Horse Pad

[LisaImpressions]

I am embroidering a horse pad for a client. The design is a horse and the horse's name. I did a test sew, and it looks great. I just started sewing on the pad, and things are not going so well. I could really use some suggestions on how to set the settings. I usually use auto tention, but I don't think that will work here, but I don't know what to set it at. Also, should I adjust the pressure foot? I am three minutes into a 57 minute sew, and I can't deal with thread breaks every twenty seconds. Please help!

Thanks,
Lisa
Impressions

[Rod or Sharon]

Hi Lisa,
There are several things we need to know in order to help.
1. What design? Is it a purchased logo like Dakota Collectibles....or one someone digitized? Remember that Dakota designs are "bullet proof" meaning they don't know what you will be sewing it on so they beef up the design. You can almost always take out at least 10% of the stitches and often more for the design to sew well. Did you resize the design? Most of the time never resize more than 20%.
2. If there is "loft" to the blanket, you need to put the presser foot down tight enough to compress the blanket---take all the air out of it. The purpose of the presser foot is to hold the fabric down so when the needle comes up, it holds the fabric down...no flagging.
3. Auto tension should work just fine.
4. Be sure your bobbin tension is set so you have to give a snap with your wrist to get the bobbin to drop 5-6 inches. Amayas like a bobbin set just a bit tight.
5. Be sure you have good, sharp needles in and not turned to the left AT ALL. Check this by using a magnifying glass and look at the groove down the front of the needle. Either straight forward or 5-10 degrees to the right.
6. BE SURE you have lubed your machine and the bobbin area is free of all lint and dust. Also clean out from under your leaf spring on the bobbin case with the corner of a piece of paper.

Hope these suggestions help.

Sharon
Sharon

[LisaImpressions]

It's a Dakota design HR0398 plus the name Dharma in Old English. I did resize it, but not more than 20%.

I'll try it with all of your setting suggestions. Thanks for the help. I hope this works.

Lisa

[gcannon]

auto- has it's pros & negs- experiment & use your own good judgement; bobbin set a bit tight- you'll be alright! As in accounting; verify, verify, verify- then make it so (sew)! Do many sew-outs b-4 you "commit to the cloth", as we old timers call it.

[Laurie]

Greg is right about the auto... I use it for parts that a more than I wan tto tackle on my own, and then go in and tweak what was getnerated ie underlay and such... so far I have found a nice balance. It was frustrating in the begining, as my employers thought that with "auto digitizing" my world would be sunshine and roses! LOL (NOT) My biggest Q about the auo function, why in the world does it put a bean stitch around almost every image it creates!???!

Laurie

[signman]

because the autodigitizing wasn't designed by someone that did embroidery for a living...LOL
just computer geeks with no idea of what we have to put up with on this end.