For the Love of Yarn Couching- Hot Pads
The Baby Lock Radiance, Solaris Vision, Altair 2, and Meridian 2 include built-in yarn couching designs. Use these letters and designs to create fun stitch outs that can be turned into hot pads. Think of using them as shapes, and your world will open to how you can use these designs to create more of a punch needle embroidery look for your embroidery projects.
Supplies
Baby Lock® Radiance, Solaris Vision or Solaris with upgrade 1 & 3, Altair 2
and/or Meridian 2 sewing and/or embroidery machine
· Embroidery Couching Foot (Y Foot) and EC Yarn Guide
· ¼” Piecing Foot
· Digital Dual Feet Foot with Couching Sole
· 10 5/8” X 16” Hoop or appropriate hoop for created design
· For this project the DIME Magnetic Hoop was used for ease in hooping the fabric.
· Multiple colors of yarn for Couching
· Large Tapestry Needle
· Baby Lock Tear-Away Stabilizer BLT103
· 1 yard Denim Fabric
· ½ yard Print fabric to coordinate for sashing – cut into 2.5” strips.
· 1 yard Insul-Bright batting
· Madeira® Rayon/Polyester thread to match fabric & embroidery bobbin
· Wonder clips and other basic sewing and embroidery supplies
· Design Suites – Holiday Collection #2 or other Design Suite Collection (Optional)- For Radiance/Solaris with Custom Fill option in IQ Designer.
Instructions
You can download printable instructions HERE.
Combining letters together to create designs can be a lot of fun. The editing tools help you to rotate, resize, recolor and re-sequence the designs to help you optimize you stitching.
For this project, three hot pads were created. Each block had a background fill stitched prior to adding the yarn couching designs.
- Open design – Rose with Design Suite Decorative Fill
- LOVE design – Created using the L, V & E from the block letters and three periods combined to create a Heart design,
- Repeated Heart design – The same Heart design created using the period is grouped, saved, and repeated using the Border/Repeat key to create an overall heart look. Two different color yarns were used for this project.
Creating the background fill in IQ Designer
1. For this project, prior to stitching the Yarn Couching design, a decorative fill was stitched.
2. To create the decorative fill design, select IQ Designer.
3. From IQ Designer, select the Stamp/Shapes key.
4. On Tab 5, select the 10” X 10” hoop shape and Set.
5. Using the Size tool, resize the shape to 5” wide by 10” tall. Touch OK.
6. By selecting the frame shape, the shape has a no-sew line around it.
7. Select the Region Fill Properties.
8. Select the Open Fills option and select. Choose from one of the built-in fills OR use the Custom Tab option and import one of the designs from the Design Suite, Holiday Collection #2 or other collection. Touch OK.
9. Choose a color and touch OK.
10. Select the Fill Cup for the region fills and touch inside the shape.
11. Touch Next.
12. Adjust the stitch settings as desired.
13. Touch Memory to Save the design. This will save the design as both a .PM9 artwork file and a .PHX embroidery file.
14. At this time, you could change the fill type by touching on the Fill property key at the top of the settings page.
15. Once a different fill is selected, touch OK and it will change on the Preview screen.
16. Re-save the design to Memory.
17. For the “Rose” and “Love” designs, a 5” X 10” shape was used. For the “Repeated Hearts” a 10” X 10” block was use.
18. If doing all three, create all three shapes in IQ Designer and save them.
19. Prior to stitching out each of the Yarn Couching you will first want to stitch these designs out using the standard W foot. Since Yarn Couching patterns can’t be combined with other Embroidery designs, you will want to stitch these out first and then switch the machine over to the yarn couching set-up to stitch out those designs.
20. Hoop the denim fabric with tear-away stabilizer in the 10 5/8” X 10 5/8” hoop. You can also use a larger hoop size to get multiple stitch outs at one time. you want to leave some room in between the stitched designs for trimming.
21. Stitch the designs using the embroidery thread of choice.
Setting up the Machine for Yarn Couching
1. Set the machine up for Embroidery Couching. Use Help Video for assistance with properly setting up the machine for yarn couching and calibrating the Y foot!
2. You will want to use the thread stand as well and will need to help manage your yarn as this is stitching.
Selecting & Stitching the Embroidery Design
ROSE Design
1. Select Embroidery.
2. Open Category C for Couching Designs.
3. Select Tab 1 with the Open designs. Choose design #17 and touch Set.
4. For this project, it is assumed that you will have already created and stitched the 5” X 10” decorative fill stitch created in the earlier steps.
5. Place the hooped decorative fill stitched piece in the hoop of choice and attach to the machine.
6. Please note: Couching designs can’t be combined with other embroidery designs but can be combined with other couching designs.
7. Use your favorite placement method to place the design in the center of the hoop.
8. Once you have the design as you like, again, update the colors and then save the overall design.
9. Touch Embroidery
10. At this point, you should be ready to stitch out the design.
11. One done stitching, remove from the hoop, trim 1” around the stitched edge of the decorative fill and pull the thread tails to the back of the denim fabric.
LOVE Design
For this project, it is assumed that you will have already created and stitched the 5” X 10” decorative fill stitch created in the earlier steps.
2. Place the hooped decorative fill stitched piece in the hoop of choice and attach to the machine.
3. Select Embroidery.
4. Open Category C for Couching Designs.
5. For this design, we first want to create a heart shape.
6. Select Tab 2 with the Fill letters. Choose the period and touch Set.
7. The period is duplicated so that three periods together create a heart shape.
8. Duplicate and align the letters using the edit tools.
9. Once your heart is created, touch the multiple selection tool and group the three periods together.
10. If you like, you could also change the color to the thread color you will be using.
11. For the remaining letters, select Add and go back to the Couching category and select the “L” “ V” and “E” letters. You will need to add one letter at a time.
