Wow Krystyna that's not a bad deal. I have the Babylock Ellure Plus and it does both but I'm a sewing machine hoarder and I wouldn't mind adding that one for that price!

tightly woven bali batics do well in embroidery. and u can use more than 1 layer of stablizer I generly put one layer of tareaway and add iron on tareaway to the wrong side my fabric

I just bought a Babylock Ellure Plus a couple weeks ago. I've only done a couple small projects. Still trying to learn whats what. My "problem" down the line is that my computer is a Mac. Most things are made for PC. I see that more equipment is coming out marked as working on Macs.
I would love to see a section just for ME.

I use Master Works now there is a masterWorks lite and a Master Works 11

pattypurple,
Check out nancysnotions.com. I think they have a program for Mac users for embroidery.

I got the Stitch Era Universal installed on my computer in the shed and I'm going to install it on my computer in the house as well, so I can play with it. It's a big program and I have been reading the manual, but really haven't started doing anything with it yet. I've got two quilts I'm working on, plus the embroideried flowers that I will eventually make into a quilt. I'm pretty saturated since the two quilts have a deadline. This is the "free" embroidery program that you can download, but I do recommend that you order the CD (14.99 s & h) as it has the manual installed on it! It also uses an installation wizard to get you through that part with no problems. Be sure to disable your Antivirus and firewall before installing and remember to re-activate it after you install. If you are interested in digitizing, this is a good beginning.

Hi
I acutally have three embroidery machines, a small Janome that I gave to my niece, my Bernina 440 and the newest one is the Singer Futura Quartet. My PC that I use on the Bernina has stopped working, I don't have time to have the drivers loaded onto a new PC, (this would require making an appointment and hope there is one available on a Saturrday 1 hr dirve to get there) so I started using the Singer. This past Easter I was making a FSL basket for my Great Niece, one the fourth part after stitching for over 1 1/2 hrs, the machine jammed and the design was ruined.
I started out as an embroider, then got curious about my Bernina 440 EQ - so I tried quilting. Didn't think I would have the patients to sew pieces of fabrics together only to cut them up and resew the,, but I DO!!! I am hooked!!

I use the PES file extension, it works just fine

Suggestions please!!! I just started making a few embroidered pieces for a crazy quilt for the May Doll Quilt Swap (and you're all invited to join us). I decided to use some gorgeous silk rayon I ordered a while ago from India. It keeps breaking at the needle and it is so frustrating. It is marked especially for use in machine embroidery. I lowered the speed, but still ... ARGHHHH! Got any ideas?

I have two Babylocks, an Elegante and an Esante. The Elegante is my newest and I bought the Esante used quite a few years back. I use them mostly for clothing instead of quilting, but I did do 'pinkwork' on a baby quilt. My latest embroidery work was to put a dragonfly on my DDIL's blouse where it had a small tear. Covered the tear nicely.

I have a Brother 2500D and the art silk rayon thread I get from Pakistan is my very favorite of all brands.
Do all your colors break? Maybe you need a different type of needle or a different brand.

Yes, all break. What needle do you use? Maybe it's my stabilizer?

Nevermind. Now it is zipping along. Go figure. Arghhhh. As soon as I wrote that, the thread broke!

Krystyna; If you continue to have issues with the silk thread, try using a Metallica Needle. It is meant for delicate threads... obviously metallic threads... but should also work with your silk thread. Also if you are doing machine embroidery slow your machine down as much as possible that will also prevent breakage. HTH

I use an Organ 90/14 PD. However, the metallic needles have bigger eyes. I suggest you do not thread thru your needle bar guide. That is the way I have to do when I use metallic threads because they break all the time on me. You might try loosing your upper tension a whole lot and then gradually tighten up. Try a lot of different tensions. I sincerely doubt if it is your stabilizer. There are some European brands of thread that don't sew well for me and I gave all of those away when I discovered these from Pakistan. I also don't buy the American thread anymore due to their prices. Some machines like some and other machines like other thread and some will sew all of them. And some women are just partial to some brands even when their machines aren't.

I would love to see a separate section for embroidery on the QB. I like this board. So many machines come with embroidery units now to use for quilting. I have a Janome MC11000SE & I love it both for regular quilting & for the emboridery. Haven't had any problems with it. Would love to be able to share separately with quilters who use embroidery in their quilts. It could be a great sharing & learning experience for quilters who also use embroidery. Til then I'm going to try to subscribe or keep track of this thread. I was so excited when I saw it listed today. Didn't know it existed.

Today I am having trouble with the thread wrapping around the spindle, becoming taut and then breaking. Go figure.
It's frustrating!

That is a great idea. How does that get done? It would sure make it easier to follow this thread.

Tanya: Is your spool pin cap tight?? Sometimes that happens to me when the spool pin cap isn't tight, or I have the wrong sized spool pin cap. Just a thought....

I have a brother 600-II I have embroidered many baby quilt squares some I sent pic. of to this board don't remember how long ago at least 5 yrs. they are probably floating arround out there some where. but just jump in and start learning to use the embroidery unit. one thing I do when I make quilt squares is use freezer paper stabilizer I cut the paper bigger than the hoop then quarter fold it, cut your quilt square bigger than you want the finished one to be. (embroidery change the size some) quarter fold it, match up the folds with your freezer paper and iron them together then hoop it matching the fold lines to the centering marks on the hoop. embroider and tear away the freezer paper.

What is the largest hoop that this will work with? What is the densest stitch count the paper works with? My current design has over 65,000 stitches on my large hoop.

