Well, it's a 'kind' of sewing! ;-)

Oh, those are pretty!

See - I really DO need an embroidery machine one day! Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket or three...

Nah, they can be had for the profits from a wedding party or three... ;-) I was never tempted, until I read a discussion here, and someone (Joanne again?) mentioned the endless bobbin on the Singer Quantum XL5000. That discussion started me doing research, and well, looka here what followed me home! ;-)

Just be aware before you jump: the machine is just the

Not complaining you understand, it keeps me off the streets.

Beverly

Oh, I am thrilled to be part of such a creation! I'm so glad I led you down this particular primrose path. ;-)

Don't forget to post pics of the shirt, would love to see it...I have several celtic design embroideries and have never thought of popping one onto a shirt...!

-Irene

------------- "You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough."

- Mae West

Thanks again! I also ordered the slant-needle walking foot, and the Wash-Away-Puffy-Felt, although I haven't had an opportunity to test it yet.

Beverly

Will do.

Where have you find the designs? I really like the ones I found at emblibrary.com, but I'm always on the lookout for new sources.

Beverly

Now all you have to do it make earrings to match your great looking shirt. check this out.

Have you ever tried machine knitting? O:-)

Now there's why I don't consider home embroidery machines invented yet

-- I'll consider them invented when someone brings out one I could use the way I use my dot-matrix printer.

Meanwhile, there's gotta be a way to draw six intersecting circles using Gimp -- I gave up, drew them on paper, borrowed a scanner, and cleaned it up with Gimp. On the other hand, I discovered that you don't have to open a document to read its pixel size with Gimp -- a great convenience when you install graphics on your website first and remember that you need to specify height and width later.

Ob sewing: one of the scans will go into Rough Sewing when I've written the caption.

Joy Beeson

My mother gave me her first knitting machine 40 years ago when she upgraded, then I inherited her better one when she died. I also inherited several thousand cones of knitting yarn, most of it wool, and stored all these years in metal cans with mothballs and/or cedar balls. I used the original one a lot, never really got up to speed on the upgrade one.

One of these days/years, I must decide if I'm ever going to use it again, or pass it on to my DD, or donate it. I can't hand knit anymore, so maybe the machine would get me excited about "knitting" again. ;-)

Beverly, who wonders if this is a contest....

But I already made a set of earrings with:

Noooo, not a contest, because we all win! I love my knitting machines like I love my sewing machines. I was just looking at an afghan I hand-knit when waiting the arrival of my first son, marvelling over the fact that each of the thousand stitches had been hand-knit by me, over months and months. And how much nicer it has been to sit down at my knitting machine and focus on the creative aspect and not the mechanical aspect of afghans, sweaters, scarfs, hats, mittens, socks, even dishcloths. My machine is currently buried in the basement (though I've been itching to dig it out) and soon DH will be going off to school wearing one of the sweaters I made him, and coming home to tell me of all the compliments. The sweaters are 15 or 20 years old now.......

Those would be easy to make in wire. Gold or silver wire.

Gimp is a pain to draw with, although it is a very good image manipulation program. You probably ended up drawing the circles the easy way :-)

You can thread your XL5000 with WIRE??? Who knew. ;->

Beverly

Indeed, although it sometimes seems we all have an excess of gadgets. ;-)

The last thing I hand knit was the baby afghan for DGD and she's now 11-going-on-12. I knit a white one first:

I actually loved the peace brought on by the click-click-click, knowing I was producing something useful/beautiful while I relaxed in front of the fire.

My DH loved wearing hand knit sweaters for much the same reason.

Beverly

No ribber bed? I don't have a garter carriage (don't own a Brother) but I have done some interesting things with the ribber-knitter combo -- like Aran sweaters. Too much hand-work, though -- too much counting!!!

When I was in high school, I knitted argyle socks. They were fun, and they blew people away.

You are feeling ornery tonight? You can sew on tin, if that floats your boat. Do you have a copy of Singer's Art Needlework? Done on a treadle machine 100 years ago?

It would.