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Machine Embroidery: Directly or Applique?

 I bumped up the Polish blend kimono on my project schedule so I could have it done in time for the cultural festival at church. Then I realized the event was in May and not in March like I originally thought. Oh wells, better to get her done. 

And while trying to get'er done, I started embroidering on my machine. My original plan was to embroider the patterns directly onto the fabric then sew it together. 

That worked for the corner of the sleeves, but then I got to thinking, "perhaps it would be better to sew on some of the other designs after I put things together. After all, my hems tend to be a bit unpredictable in placement."

After breaking 2 needles while embroidering the sleeves, I got to thinking again, "perhaps sewing on the finished garment is a bit risky. Going over a seam while embroidering will surely break a needle!" So maybe it would be better to sew on some of the designs as patches. A couple of the designs are very dense and would suit patches that I could either iron on or sew onto the kimono in the right spots, no fuss. 

So I went to the store, got some new needles for embroidery, some new green thread because I wound a bobbin and suddenly my spool was empty, some pre-wound bobbins, and some water-soluble stabilizer. 

Got home and started embroidering one of the planned designs directly onto the stabilizer. And yet again, 2 needles broke. Had to do a bit of research to figure out why the heck this was happening! 

Turns out, the first needle break happened because the thread I was using was metallic thread and not rayon like all the other colors I had been using. There are special needles used for it and you have to futz around with tension. Otherwise there is a tug of war between the needle and high tension thread that ended with the needle losing in my case. 

The second needle broke because the cutter didn't quite cut through all the thread at the end of the project and again thread tension and needle went to war and the needle lost. Now I'm down to 3 needles, but I found my metallic needles! But I'm still hesitant to sew with metallic thread. 

I managed to sew the horses and cat patches without any other needle breaks, but the tension on the bobbin was a bit off...because Babylock machines are fussy about which bobbins you use. 

Now the other issue I'm having is figuring out how to get the embroidery pattern I designed onto a chiffon haori. See, embroidering directly onto the chiffon won't work because it's too delicate and the design is too dense and it will cause the fabric to pucker. Too risky for my limited experience. 

So, I'll make a patch. But adhering it to a sheer fabric is a challenge. I may try a heat activated adhesive, but the heat could damage the chiffon. So again, I may need to sew it on directly. I'm nervous about the design because I do plan on using my metallic black thread. But I may pass on metallic thread all together and simply use my black thread. 

I find that using my embroidery machine really causes me a lot of anxiety. I get physically tense while it goes along. Seeing so many needles break and freaking out about some squeaking from the bobbin really put me on edge. (It was caused by lint and using the wrong bobbin size! I fixed it by cleaning the bobbin seat and using the correct bobbins.)

I'll update this with what I end up doing for the chiffon haori. 

UPDATE: 

I have officially decided to not apply the embroidery to the chiffon haori. Instead, that's going to be plain and paired with my Gothic Rose Kimono. 

For this kimono, instead of making a proper haori, I'm going for my cultural blending! I'm going to make a short sleeveless vest out of a thicker black fabric of some kind that's easier to machine embroider. I will embroider directly onto the fabric OR make a patch depending on the type of fabric I end up using. 

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