Before Christmas, Elizabeth was able to attend a two day
class in Richmond at
All Brands Sew and Vac on the IQ Designer
portion of her Babylock Destiny sewing machine affectionately called “Super
Baby”.
In February it will be two years
since she traded in “Baby” for this machine!
The IQ Designer is where you can design your own embroidery from within
the machine instead of doing it in a separate software program on the computer.
You can also edit the built-in designs and
fonts easily in this area.
It is not as
powerful as digitizing software on a computer but that isn’t really Elizabeth’s
interest.
She is more interested in
combining designs and in being able to create blocks which are quilted right in
the hoop.
In the class we learned how to create a small quilted and
zippered in-the-hoop bag where we “built” all the parts of the bag using the
features within IQ. First we built our
appliqued tree
by learning to use the shapes and sizing the triangle to create our tree.
We copied the shape for the applique outline
and then repeated it to sew down the fabric and create the satin stitched
edging.
Next we learned how to create
our embroidered package
using the scanning feature of the machine where you can use line art to turn an
image into an embroidery with either a fill design, a satin stitch design or a
straight stitch. This was very exciting
as Elizabeth intends to turn some of our thermofax screen designs into
embroidery patterns. The idea of
combining the screen printing and embroidery to make fabric with more depth is
also a goal. Combining repeats of
decorative stitches and saving them to the machine’s memory was the goal of the
zipper application.
We then learned how to use the built in stippling design to
make a quilted backing
and how to create the shapes to use for placement and to put all the pieces in order for the bag to sew out correctly.
It was a very fun class and now she has the confidence
to really delve into the fantastic things this sewing machine can help
accomplish.
