Creative Free Machine Embroidery with Gina Ferrari - Sewing Projects

we're now going to stitch and start some free machine embroidery just a quick recap remember our feed dogs are down we've got an embroidery foot on so that the machine is not pushing the fabric you are controlling the fabric movement and that means you can move in any direction our top tension we've taken it down a little bit for free machining now the reason we do that is because when we free machine the bobbin thread sometimes pops up a little bit and we can see it on the surface not a problem it happens with free machining and later on we're going to see how we can use that effect but for the moment we don't want it to show so we're going to use the same thread top and bottom and we're going to take that top tension down a little bit so I'm just going to thread up my machine I put the bobbin in the bobbin case and it has two as you pull the thread it turns clockwise pull it through the tension system pop it into the bobbin case on the top when you start free machining this we change threads a lot and change colors a lot on this threading up the machine is something you get used to doing really quickly just do it really quickly like experience yes I know when you first start it seems a real nuisance to constantly have to thread up the machine over and over again but I've and we bring the bobbin thread up to the surface so we're all ready to sew now most free machine embroidery can be done with two machine stitches a straight or running stitch or a zigzag and we'll get onto the exact later but for the moment we're just going to do a running stitch which is this basic straight stitch on the machine because you're controlling the length we take the length down to zero again you need to look check your own machines to check how to do that so my stitch length is zero so quick recap feet are down broidery foot on top tension down stitch length zero and we're ready to go now I like to frame my fabric in one of these little clip frames it doesn't hold it as firmly as a hand embroidery frame but it holds it firm enough for machining and why I like it is because you can get the fabric in and out very quickly and it slides very quickly until that foot so we put the rim of the frame down place your fabric over the top and you squeeze the metal and your fabric is framed we then pop that on - ready to go and I'll bring I'll throw that bobbin thread is on the surface I will bring it through to the surface here as well now the thing that sometimes people forget when they free machine is to put this lever down that put your foot down because it doesn't look quite the same as your normal foot it's important to remember to do that because what it does it engages the top tension system your threads are under tension is a tension on the top and attention on the bottom and when we free machine it's about a balance between those tensions and this is what I want you to get used to so although my top tension might be down to three you might need yours down to two it will vary according to the thread and according to the fabric it will be different every time and that's what is important that you get to know your machine and find what works best for you you need to relax shoulders down the only thing that's going to move are your hands so and we run the Machine fairly medium speed fairly fast but we move the frame very very slowly and that's the thing beginners often make a mistake with so I just going to start as you can see we what we're after is a nice flowing even line now you can see how slow when you start if you're moving your friend too quickly you get these big jagged lines and that's not what we want we want nice curves we want perfect control here this is what we're aiming for and I can't stress enough it's practice the more you practice the better you get and I always say to students try writing your name I'm going to show you a few exercises before we start if you look here it's just doodling really with the machine and although it looks quite complicated if you think about it when you sit with a pen and a paper you doodle quite freely just do that with your machine okay so I don't if you want to have a little try see how it goes it's up at the moment so let's just slip it under that's fine that's fine I don't know if winds up yes yours is up to knit then there should be a lever at the back up side I think you'll find on your machine it's just underneath here Becky just yep so that's down now and up okay let's just see what you can do see you can write their name Oh absolutely brilliant attempting to go fast I know it's like when you have to pat your head and rub your tummy you want your foot to make it go fast but your hands to go slowly and too excited oh it's bit fast I'm going through slowly right now fantastic if I was doing really well okay and I I'm gonna do now show you perhaps once you get practicing it can be pretty boring just to sit and do this for hours so it's nice to have some little things to do to practice on okay once you start your free machining you might want to try some little exercises to get practicing and this is just like doodling so you know when you've got a pencil and paper and you just draw little doodles on the side that's all we're doing doodling with the machine to make different patterns and one way of doing that as well is to make a sampler so you can divide your fabric up here I've divided it into four I've used a ruler and one of these fading markers and I've stitched my outline and then put it and doodles inside and you can make up just on a four square one but you can do as many squares as you like to make a sound plug okay so another we're practicing now another exercise that you can do is to stitch onto printed fabric like this and if it's a simple design you could actually just stitch around the outlines of the printed fabric and as you can see I've done that here and I've turned it into a little phone case so it's nice to see that you can actually have an application for what you're doing quite simple stitching and it's nice to practice going around the sides when I'm doing this I back it on to something like felt my youth felt a lot now we've just used a frame but sometimes it's nice to work without a frame but if you just wouldn't used your fabric like this without a frame it would bunch up okay so we can actually back it onto something like felt so I'm just going to show you that I've got red thread in here which really is not the right color but it'll show up so you can see what I'm doing so let's just start here and I'm just going to follow that outline again I'm moving it slowly but that outline is there so it's given you a guide and it doesn't matter if it's not exact because one of the nice things about this is it's an art so it's not exactly a maze it's absolutely machine absolutely and so please set machine indeed ok so now you know all the basics of free machine embroidery all you need to do is go and practice and that is the secret the more you practice the better you will get

Channel: Jamie Mason

Views: 175,189

Rating: 4.8276138 out of 5

Keywords: colouricious, creative craft, Gina Ferrari, textile design, stitchery, malden, creative embroidery, free motion embroidery, jamie, creative textiles, Jamie Malden, textile art, craft projects, craft fabric, textile artists, textile arts, free machine embroidery, textile projects, textiles project, textile tutorial, homemade crafts, embroidery, hand embroidery, embroidery stitches, machine embroidery, free machine embroidery designs, machine embroidery projects, sewing projects

Id: znF1MeTkkuU

Length: 9min 17sec (557 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 04 2011