Word collages are all the rage. I’ve been etching wine bottles with different word collages I’ve found online, and love the look. I like the way the artist uses different fonts and phrases to create a word collage. So, I was thinking it would be fun to create a Christmas word collage for embroidery. Problem is, I’m not all that talented when it comes to graphic design. I can, however, digitize.  So I got with Lani, our graphic designer, and asked her if she’d create a Christmas word collage that I could digitize for embroidery.

The Design

Lani provided me with this wonderful design.

So I went to work and digitized the design using Floriani’s FTC-U.  Lani provided me with a vector-graphic (a .svg file), so it was a snap to import the artwork and then digitize the design. FTC-U has a auto digitizing wizard to make things even easier. I’m a little bit of a control freak, so I didn’t use the auto digitizing feature, but the tools in the program make it easy to digitize each word, select the fill type, the angle of the stitches, the density and the color. It’s as easy as pumpkin pie – or figgy pudding!

Since there are many words in the Christmas word collage, and some are pretty small, I set up the design to be 9″ tall and 6″ wide. I did stitch it out as a 7″ x 5″ design, but thought that some of the fonts did not look very good when they were smaller. If you want to use a smaller design, I suggest you resize it and make sure that the density of the stitches is changed to reflect the smaller size.

Embroider the Design

Thread

Lani designed  a beautiful color scheme for the Christmas word collage, and I saw no reason the change it. Sixty wt micro thread from RNK is just the ticket for the small text in the design. The new Embellish thread is also 60wt, so that would work as well. I use 60wt prewound bobbins as well.

The Thread Sequence

I set up the thread sequence so that each line of text in the Christmas word collage is a separate sequence, making it easy to change colors. Light and dark colors are alternated so that they don’t combine into one sequence when saved. I did group them so that all the greens sew out first, then the reds, then the yellows.A darker green and darker red for the round “ornaments” in the tree make them stand out. Consider metallics! The three green circles are one sequence and the three red circles are another sequence.  Metallic gold is perfect for the stars, and all the stars are in one sequence. 

Click here for the  sew out sequence pdf file.

The Stitch Out

The design really look stunning when stitched out on black fabric!

Just in Time for a Last Minute Gift

So do you need to create a last minute, one-of-a-kind homemade gift? If you’d like to use this design, click on the link below that matches the format for your machine. Save the file to your computer, and sew out the design. When you click on any of the links below you’ll get a message that the file cannot be previewed. Click on the download the file button and download it to your computer or USB stick. Now it’s ready for your embroidery machine.

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Note:  If I missed a format you need, please email me at rockymountain.blogger@gmail.com and I’ll send it to you.

Need some ideas on what to put it on? Check out some of my previous blogs for instructions on several different projects that would go great with our word collage design. Put it on a pillow.  How about a hemstitched towel? Wouldn’t it look great on an apron or a tote or beach bag? Only your imagination sets the limits!

Disclaimers

I stitched out this design on my Brother PR1000, and had no issues. I am not a professional digitizer, though, so I can’t guarantee this will stitch out okay on your machine. If you want to use this for a gift, I suggest that you stitch out a sample first.  If you just stitch out the top few lines on the tree, you’ll know if it’s going to stitch out okay on your machine.

The design is copyrighted by Rocky Mountain Sewing and Vacuum. You are welcome to download the stitch file(s), but please do not distribute it electronically to others. Please direct anyone else who is interested in the files to this blog, to download it for themselves.

If you make this smaller than 9″ x 6″ some of the fonts may lose their resolution. 7″ x 5″ is okay, but a couple of the words are pretty small with little detail.  I would not try anything smaller than 7′ x 5′.

You really need 60 wt thread, so here’s a coupon to get some!