What I learned today

There was a lot of stitching today.  When I stitched with only one layer of stabilizer, the thread shredded and broke over and over again.  It took hours to complete the first test! Lesson learned: use 2 layers of stabilzer.

I did not notice that the hoop had gotten out of alignment.  The stitching was going along smoothly.  I had switched to a nice strong polyester thread and had 2 layers of stabilizer.  All of a sudden, there was a an awful noise...the needle hit the hoop and broke.  The hoop was out of alignment and remained so until I restarted everything.  It is a computer, afterall.  When in doubt, restart it.  So lesson learned: always check that the hoop is in alignment before you stitch.

The curved text stitched out more smoothly in polyester on 2 layers of stabilizer.  However, it became clear that the curving of the text line degraded the quality of the letters. Lesson learned: letters can degrade when their alignment is shifted

This one was stitched in rayon.  The advantage to rayon is that I can overdye it if I wish.  However, I experienced what I can only call an explosion on this one.  The bobbin was getting low.  Suddenly the upper thread wrapped loop after loop around the bobbin stem and brought the machine to a screeching halt and popped the fabric out of the hoop!  So, from this experiment I learned that I need to mark the vertical and horizontal axis on each piece with fabric marker so I can re-hoop with some expectation of success. Lesson learned:  mark your centers!