12. All the letters will be placed in the center of the hoop. Use the Move and Alignment Keys to line of the letters into the word LOVE.
13. If desired, Select all the letters and the grouped
heart and group that together.
14. Then you can rotate on the Edit screen all together.
15. Re-sequence the design if needed as well or use the
+/- key to advance through the letters if you don’t
want to have to re-thread the Y Foot with different
color yarn.
16. Once done editing, save the design to Memory.
17. Note: Embroidery Couching designs can only be
saved into the internal memory of the machine.
18. Use your favorite placement method to place the
design in the center of the hoop.
19. Touch Embroidery
20. At this point, you should be ready to stitch out the
design.
21. One done stitching, remove from the hoop, trim 1” around the stitched edge of the decorative fill and pull the thread tails to the back of the denim fabric.
REPEATED HEART Design
1. For this project, it is assumed that you will have already created and stitched the 10” X 10” decorative fill stitch created in the earlier steps.
2. Place the hooped decorative fill stitched piece in the hoop of choice and attach to the machine.
3. For this design, we be using the saved heart design created earlier.
4. If you like, you could also change the color to the thread color you will be using.
5. In the machine settings, use the Embroidery Frame Display and set for the 10” X
10” hoop. Touch OK.
6. This will show give a visual on the screen for that hoop size to help us keep our hearts to an appropriate size for the 10 5/8” X 10 5/8” hoop.
7. To create this design, we first are going to move the heart to the top right corner of the frame display.
8. Under Edit, select the Repeat/Border Key.
9. From there we will create a row of 4 hearts down and then three columns across.
10. Use the space keys to space them out to look like the screen image to the right.
11. Touch OK.
12. Touch Add and recall the saved heart shape from memory.
13. If you like, you could also change the color to the thread color you will be using.
14. Under Edit, select the Repeat/Border Key.
15. From there we will create a row of 3 hearts down and then two columns across.
16. Use the space keys to space them out to look like the screen image to the right.
17. Using the Border/Repeat key will automatically group the designs together.
18. Once done editing, save the design to Memory.
19. Note: Embroidery Couching designs can only be saved into the internal memory of the machine.
20. Use your favorite placement method to place the design in the center of the hoop.
21. Touch Embroidery
22. At this point, you should be ready to stitch out the design.
23. NOTE: The yarn couching should include stops between each of the grouped designs. In the case that it does not pause for you to manage your threads, be sure to pay attention and manage your thread accordingly.
24. One done stitching, remove from the hoop, trim 1” around the stitched edge of the decorative fill and pull the thread tails to the back of the denim fabric.
Constructing the Hot Pad
These designs could be used in a multitude of ways. After stitching these out, the thought of turning them into a hot pad seemed like a fun way to use yarn couching. Many people crochet hot pads, so the texture of the yarn couching designs is similar. Adding some additional yarn texture using the Digital Dual Feed foot and the couching, seemed like a good way to level the hot pad and provide some additional support. It also looks kind of cool!
1. Cut your sashing fabric into 2.5” strips. Gather the Insul-Bright batting
2. Using the trimmed pieces, attach the strips to the sides and top/bottom of the denim pieces using a ¼” piecing foot. Use stitch 1-03 or Q-01
3. Trim and press along the way.
Set you machine up for with the Digital Dual Feed foot and the Couching Sole.
Couching with the Compact Digital Dual Feed Foot
1. Attach the Digital Dual feel foot leaving the yarn couching sole off. Be sure to plug the foot into the machine.
2. Place the yarn couching guide and thread stand on the machine.
3. Thread the machine with a decorative embroidery thread of choice.
4. Select the yarn or cording you would like to use for the project. Thread this through the yarn guide and into the opening in the couching sole.
5. Thread the yarn through the couching digital dual feed sole using the thread wire.
6. Attach the couching sole to the digital dual feed foot.
7. From the sewing menu, select a stitch of choice. Note that stitches that are NOT available for use with the Digital Dual Feed Foot will be greyed out.
8. Use the Projector to assist you with previewing your stitch and setting the stitch width.
9. Pull the yarn/cording to the front of the foot and adjust the stitching while visually auditioning them.
10. Some recommended stitches with the DDF Couching include 1-10 Zig Zag Stitch, 2-11-2-16, Q-18-Q-20. For this project, a Zig Zag stitch was used and the stitch adjusted for the yarn.
11. Be sure to move the yarn/cording back to under the digital dual feed foot once you have made your selection.
12. Layer the sashed piece with a layer of Insul-Bright batting and denim or cotton backing.
13. Pin or spray baste the layers together.
14. For this project, the seam around the stitched denim piece and the sashing was stitched with a coordinating yarn.
15. Repeat the process for each of the Hot Pad tops.
16. Next, we want to trim the excess backing and batting and attach binding.
17. For this project, denim was used for the binding. This did make for some thick seams, so you may want to choose a different fabric option.
18. Attach the binding to the back side of the trimmed pieces.
19. Press the binding to the top.
20. Once again, the Digital Dual Feed Foot and Yarn Couching Sole was used to attach the binding while also adding coordinating yarn.
21. Reinforce the stitches at the end by reverse stitching.
22. Complete for all the Hot Pads.
Hopefully these will be a helpful project for your next baking project! You could certainly resize, eliminate the sashing or put your own personal spin on the project for another holiday or theme.
