A Blog by Guest Blogger Carolyn Wedel

 I’ve dabbled in the needle arts since the ninth grade.  No, I’ll not reveal how long that’s been …only my doctor and I know that secret.

I’ve broaden my horizons recently in my quest to be more creative with my embroidery skills and purchased a Brother Persona PRS100 embroidery machine.  It’s a 68-pound beauty and it took my husband & I together with a dolly to man handle that baby upstairs.

My brother was my first customer on this shining star, and I embroidered 14 aprons for his son, who owns a restaurant in Missouri.

This new machine balked a few times (learning curve), so phone calls to the dealer and a bit of screaming on my part, as I watched the screen tell me “check the top tension or the bobbin tension, before finally getting that tension properly balanced.

Sewing buffs, you know what I mean. What’s up with that!  Which one do I adjust!

Well I looked in the book again and decided the bottom bobbin was my first go to in correcting and balancing the tension. What you need is a balance of top thread showing and only about a third of the top thread showing on the bottom of the garment. My personal tension, on the other hand, was all the way to a 10 on the Richter scale!

Finally, the dealer told me never to touch the bobbin tension (even though it is clearly described in the book). Now they tell me! They regret the book gives you that option.

I purchased a new bobbin to finish my project & learned (vowed) to never touch the bobbin thread case again. I will only turn the top three tension indicators knobs to appropriately make adjustments.

Since there are four tensions adjustments (three on top and one on bottom) for the machine, I learned a few days ago what steps to go by in adjusting these tension knobs.

Whew! What an education.  The top tension, I was told to adjust, made all the difference in the world. Yea! Success.

I’m like a dog with a bone, I just don’t give it up until the lady sings. Such a learning experience and it’s not over yet.  However, I am not as intimidated any longer with this new piece of equipment, which tried to buffalo me.  No-siree, I’m in control and she purrs like a kitten … wonderful!

For now, I have been pulled away from my loving embroidery passion to help my husband with our last phase of house renovations, which has bordered on a nightmare. We are upgrading our existing home and running into so many areas that are not squared. My husband says studs are not on 16” centers, plus leaky toilets. We have pledged to do whatever we can to make our home look square and pretty.

We’ll be content to say this will be the last upgrade and have a blind eye to any imperfections. lol. I really am excited with a mental image of the results, so it will be worth the efforts.

I did squeeze in a small embroidery job and sewed our initial W on a table runner in gold metallic, which had existing gold thread in the material, and it turned out awesome. Sewing with metallic thread is extremely tricky, but my new machine took it in stride.Happy trails to you.