I’m beginning to appreciate what a wonderful machine the Innovis-I is. It has features which I didn’t think I’d ever need – that is, until I started to use them. For example, I didn’t think I’d ever use the camera facility – the little video camera which shows you exactly where on the hooped fabric your design will stitch. It seemed an unnecessary feature – until a couple of weeks ago.
I was stitching a long, thin panel – the “Jacobean Bellpull” which I designed in my old days selling designs on the Internet. This is a big design in six separate parts and I was trying to stitch it on a single piece of fabric, re-hooping between sections. Now, I am really awful at this kind of thing and I usually try to avoid multiple hooping at all costs. However for some reason I was getting along fine, and the separate parts of the design were aligning perfectly on the fabric – that is, until the last one. I did it exactly the same as I’d done all the other parts, but all the same there was at least an inch’s gap between the two sections
Here’s a picture of the problem: the two sections of brown stem are supposed to meet exactly, but there’s a big gap between them.
Hooping mistake – the bottom section doesn't align with the top
After some thought, I decided to try and repair the gap. First I ripped out enough stitching to make it possible to “re-draw” the missing part of the stem between the two ends of the stem.
A section of stitching is removed
Then I scanned the part of the embroidery with the gap, and digitised a piece of stem to fit in the gap between the two pieces
The missing piece is digitised
Now comes the part played by the machine. I re-hooped the embroidery and with the camera’s help, adjusted the placing of the repair so it exactly filled the gap between the two ends of the stem.
With the help of the camera, the digitised piece is stitched in the right place
The results aren’t perfect but they’re pretty good, considering how much out of alignment the two pieces were.
And here’s the finished embroidery
The repaired Jacobean Bellpull
The repaired section is just below the top bird. OK, there’s a bit of a wobble in the stem and a small gap between various bits of foliage, but you probably wouldn’t notice it unless it was pointed out, and it’s a lot better than throwing the whole thing away. And as I sold this at the exhibition, I’m very pleased that the camera was there to help with the repair