EDUCATOR PICK OF THE MONTH: STITCH COMPOSER FOR HALLOWEEN?

Pic courtesy of Kathy at Snip and Stitch, Nanaimo, BC who allowed me to photograph her delightful seasonal front door welcome.

I love to go trick or treating with my grand kids but forget the witch’s hats, scary monsters and grave stones………These scare my little ones a bit and I don’t don’t dress up anyway ( yes, you can call me a party pooper?!)  Instead, I make new Halloween stitches for my Janome sewing machine! Granted, I don’t find anyone gives me any candy (sigh) but, in all honesty, I should not be eating all that sugar. But I don’t mind as I have so much fun making new sewing machines stitches!

We continue to be so excited about the creative possibilities of adding stitches to our sewing machines ……..extra stitches WE can easily make especially for a specific project …………or maybe just because we can? Take a look at all the pics below…..none of these are standard built-in stitches on any of our Janome models. All have been created in Stitch Composer, a software program which comes free with a number of our Janome machines (currently this would be the Janome MC12000; MC15000; MC9400; Skyline S7 and Skyline S9)

What about embellishing a Halloween candy bag with cute with machine stitches like black cats, pumpkins, spider’s webs etc?? My mind went racing along and I got caught up in Halloween fun creating these stitches in our very user friendly STITCH COMPOSER program.

YES…… many of you DO have this capability! Perhaps you just did not realize what is sitting there waiting for you to install on your PC, open up & use to create your very own new stitches OR edit existing machine built-in stitches to make them your own!

Notice from the stitch-outs above that we combined created stitches (pumpkin; apple; spider’s web) with built-in machine stitches like the little cat (which may be found on the Janome MC9400; Skyline S7; Skyline S9; MC12000; MC15000; and maybe other models too?). Not only did we use the stitch combo function, but we also stitched rows of stitches in different colors…….Yes, this is actually quite simple: program a combo with (for example) the cat with bridging stitches between the cats. Stitch this out and then fill in the gaps with pumpkins and apples etc in different colours. Use the lock stitch function to stitch just one and tie off between the cats or spider’s webs.

Another pic courtesy of Kathy at Snip and Stitch, Nanaimo: these Jack-O-Lanterns are growing in her garden and looked SO pretty and seasonal, I just had to share with you!

Our cute little HALLOWEEN CANDY BAG:

Rows were marked on the fabric and then a selection of brand new STITCH COMPOSER stitches were stitched. Some were combined with other stitches…..created in Stitch Composer or built in machine stitches. Rows with different colours were also sewed.

Using the Janome BORDER GUIDE FOOT  as  seen in this pic  is also most useful for multiple rows of stitches.

The embroidery design used on the other side of the bag is one of the built-in designs on the Janome Horizon MC15000

We even stitched black cats & spider’s webs on the bag handles.

Are the wheels turning yet? We sure hope so as the possibilities that Stitch Composer offers can result in a lot of sewing fun as you create all sorts of new stitches for your machine. 

What about Christmas trees? tree ornaments? snowmen? & more. 

Make new 9mm sewing machine stitches to add to your Christmas gifts, gift tags and home decor projects.