Hoop sizes for GO! Be Dazzled
06.28.10
I’ve had a lot of questions today about the hoop sizes needed to stitch out the GO! Be Dazzled Block of the Month designs. Here’s the scoop!
If you have a Bernina Jumbo Hoop for the 830 you are in excellent shape. The central diamond blocks will each stitch out in one hooping and the square blocks will each stitch out in two hoopings.
If you have a Mega Hoop (150mm x 400mm) or equivalent (Pfaff and Viking both have hoops that are 200mm x 360mm) you are also in great shape. The central diamond blocks will each stitch out in one hooping and the square blocks will each stitch out in 3 or 4 hoopings.
If you have a Large Oval Hoop (145mm x 255mm) or equivalent then you are in good shape – as long as you have a lot of patience. The central diamond blocks will each require two or three hoopings while some of the square blocks will require up to 9 hoopings.
Placement is super easy, with detailed instructions on the CD for how to mark the fabric for each block and align these marks with placement lines that should be stitched out directly onto the stabilizer in the hoop. Be sure to read the instructions before you start stitching!
Placement of applique shapes is also super easy! Once your background fabric has been put in place in the hoop, the next thing to stitch out is placement lines for each applique shape. Remove the hoop from your embroidery module while you fuse the prepared applique shapes in place. Some of the designs have layered appliques, so you will need to do 2 or 3 sets of placement lines each followed by fusing shapes in place.
Another question that came in today was about the thread colors used. Here’s the scoop on that!
Isacord thread was used for GO! Be Dazzled, in the following colors:
- 0811 Candlelight
- 2508 Hot Pink
- 2715 Pansy
- 4620 Jade
- 1010 Toast
- 2506 Cerise
- 2810 Orchid
- 4423 Marine Aqua
- 2550 Soft Pink
- 2510 Roseate
- 2830 Wild Iris
- 6011 Tamarack
If you want to do your own colors, here’s a formula I have been using with the students in my Block of the Month classes:
Choose 3 different fabrics – in the case of GO! Be Dazzled there are Regal Purple, Cerise and Daffodil from the Crystals collection by Benartex. For GO! Be Dazzled Too the fabrics used are Hunter, Sage and Cream from the Crystals collection by Benartex.
Now choose 2 or 3 threads to match each of the 3 fabrics, e.g. 2 or 3 different shades of yellow to match the Daffodil. This will give you 6-9 thread colors.
Now choose 2 or 3 threads that contrast with the fabrics. For GO! Be Dazzled, these were two shades of turquoise, and a bright lime green. If your 3 fabrics are different shades of the same color, then choose 2 or 3 threads of the complementary color. Check your color wheel if in doubt!
Hope this helps to answer some of the questions you may have. More coming on GO! Be Dazzled in the months to come. Feel free to drop me a line if you have more questions.
It’s pretty exciting when you make a quilt that people love - especially when there is not just one, but two kits available so that other people can make their own version of the quilt!
This is the design that I started out with (created in CorelDRAW). For version 1 of the design, I imported the diagram into the Bernina Cutwork Software and used the tools available to transform the design into stitches with some parts cut out (the squares and the central star – all shaded grey). The stitchout for this was fit for nothing other than the garbage! The problem – I knew that it was a good idea to do some “running before” stitches to stabilize the space to be cut out, but did not know what a good offset would be, so I used an offset of 0.6mm. When the cutwork tool did it’s thing, it cut up all the “running before” stitches, so I ended up with some holes with very frayed edges! Further investigation (in the online manual) recommends an offset of 0.8mm.
This is all the “non-cutwork” stitching. I figured it was probably a good idea to do as much of this as possible before doing any cutting to maintain as much stability as possible in the fabric. I am using DellaQ’s silk taffeta (maybe not such a good idea for a first attempt!) backed with OESD Fusible Polymesh, and OESD Heavyweight Tear-Away in the hoop. I pinned the silk in place and then stitched out a tackdown line to ensure the fabric would not move. 
