Let It Snow
By Rebecca Kemp Brent
Use satin stitching to create unique embroidered designs.
MOST SEWING AND EMBROIDERY MACHINES contain a menu of satin stitches that you can use as building blocks to create a multitude of shapes, such as a blizzard of snowflakes, each one different from the next.
Stitches
Review the satin stitches available on your machine. Common shapes include oval, diamond and scallops in open, filled and pointed variations. Each shape can be used individually or as part of a line of decorative stitches. Varying shapes can be combined and repeated.
Refer to the machine manual and control panel to locate the buttons or touch screen icons that control the following functions (terminology may vary among different machine manufacturers):
- Single/repeated pattern
- Mirror image (horizontal and vertical)
- Stitch length
- Stitch width
- Pattern length
- Tie-off stitches
To understand stitch characteristics, create a sampler of your machine's satin stitches.
Back a piece of sample fabric with fusible stabilizer, and thread the machine with contrasting thread. Use the same thread or embroidery bobbin thread in the bobbin.
Attach a satin-stitch foot, which has a groove on its underside to accommodate the stitches' bulk.
Choose a basic shape such as a diamond.
Stitch a line of diamonds using the machine's default settings (1).
Adjust the stitch width to its narrowest setting (other than 0.0 mm, which results in a straight stitch) and stitch another line of diamonds, adjusting for wider stitches after a couple motif repeats (2).
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