Great. Brother Dream Machine: Custom Draw Stippling
Before I purchased my Brother Dream Machine, I looked carefully at the product brochure to see what I was getting. One of the most promising features was called "Custom Draw Stippling". If you look at the photos, it seems to promise the ability to take hand-drawn line art and turn it into stunning all-over stippling.
By now, most of us have probably decided that this was a bit of an exaggeration. But I wonder, is it possible to create something similar?
Drawing nice designs by hand on the Dream Machine's screen is out of the question. You cannot put your palm on the screen and so you lose any fine control over the stylus. You can get smoother lines by drawing quickly, but they're still a bit jagged.
Given the above, it's pretty clear that we need to scan in our design from a smoothly drawn or printed source.
So let's say we want to create our own all-over design motif for quilting. If we want our motif to be usable for blocks of any size, then let's choose a smaller sized motif that we can repeat as needed over our block. I created a 2" x 2" design based on the one in the brochure. I scanned it in using the "Line Illustration" button.
I converted my one motif into an embroidery design which I saved in my machine's memory. I selected a running stitch and left all of the other settings alone.
Now I created an all over design for an 8" x 8" block using just that one motif. This was a little time consuming as each motif had to be added in one at a time. Motifs were flipped and rotated as needed to create a final design. And they all had to fit within the 8" x 8" design constraints.
I saved this new design into my machine's memory and proceeded to stitch it out.
My only concern with this quilt block is that it is not truly a continuous design. The machine stops after each motif is sewn and jumps around quite a bit, sewing each motif in the order in which it was added to the design. It would be nice if the sewing could be better optimized with no stops at all.
Overall it's not bad! A keen eye would see that it is not a continuous line design. But it certainly has the spirit of what the Brother brochure promised us. I think this technique could be tried with any number of other motifs to create an all-over quilt design. Maybe you'd like to give it a try!
By now, most of us have probably decided that this was a bit of an exaggeration. But I wonder, is it possible to create something similar?
Drawing nice designs by hand on the Dream Machine's screen is out of the question. You cannot put your palm on the screen and so you lose any fine control over the stylus. You can get smoother lines by drawing quickly, but they're still a bit jagged.
Given the above, it's pretty clear that we need to scan in our design from a smoothly drawn or printed source.
So let's say we want to create our own all-over design motif for quilting. If we want our motif to be usable for blocks of any size, then let's choose a smaller sized motif that we can repeat as needed over our block. I created a 2" x 2" design based on the one in the brochure. I scanned it in using the "Line Illustration" button.
I converted my one motif into an embroidery design which I saved in my machine's memory. I selected a running stitch and left all of the other settings alone.
Now I created an all over design for an 8" x 8" block using just that one motif. This was a little time consuming as each motif had to be added in one at a time. Motifs were flipped and rotated as needed to create a final design. And they all had to fit within the 8" x 8" design constraints.
I saved this new design into my machine's memory and proceeded to stitch it out.
My only concern with this quilt block is that it is not truly a continuous design. The machine stops after each motif is sewn and jumps around quite a bit, sewing each motif in the order in which it was added to the design. It would be nice if the sewing could be better optimized with no stops at all.
Overall it's not bad! A keen eye would see that it is not a continuous line design. But it certainly has the spirit of what the Brother brochure promised us. I think this technique could be tried with any number of other motifs to create an all-over quilt design. Maybe you'd like to give it a try!