Saturday, April 14, 2012

April's Funky Chicken

April

April-close up
With April's Funky Chicken block from Fat Cat Patterns, I'm getting braver with the stitches.  So many to choose from!  Some work well, others not so well...as in the one going around the body.  Too much space between the fancy zigs and zags, so I quickly switched my Bernina 830 to sewing mode and chose stitch #11 - a utility stretch stitch and popped on the #20 Open Toe foot.  This stitch looked most like a stem stitch.  I widened it just a bit and covered the raw edges, switched back to embroidery mode and stitched the decorative stitch again.  Perfect!!!

This time I used quilting cotton for the decorative stitches.  A heavier thread, but even so, there were some that I stitched twice to beef it up.  Using quilting cotton added an additional thread change, as I used matching embroidery thread for placement and tackdown stitches, but the end result, I think, is worth it.

6 comments:

  1. Oh Sue -- I am so happy I jumped to your blog from the Bernina chat group -- the one with the numbers... I have this thing about chickens recently... I love your funky chicken and how cool this looks with the fun embroidery stitches... or fancy stitches .... I'm going over to Fat Cats and see how many I can snag... I really don't need 12 -- maybe 6 or 9 or 3! Bonnie in Va.

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  2. Hi Bonnie. So glad you found me! I'm having fun with these Funky Chickens. They are so quirky and cute! Look around the FatCat site and you'll find several chickens and probably other freebies you'll just have to have.

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  3. Sue, I just stumbled upon your blog, and recognized your name - didn't you belong to Elsa's yahoo group? I'm from Belton, MO. and I don't do much machine embroidery anymore, but I could bring it out of mothballs and start adding it to my quilting!

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  4. Hi Honeybun. Yes I was a member of Elsa's group for a long time. I remember you from Belton, MO as I am in Belton, TX!

    Good idea...drag out that machine!!

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  5. Your explanation of switching back and forth from regular to embroidery with the funky chicken puzzled me. Did you take the hoop off to do the regular stitch and the put it back on for the emb.

    Am I picturing this whole process wrong? elli

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  6. Hi Elli. Yes, I took the hoop off, but did not remove the fabric from the hoop, and pressed the soft key for sewing mode. I used a regular sewing stitch and the open toe sewing foot - feed dogs up - to cover the edges. After that was done, I pressed the soft key to return to embroidery mode, attached the hoop again and repeated the decorative stitch.

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