Getting to Know Your Sewing Machine: Embroidery Stitches and More
Sewing machines that offer stitches beyond the basics now have all kinds of specialized stitches and pictorials. One of my relatives is very excited at the moment about her new sewing machine and all the embroidery stitches it offered. I urged her to create a set of sample stitches, so they she would know what she had and how they worked. Of course, machine manuals offer this too, but it is one thing to see an image and another to realize its size, orientation, and what you can do with it.
When I first got my machine, I took some leftover twill, interfaced the back, and sat down with some large spools of thread to experiment. Embroidery stitches will often draw in the fabric beneath them, distorting both the stitch and the fabric, unless you use stabilizer, which can be dissolvable, tearable, or permanent, or interfacing which is what you use in garments.
Then I made samples of all the hundred or so stitches, including variations of length when it was possible, marking their number and length in with pen. The result is a little library of stitches which help me to choose one when I am thinking that I need some ornamentation of a blouse front or a collar or cuff, or when I need to consider which utility stitch will work best. You can see there are stitches that are best kept for children’s wear, such as tulips, hearts, butterflies, or for some reason, an alligator.