The first part of the cutting process is the “running before” stitches. As mentioned above, I set the offset to 0.8mm – any smaller and these stitches get cut out! 
Now the machine is telling me it is ready to start cutting with the tool set to Cut 1. 
Here is the actual Bernina Cutwork Tool! You have hopefully already figured out that it works with the embroidery module. I am using the #26 foot. The tool fits into the needle casing, and the blade itself is about 2mm wide and 3/8″ long. The white dial rotates and has four settings, 1, 2, 3, and 4. Here it is in position 1. 
The first round of cutting has been done. The left and right sides of the square have been cut – it’s a pretty clean line, more visible on the left than on the right. And just inside the “running before” stitches! 
Now the machine is telling me it is ready for Cut 2. 
It’s actually very easy to move from cutting position 1 to 2. Sitting down is probably a good thing – just so that you can see what you are doing! 
After cut 2, four points on the star have been cut. The blade on the Bernina Cutwork Tool can essentially set to 4 different angles. Vertical and horizontal are always going to be very clean cuts, as are cuts at 45 degrees in both directions. Everything else is going to be cut using the optimum combination of vertical, horizontal and 45 degree cuts. The white showing in the center star is where the silk has begun to lift up, revealing the stabilizer underneath. 
Now the machine is telling me it is ready for cut 3.
And finally it is ready for cut 4!
All the cutting has been done! A lot of the pieces are beginning to lift out of their own accord. At this point I removed the hoop from the machine so that I could gently remove all of the pieces which had been cut out. If I had thought about it in advance, I would have done this over the garbage can. As it is, I ended up with a lot of tiny pieces of fabric and stabilizer all over the floor! Some pieces needed a little help to come out, but only a few threads here and there needed clipping. 
Here all the pieces have been removed. Some of the edges are cleaner than others. The fact that silk frays a lot anyway probably didn’t help me. A nice crisp fabric would give the best results – I have read that using spray starch on the fabric gives it a great hand for the cutting. However, I was not about to start spraying starch onto the silk! 
Here are the results after the satin finishing stitch around the edges of the cutwork. You may notice that the larger star in the center has changed color, and is now turquoise. This is now showing version 3! I neglected to use some water soluble stabilizer underneath the satin stitches on version 2 – and the result was not a pretty sight! The extra stabilizer is necessary to give the satin stitch a solid foundation for stitching on. Without it, one side of the satin stitch is tring to stitch into nothing and the results are definitely not pretty. The settings for the satin stitch need some work. In places the “running before” stitches are showing through. I’ll let you know what I come up with to solve this problem! 
The default settings are:
In this example, the loop spacing has been set to 0.1 in. The stitch length has also been decreased to 2.0mm, to create a smoother line.
Setting loop spacing to 0.0 in creates a very tiny micro-stipple. The stitch length has also been decreased again, to 1mm. These stitches take a while to generate – so be patient after hitting Apply or OK!
This shows a 1″ square containing the tiny micto-stipple.
Inset Step defines the amount of space between the edge of the object and the stipple. In this example:
Chances are you are not going to have a space that contains only Stipple fill! How about using it to quilt the area surrounding a design? In this example, I inserted a design from my Hearts CD over the top of the square containing the Stipple fill. Unfortunately, the Stipple fill is showing through the open spaces in the design.
When you delete the Step filled heart you will fine that the Remove Overlaps has taken away all stitches underneath, including the rest of the heart. The easiest way to solve this problem is to re-insert the heart design.
In this example:
As well as Stipple Run, you will also see Stipple Stemstitch and Stipple Backstitch on the fill stitch list. This example shows Stipple Stemstitch with the default settings, Loop Spacing = 0.2 in and Inset Step = 1.
Stipple Stemstitch has a much smoother line if you increase the Loop Count. In this example it has been increased to 0.4 in.