Redwork Embroidery by Machine

I received a Janome Memory Craft 9500 sewing/embroidery machine for my birthday in December and have been having fun experimenting with that. I will be posting the results of these experiments from time to time – the more successful ones, anyway! Here is one of my first tests. I was intrigued by the idea of doing redwork embroidery by machine. I found a free design to download from a wonderful company called Embroider This!. I stitched it out first in 40 wt. Madeira rayon. Although I was happy with the result, I wanted a beefier look, so I tried it in 12 wt. Sulky cotton – just the look I wanted! Be sure to use a size 90 needle with a nice big opening for the bulkier thread. I took the top thread tension down from 2 to 1, also. The cotton thread kicks up a lot of lint so the machine has to be cleaned really well after stitching. The lint on the embroidered piece cleans off easily with one swipe of one of the rolling tape style lint removers – cat people will know just what I’m talking about…

Redwork in 12 wt. Sulky Cotton