Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Improvising New Stitches

Perhaps I'm a little OCD but I get really annoyed at stitches that only go to one side when I am centered on my seam line. For example #78 & #80 below- the the hearts and stars all face the same direction.


So I use 2 functions of my sewing machine to improvise the stitches that I want. I have a programmable memory on my machine that will store up to 30 stitches so when I want to use the star stitch (#80) I put 1 repeat of the star in the memory and then I use the mirror image function on my machine (it looks like a half circle with a dotted line mirror image half circle facing it)


and I program in 1 repeat of the mirror image of the star. I leaves the rest of the spaces in the memory blank so when I stitch it just alternates between the star and the mirror image of the star and now it looks like this:


When I want to do the hearts I just clear out the memory and repeat the process for that stitch:


I even tried it with my blanket stitch. Here's what it normally looks like (#63):

and after I alternate it in the memory:

and when I'm really bored I just combine several different stitches in the memory- here's 1 heart 1 star and 1 flower:

I just thought I'd share that incase you have these functions on your machine too but haven't tried them- you can have a lot of fun with them!

3 comments:

tessahjake said...

woah!

Laura said...

Seriously? Did you tell me about this and I forgot? Otherwise, why haven't you shared this before? lol Very awesome info! That was such a pain for me when I was doing June's quilt. Okay, next quilt! Which I should be starting in a few now that my machine is here. WOOOOHOOOOT! Great tip Sarah!

Sonja said...

You and your mom do so many BEAUTIFUL quilts! Y'all are an inspiration to so many of us. Beautiful work. Beautiful colors! Just an inspiration to every one of US! Thank You Sarah AND Margarita. God Bless You Both! For All your guidance and inspiration. Your beauty! and Love of the "Craft". I have many quilts with ya'lls technique