It’s App-tastic!

One of the amazing features of the Skyline 9 Sewing & Embroidery machine is the Wifi and App capability. It’s one of the two machines from Janome that are certified Wifi, and that opens up so many different features and ways to try new things. Have you been to the App Store to see them? There are actually 6 apps from Janome. 5 of them are free, and one is purchasable. The free apps are AcuMonitor, AcuSketch, AcuEdit, AcuSetter, and Screensaver. The purchased app is called AcuDesign, and it is totally worth it. So much so that it needs it’s own blog post (coming soon!) I love these apps, as they make embellishing beautiful fabric so easy. Want to see how?

I started out with this gorgeous Tula Pink fabric, an owl, in bright cheery colors. I wanted to make a project bag to carry my knitting around with me, so I thought it would be perfect, and I would never leave it behind. I knew that I wanted to accent the owl design of the print, so the first thing I did was take a picture of my fabric piece that had been cut for my project bag.

 

 

Then I imported the photo into AcuSketch, which allows you to place a photo, drawing or some kind of image as the background and then using the Janome stylus (or your finger), tracing out where you would like the stitching to go. After I traced the design I wanted, I then chose the stitch I wanted for the stitching. AcuSketch has 4 different stitches available: single stitch, triple stitch, zigzag and stem stitch. (3 of these stitches are in App purchases). In the stitch portion of the app, you can adjust the width and length of the stitches to fit your desired finished look. The next thing to do was to send it wirelessly to my machine.

Once the machine had the design loaded and ready, I opened up the AcuSetter app on the iPad.  Once the app was open, I imported the design from the sewing machine. AcuSetter allows you to choose your hoop size, and then you can take a picture of your fabric in your hoop to adjust where your stitching will be. The owl from my fabric is what I wanted to focus on, so I made sure to place my fabric with the owl centered in the hoop. I actually used the magnets that came with the machine to float my fabric in the hoop, as I had already fused fusible fleece to the wrong side for some added stability. Whichever method you prefer to use will work for hooping your fabric. After adjusting the photo of the hoop inside the AcuSetter app, I was able to fine tune the placement of the design to match around my owl stitch design. Once satisfied, I sent it back to the machine so that the design would stitch out exactly where I wanted it. No fiddling around with small arrows and dropping my needle to see where it would go! It was so easy. 

 

I stitched out the same design twice, once with a stem stitch and once with a triple stitch. These two panels formed the basic structure of my project bag. I wanted some quilting, but was short of time to do any ruler quilting. Using the embroidery portion of my machine proved to be the perfect answer. I also added some decorative stitching along the edge of the cork bottom to topstitch it down. Click here to download the basic instructions for the Wristlet Project Bag

 

Thanks for reading, until next time!

JanomeGirl