One of the most visual ways to ensure your designs are going to stitch exactly where you want them, especially with embroidery designs that require multiple hoopings, is to take advantage of basting boxes. I'll show you how!
While stitching
the new Farmhouse Sentiments designs from Designs in Machine Embroidery, stitching the woodgrain to the borders required six total hoopings. That can be a nightmare, especially since the woodgrain designs nested against one another.
I combined the first three woodgrain designs in the hoop.
New stabilizer was hooped and I stitched a basting box of the combined design on the stabilizer. My machine has a function that will stitch a basting box for any embroidery. Check your manual to see how yours works.
I placed thumbtacks up from behind the hooped stabilizer at the two corners that would butt up against the edge of the border. That gave me an anchor and helped me align the wall hanging straight on the hoop.
Secure the wallhanging in the hoop with spray adhesive and remove the thumb tacks. Now, baste the design to the hooped stabilizer and, if it is straight, stitch out the rest of the embroidery.
The basting box also allows you to see if your initial hooping is straight before you have to tear out any stitches.Since the edges of the woodgrain designs were jagged, the basting box also helped me see if I had the next set of woodgrain aligned properly.
Print out a template of the next woodgrain design to be stitched and position it on your wall hanging. Once it is in the right place, draw a line on the wall hanging border, across the top of the woodgrain template, right where the new basting box would be.
Now you can hoop new stabilizer. Stitch a basting box for the new design and use the thumb tacks to pin the corners at the very top of the new basting box. Align the line drawn on the wall hanging with the two thumbtacks so that the wall hanging border is aligned straight in the hoop.
Secure the wall hanging in the hoop and remove the thumb tacks. Baste the new design area on the wall hanging. If it is not straight with the borders, it is really easy to snip the basting stitches and adjust the wall hanging again. Much easier than ripping out all of the triple stitched woodgrain if the alignment is off.
Once your two designs line up right, stitch the new design. I learned the thumb tack technique from Marjorie Busby of B-quits.com and it has been very useful to me when hooping multiple designs in a project.
Debbie SewBlest