Machine Embroidered Monogram Pillow

Trial stitch out 

Goal number one on my September list was to document the pillowcase that I made for my youngest granddaughter.

She was moving to a loft style bed and her mama wanted to decorate her daughter's new bed with a monogramed pillow containing her initials. I have Bernina embroidery software which I hadn't opened in a couple of years. It was time to reacquaint myself with the program.

I played around a little with the fonts and liked at the library of monograms available. I decided I wanted to make my own monogram. My software included a few templates. I used one of the templates. I picked a font that felt a little Asian since I had used a scrap of panda fabric. 

It was fun to play in the software. I found that I needed to refresh my skills because I had forgotten a TON!

Then it was time to choose thread and stitch a sample. People often think that you pick a pattern and the machine automatically stitches the design perfectly. Not so!!!

In the trial stitch out, I could see that I needed more stabilizer, better alignment and a tension adjustment. I also decided to leave the cut away stabilizer in place around the smaller motifs. When I cut away the stabilizer in the second sample, I nicked the threads and had some of the motif unraveled.

Third sample

By the third sample, I had figured out the alignment. I had determined the best tie to cut the jump stitches.  I determined that I liked the colors and the order I stitched the colors. 

The monogram on the pillow case

The fourth time I stitched the monogram, was for "real!"I made the pillow case and topstitched the monogram to the pillowcase. I like how it turned out. My daughter liked it so much that she asked for a second pillow.

Two days later, I embarked on a second pillow. This time, when I went to embroider the monogram, the machine wouldn't recognize my hoop. I hadn't changed any settings so I didn't know what that was about! I took some time to research what could be going on and tried a fix through my settings. It worked,

Stitching the design, the thread broke and the program wouldn't allow me to restart the machine to finish the stitch out. I had surgery and when I'm ready, I'll poke around and see if I can figure out what happened. It likely is an easy fix since it was working great before!