It's Pet Week here at Create with RNK! Clarrisa has made a special project for you!
Supplies:
1” Wide plain pet collar or 1” wide leash-See Below for tips on embroidering the leash
Floriani Wet n Stick Gridded Stabilizer
Floriani Water Soluble Topper
RNK Embroidery Perfection Tape
Small piece of Floriani Template Tearaway or Embellish Sticky Printable Template-You can use some leftover scraps you have
Cellophane TapeA piece of printer paper
Floriani Precision Angle Tweezers-Love These!
Floriani Squeeze and Snip ToolLettering Design and or small embroidery designs
Floriani Thread for your embroidery designs
Bobbin Thread
Envelope Moistener
Prepare Embroidery Design:
1. I chose to add a name to my Collar. Some guidelines for creating lettering for a 1” wide Collar:
Choose a Font that has some width to the satin stitch of the letters. If you choose a thin letter design the letters will bury into the collar. I used “George” in Floriani Total Control Software
Make your lettering no more than .6 inches in height. Anything larger will tend to fall off the sides of the collar.Keep in mind that all fonts don’t stitch out well in smaller sizes. If you click the question mark next to the name of your chosen font in Floriani Total Control it will give a listing of the characters in that font and suggested sizes.Pictured below is the box that appears if you click the question mark.
Put additional space between your letters. I set the spacing at 2 in my Floriani Total Control Software.These were my settings for my chosen font.
If your chosen font has a lower case “y” it will make your font wider as the bottom of the “y” goes below the bottom of the other letters. You will want to select the “y”, slide it up a bit and decrease the height. This way you can still have the height with the rest of your lettering.
If you can, set the Grid in your workspace to show an inch. In Floriani Total Control you will go to “Program Preferences”Go to the “Environment” tab and set for inches then go to the “Grid” tab and set the SPACING at .25 for vertical and horizontal and GRID MAJOR for 4 for vertical and horizontal.Click OK and now your workspace will have a grid that shows an inch.
PRINT A TEMPLATE. . I like to print my templates in black and white to save colored ink. I also just print the design itself not the color order. Select your entire design and in the bottom left corner of your screen in Floriani Total Control, select the “thread color search” icon and enter 900 into the find color box. Click Find. Black will be highlighted in the color bar at the bottom with a box around it. Select it and the entire design will turn to black.
I use Floriani Template Tearaway or Embellish Sticky Printable Template for printing my templates. For a design this small you don’t need an entire sheet so this is where I save my scraps from other printed templates. Cut out a piece of Floriani Template Tearaway or Embellish Sticky Printable Template slightly larger than your design. Get a piece of regular printer paper and with cellophane tape, tape the small piece of template paper to the center of the regular paper. Make sure to secure both long edges securely so they won’t get stuck in your printer as the paper rolls through your printer. I used embroidery perfection tape so you can see where the tape is but you can use just regular cellophane tape.
Determine which side to put up in your printer. When printing you need to make sure it prints on the rough side of the template paper. In my printer I place the template paper rough side down. If you don’t know what side your printer prints on, make a mark on one sheet of regular printer paper. Load that into your printer with the mark side up and print something on it. If it prints on the mark side your printer prints right side up. If not you need to load the paper right side down to print.
Once you have your template paper loaded, click “print preview” the icon that looks like a printer in the top left corner of your screen. Click the “Settings” tab and a dialogue box will open and allow you to decide what you want to print. Here is what I set so it will only print the design and not the color list
Embroidery:
1. If you have the capability to scan with your embroidery machine, place a “snowman” sticker in the center of your printed template before you cut it out.
2. Rough cut your template close to your printed design. You may cut the “snowman” a bit as this design is so narrow.
3. At some point it would be helpful to try the collar on your pet.Of course it doesn’t matter on a leash. Once the collar is on, use a fabric marker and mark where you will put the design. Just an X will work.
4. Score the paper on the non-printed side of the template and remove backing paper.
5. Using the X that you marked when your pet had the collar on, line up and stick the template to the collar. I eyeballed this as the collar is narrow and I only needed to make sure the entire design was on the collar. need to move the sliders and buckles out of the way. Move them as far away as possible from the embroidery area.
6. Hoop a piece of Floriani Wet n Stick Stabilizer. Hoop the Wet n Stick with the grid on the stabilizer lined up with the vertical and horizontal marks on your hoop. I used my 5x7 hoop (130mmx180mm). You want the embroidery area larger than your design so you have room to stick the collar down. Watch the video to see how I get the stabilizer lined up while I’m hooping. 20200804_213109.mp4
7. Dampen the center area of the Wet n Stick with an envelope moistener. Not too much water! If you need to, spread the water around with your hand a little bit.
8. Align the template on the collar with the vertical and horizontal center marks on the Wet n Stick. You may have to lift each end to match the horizontal center.
9. Press down and hold for minute until the collar sticks to the Wet n Stick. Using RNK Embroidery Perfection Tape, tape each end of the design area to the Wet n Stick.
10. Load your design into your machine. If your Embroidery machine has the capability to adjust the weight of fabric you’re stitching on, set to a thicker fabric. My Embroidery machine has a setting in the “settings” menu to auto adjust for different weights of fabric.
11. Slow down the embroidery speed on your machine.
12. Using the placement system in your embroidery machine, center and align the embroidery design. If you can scan the embroidery area, scan the “snowman” so your machine will line things up for you. REMOVE THE TEMPLATE BEFORE STITCHING.
13. Place a piece of Water Soluble topper on top. Dampen the corners of the topper to stick down.
14. SLOWLY stitch out your design.
15.Once finished stitching, use your Floriani Precision Angle Tweezers, lift any thread tails
and trim closely with your Floriani Squeeze and Snip Tool on the front and back.
16. Remove the majority of the water soluble topper by tearing away and tear the collar away from the Wet n Stick.If it’s stuck down tight, just dampen the Wet n Stick again and it will come off easily.
17. Use your Floriani Precision Angle Tweezers again to pick out any remaining small pieces of Wet n Stick that remain.
18. Spritz the top with water to remove the remaining water soluble topper.
19. IF YOU CHOOSE, you can embroider additional designs on the collar. Once again make sure to move any buckles or sliders away from the embroidery area. RNK Embroidery Perfection Tape is the secret to getting the collar to stay in place on the Wet n Stick.
I used the remaining piece of Wet n Stick from my previous stitching as I can scan the area to get things lined up wherever I am in the hoop.
If you are embroidering designs with filled areas, in your software change the density to point 5. Point 4 is the default for most embroidery designs. Point 4 is a little dense for the thickness of the collar.
Hint....I used some of the “symbols” in Floriani Total Control for the hearts and flowers of this design. The symbols icon is located at the end of the toolbar on the top right. To use the symbols, click on the icon and a menu will show up in the “Properties Box”. Click the drop down arrow and select the symbol you want. Bring your cursor to the workspace and hold down the left click and drag your mouse to create the angle and size of the symbol you want. Once you get it how you want it let go of the mouse and you have your small design!
Leash Tips:
The principals for embroidering the leash are the same as the collar.
You may choose to embroider numerous times on the leash as you have more space.
Since the leash is more 2 sided I chose to match my bobbin thread to my top thread. I only had 2 color changes so it wasn’t too difficult.
I used the “Star 1” in the symbols menu of Floriani Total Control to create the stars to embroider. I stitched them once and they weren’t quite dense enough so I decided to stitch them twice to give them more depth. See above for how to use the symbols in FTCU.