Saturday, February 25, 2017

And Then We Embroider...on the Brother SE400...




Setting up for embroidery is pretty simple, but it took me awhile because I was extremely nervous as it was my first time ever at machine embroidery.  Luckily I had bought a small set of Madeira Polyneon Thread last year from Nancy's Notions for that class on free hand embroidery so I knew I had good thread! I had the one piece of pre-stabilized felt from Brother that came with the machine, so I used that. I wanted the butterfly since I first saw the advertising for this machine. :) It is programmed for blue, but I used a lavender that I love. Blue isn't my favorite color.
Took me awhile to hoop that felt with stabilizer but finally I got it and we started - I followed the directions meticulously and it all worked - it really is fun to watch the machine stitch out a design. Between watching and running out telling the family "Oh you should see THIS!" I was thrilled!!  One son wanted to watch and we were both amazed. Since this was a one color design there were no other colors to add. So - next time it needs to be a multicolor design. The Brother manuals are always so well detailed, but sometimes there is just a little something you should have been told that you cannot find. A few YouTube videos and you are on your way.  They do tell you to hold the thread just for a few stitches when you start, which is rather like quilting, so I did. Then you stop and clip the thread and go on your way. :) Here is a video of the machine - from YouTube - not mine - the loudness is most likely from the closeness of the mic to the machine - yes, the machine makes noise - partly die to heavily stabilized fabric, and then there are the little repositionings the machine makes, but it isn't this noisy - however her video is excellent.
Some videos do not do this, but they should!
All in all I love the machine. I feel I got a machine that turned out far better than I thought it even might!  It is stable, sews a very good stitch, and embroidery turns out to be a lot of fun. I looked on Amazon tonight and there are only third party sellers selling this machine, however Amazon has the embroidery only machine, the 525 which much resembles this machine. And right now it's a really good price! I know as time goes on this information will be old, a quick Google and you should be able to find one of this family of Brother machines near you at a good price. I am so glad I bought it. It will be a lot of fun over the next several years. The next project I am going to do on the Brother will be a quilted greeting card.  It is part of the Superior University Course which is a lot of fun as well! As I move along in those lessons I will post them here because that is another plan for the year - to move along in those Thread classes from Superior University.

5 comments:

glorm said...

Some people hit the Go button and walk away. No way! The designs are so much fun watching them develop. Keep having fun with the machine.

catspec said...

Thanks Glorm!!!! HAHAHhaaa......I would walk away maybe if it were a 20 minutes huge design but then you'd have to be on the alert for color changes!

deep1084 said...

That's really pretty. So delicate!

catspec said...

Thank you Deep! :) I am gonna have some fun here for sure!

SewLibra said...

Beautiful machine with beautiful stitches! I'm happy you're happy!