Ann The Gran Community

Ahhhhh. Do you ever just want to throw your machine out the window? OK, I admit, this really was my fault but I'm still frustrated.

Husband came home from work and said "don't forget we're going to my mom's tomorrow for her birthday, why don't you make her something?". Here is where everything becomes my fault...he told me a week ago that I should make her some monogrammed towels for her birthday. I bought some cheaper white towels to practice on, but never did it. I'm ok giving her cheap towels, I doubt she would know the difference anyway. I ask my husband what color he thinks I should use. I'm just starting out, so I have a very limited amount of embroidery thread. He says Black. I told him I don't have black and he ask me what are all those black spools of thread then? I replied that those were regular poly and cotton sewing thread and that I had read they do not work very well. He looked at me like I had 3 heads, so I caved and told him I would try it. On the first towel the thread only broke about 3 times (poly thread) and the end results still looked pretty good.

Half way through the 2nd towel I ran out of poly thread and had to resort to cotton. This is not high quality cotton either, this is 10 million yards (slight exaggeration) for $5 on eBay. As long as I sat there and stared at the machine, it worked great. As soon as I got up... crunch, crunch, beep! After about the 5th time I forgot to go back a few stitches before restarting and now I have about 1/8 inch of missed stitches. She might not notice the cheapness of the towels, but she will notice the odd empty space.

So on to towel 3...I think the thread only broke about 10 times on this one :( The really tough part about this was these monograms already take about 30 minutes to stitch out. I started at 6 and now it's 9 and I just finished!

Another lesson learned...all I had was iron-on tear away stabilizer to put on the front. It's very hard to get this out of all the tiny swirls of this monogram with out pulling the threads of the towel out also.

So, what am I going to do tomorrow on the way to her house? Stop at the store and get black embroidery thread and water soluble stabilizer!!! I'll be prepared for next time!

Just had a thought....do you think changing the needle would have helped any, or should I still blame it on the thread?

Also, I used sticky stabalizer in the hoop and did not hoop the towels.

What a story!  Sounds so much like me. . . . .

Let's pull apart (pun intended) that thread.  Did it break or shred?  Breakage has many methods -

• the thread is old, dry and snapped (like a lot of us)
• eBay is having a lot of 'sales' (to get this crap off someone's inventory)
• the thread is damaged (it was probably thrown off the shelf at the vendor's)
• the needle has a burr on it (cut the thread, bad needles happen as well)
• the upper tension is too tight (girdles do this too)

If it shredded -

• the needle is too small (been there, have lots of scraps now!)
• the bobbin tension is too tight (like new shoes)

• the overall monogram design, towel and stabilizers were dense and the thread took a beating (really? - 30 minutes?)

Doing your proper discovery sew (aka sew out) will give you that information.  Make sure you have enough thread to start with and lastly, have a good laugh at your adventure and give her a nice bouquet of flowers for her birthday .  After all, Mother's Day is not far off.  Start now, with your 3 heads, you should be able to finish in time.

Lecture is over, pretend to look ashamed and get on with cooking a nice dinner for hubby.

Pat, The Avid Embroiderer

So............what did you give your MIL for her birthday?

Practice different designs on different fabrics/projects/towels/totes and then save them for last minute gifts or combine them and make a wallhanging or lap quilt.

Sticky back stabilizer may well be the root of the problem.  The needle moves very fast and creates heat, which in turn melts the adhesive and gums up the needle and thread.  The thread will break.

I use titanium coated embroidery needles to help eliminate the gumming. 

A bead of silicon down the length of the thread spool will also help.  I use Sewer's Aid.  You can find this with the sewing notions. 

The Sewer's Aid bottle looks a lot like Fray Check, so if you have both products in your sewing/embroidery area - keep them separated.  You do not want Fray Check on thread that is feeding through the machine....it is a form of glue used to prevents fabric from fraying and securing thread ends. It is washable and dry cleanable, which indicates that it is permanent.

Here are tutorials and project ideas for towels - http://www.emblibrary.com/EL/elprojects/SimpleProduct_ELP.aspx?CS_ProductID=PR1629&CS_Catalog=Elprojects  and http://www.annaboveembroidery.com/gutoem.html

As a beginner, I found Jeanine Twigg's books very beneficial.  http://www.amazon.com/Jeanine-Twigg/e/B001JSB8CG  I bought, used and still revisit everything listed at the Amazon site except "It's A Snap".

If you click on LINKS at the bottom right of any screen at ATG you may find other projects, tips, supplies, etc.  Sorry, to say the list does not get updated, so some of them may no longer exist.