I don't think it's going to happen. I asked PatriceJ and she said she has no plans for an embroidery thread. *sniff*

I just found this thread and love it. Since discovering ME my quilting has taken a back seat for sure. I first got a Brother SE 400 then upgraded to a Brother PE 770 for its larger hoop. I recently took the plunge and bought the Brother Quattro2 which is amazing. I hope to learn and share a lot on this thread!

I agree. It would be so nice for these to be in one place. Embroidering, machine or hand, is definitely quilt related. I'm making quilt labels right now on my embroidery machine for several baby blankets I just completed.

Too bad. Embroidery and quilting are a perfect match.

With less and less time to get everything done everyday, it's always nice when something is easy to find and work with. Oh well.

I have been paying $4.98/yd for Pellon stabilizer Heavy weight. It's the heaviest, thickest I have been able to find. Does anyone know of any that heavy that is cheaper? Or a source for that stabilizer that is cheaper?

Wow! They are gorgeous.
I recently got a Brother Inova 6000 and am learning by trial and error. I must admit I use it all the time for sewing and seldom for embroidery. I have been thinking about trying a little redwork type quilt, but it doesnt seem to get past the thinking stage.
I went to the store that carries brother and asked about a class on what stabilizer to use when but they dont have anything. I'm thinking that is where I need to start.

Tanya; I purchased a 50 yd roll of stabilizer @ Discount Embroidery Supplies a couple of years ago. They generally have great prices onlots of embroidery supplies and no shipping!! What I purchased is a tear away, and it is quite heavy for tear away. You didn't mention what type you would like other than heavy weight. A thought for you is, instead of a trying a very heavy stabilizer use more than one layer. If one layer of your heavyweight isn't heavy enough you can add an additional layer. If it is so thick that you can't hoop it then 'float' it under your hoop after your stabilizer & project are hooped. You can baste in the hoop so it won't move (if your machine has that function) or use a spray adhesive like KK2000 , spray the additional piece of stabilizer in the hoop area and attach it to the bottom of your hoop area. HTH

http://www.discountembroiderysupply.com/

Thank you so much for this site. I checked it out and will be placing an order shortly. Love FREE SHIPPING!

The best information I have ever gotten on Stabilizers (I have the same machine you have) is from a dealer who carries Floriana threads and stabilizers. In fact, if you ever get the chance to go to a Floriana seminar offered at many dealers, please go. One of the primary focuses there is on which stabilizers to use for certain projects.
They generally give you, at the seminar, a CD with all the how to use information on their stabilizers. Great info.

I am making some place mats where I will leave the stablizer attached. I need the stabilizer to make the medium weight fabric about the strength of light weight canvas. I'll check out the web site. $5.00/yd (or per place mat)is top price for stabilizer for me to make any profit on the place mats.

We have Tidewater sew and vac here and they sell Floriana and they have lots of infor about about the stabliziers on thier web site. They are having a seminar in Sept that I plan on going to. If you wait for a class on it you may never get around to doing it. Most sites have info on it. Emblibrary.com has a lot on it, Viking has a lot. These aren't geared to one machine but what to chose and when. Tidewater Sew and Vac has a downloadable chart on it as well. I go to the emblibrary.com's projects and look at the type of project I want to do and find one like it and see what they recommend. You may still have to play around with it but that's the best way to really learn. It took me from Dec to March to figure out if I wanted to use the polyester cone thread to do FSL that I needed to use a sharp size 14 needle, heavy water stablizer and then I slow my machine down. Sometimes I'll take my scraps of stablizer and spray them with a little JTailor from Walmarts and double the layers depending on the design. It's a good way to use up scraps. I love taking classes but find I also have to read all that's out there from embroidery sites to get different ideas because not everything works with every situation. Just dive in and get your feet wet. When I decided to buy my Ruby I decided, no promised myself not to let the embroidery part sit like I hear so many doing. I hadn't been able to go to my monthly classes for 3 mos due to work schedule so last week my teacher at the LQS met me there and I spent the whole day catching up on all those missed classes. This month it's a cutwork needle class in the middle of the day and I'm taking off so that I can do it. I love working with the cutwork needles.

There was a stablizer on the bolt at Hancock Fabrics like that for around 3.99 a yrd; with it being on the bolt it's wider than the normal on the roll. If you don't have a Hancock's you might check JoAnn's or even Walmarts. Ours sells stablizer on the bolt.

That is awfully expensive for stabilizer. You can always buy at Joann using the 40-50% off coupons.

It's not expensive for they type of stabilzer that TanyaL was looking for. This stabilzer is heaver than the normal one you are thinking of. She said her top price was $5 a yard. Hancocks also has the same coupons plus two Wed. a month is senior citizen and you don't have to be 60 and the 2nd Wed is military discount; these are applied on top of the discounts and coupons. Normally the first 3 Wed of the month is when I try to buy.

Here is a link to a site that also tells about stablizers. I hope it helps. There are so many sites out there.

http://www.susanbrittingham.com/stabilizers.html

Thanks for the info by Susan Brittingham. I ran a copy off to put in my notes.

Some sites that I hope you can use.
 

While cleaning out my inbox I found an email from when I first started and I had forgotten about. It has some pretty good site links on it. I'm including part of it so you can see what the user said about the different sites. I just checked and all of the sites are still working and some have some nice things. You can get anything from thread to stablizers from the.

http://www.marathonthread.com/

http://www.abc-machine-embroidery-designs.com/

http://www.longcreekmills.com/


I also have ordered stablilizer from the first 2 sites usually on sale on the 2nd site (abc)

These are a couple more sites I have ordered designs and software (I use Embird and love it)

http://www.stitchdelight.net/

http://www.secretsof.com/

Wow ladies some great info here and loving it.

If your threads come on a spool rather than a cotton reel and are 4cms or bigger try keeping them vertical instead of horizontal. This really helps them not break.