EMBROIDERY

I chose to learn the embroidery machine this week. I like that it's a form of digital printer that also makes objects via a processs that's very artisinal and tactile (and harks back to the original of computing). Plus I want to embroider some dinosaurs on pillows.

Tom showed us how to use the machine, which basically consists of: creating or importing a line-drawing into the CBA shop computer, where you open it with the embroidery machine software, PE6. From there, you clean up the image via several built-in steps offered by the software. You can select what colors you want in your image, but ultimately what you are making in this step is a reference guide for yourself, as well as breaking the sewing process into discrete stages between which the machine will stop and let you change thread spools. Ultimatey, the colors on your embroidery will be coming from whatever color thread you put into the machine. When your image file is ready, you can put it on a thumb drive and load it into the embroidery machine.

There is a 9-step process for putting a spool of thread into the machine. You can follow these steps by referring to the machine itself, where the insructions are printed onto the corresponding parts of the machine.

When you are ready to embroider, you will need to prepare your fabric by stretching it tightly onto the machine's hoop. This serves as a register so the machine knows where to embroider, and it (critically) keeps you fabric tight, flat, and in one stable location. You can add a fabric backing material that helps add stiffness.

The machine will automatically stop between sewing each of your colors on your file. At these points, you can take out the thread spool, put in a new one (your next color), and thread it into the machine. When ready, you can press a button on the machine's display screen telling it to continue printing. I highly recommend cutting the excess threads hanging off your embroidery after each color is finished. Why? because if you don't, the next color will sew right over it, making it much harder to later cut the loose ends and extract them. I had to carefully cut out all the buried hanging threads at the end, and this was the most laborious part of the whole process (and entirely unecessary if you cut out loose ends earlier).

I made embroidery for embroidery pillows, emblazoned with some of my favorite Neil-isms from this semester, such as "Talk Louder" "Go Away Now" "Talk About What's Happening" and "Explain What I'm Looking At."