty alert on the Brother Dreamweaver XE will display when the machine has almost run out of bobbin thread.

When this happens, press the thread cutting button and then press the “embroidery unit position” key to move the carriage out of the way of the bobbin casing.

When the carriage moving warning pops up on the LCD screen of the Dreamweaver XE, press the OK button and keep your hands away from the carriage.

Remove the embroidery hoop from the Dreamweaver XE by lifting the frame-securing lever and sliding the hoop towards you.

The supplemental spool pin on the Dreamweaver XE allows you to wind a bobbin without removing your top thread from the machine.

After putting in your new bobbin and replacing the embroidery hoop, press the Forward/Back key on the embroidery screen.

Press the “-1” key on the embroidery screen to go back a few stitches from where you stopped the machine.

Once you’ve moved the machine back a few stitches, press the presser foot lifter key to lower the presser foot and then the Start/Stop button to start the machine stitching again.

By the end, the Disney patchwork Mickey Mouse design that I picked used 12 different colors, that had to be changed 22 times, but I only ran out of bobbin thread once!

Here’s the finished Disney Mickey Mouse design stitched out by the Brother Dreamweaver XE. I ended up changing out a couple of the thread colors from the original design. For example, his one foot was supposed to be red, but I thought that it wouldn’t show up enough on the red background so I changed it to orange.

Now that our fabric has been embroidered, tomorrow I’ll start sewing the gift bag using the Dreamweaver XE from Brother.