 |
Coffee anyone? This cup
is just about the right size.
|
 |
The view from the breakfast
counter at the Brother B2B
in Nashville.
|
A business trip is an interesting experience. It’s like a fun, educational break from the
“real world” combined with lack of sleep.
It
sure seems that the older we get, the harder it is to fall asleep outside our
own home, our own bed, with our own comfy pillowcase.
So the next morning at the Brother B2B in
Nashville, the person in the mirror looking back at me said, “Coffee.
You NEED strong coffee.
A big cup!”
The second day of our business trip was not much different from the
first lol.
Okay.
Now for a recap of our previous post in case
you missed it, with a few extras features thrown in the mix before doing a
review of our second day attending the Brother B2B.
Just in case you missed the first post (You
can go back and
read it here!), some of our staff were able to preview the new
line of
Brother machines at the B2B
convention which included their new TOL
Dream machine. Also, shown below is an awesome video by Brother on their ultimate machine.
Dreamy it is!
It features:
1.
A 9.5” X
14” embroider field (38% larger than the previous largest frame for their
single needle embroidery machines).
2.
A new Stability Plus Frame with rubber, ribbed
edges for less slippage.
3.
New Zoom and Adjustment Features: up to 400% within My Design Center and up to
200% in other modes.
4. A
new, yet familiar interface with a 10.1” built-in, hi-def LCD screen—the
largest on the home-sewing market.
5. Expandable
library of Built-In Tutorial videos.
(You can even use the screen to watch videos or listen to music when
you’re not sewing.)
6. Improved
scanning with the Innoveye 2 Technology.
Scanning speed is up to 2X as fast as previous models and has virtual
stitch preview and width adjustment an industry first (we’ll talk about that
later!). Alignment of embroidery
designs is easier than ever with the built-in camera and scanner.
7. My
Design Center. Now you can draw or
doodle directly on the LCD display or use the Scanimation scanning frame to
scan line art, handwriting or printed clip art and allow the machine to auto
digitize it into embroidery data. Even
better, you can scan a JPEG from a USB stick and turn it into stitch data for
embroidery using the machine. No
software is needed!
8. Stippling
and Freehand Quilting. Could Brother have made it any easier? You can define the stippling area, choose a
stippling design, perform an inside and/or outside stipple of an embroidery
design, or create custom draw stippling.
Yes! Create your own stippling
pattern! How exciting.
9. Improved
Color Shuffling and with more color possibilities at your fingertips along with
a LED thread color and monitoring system much the Brother commercial embroidery
machines.
10. Designs and LOTS of them! 930+ built ins and over 166 Disney designs at
your fingertips.
11. The
J foot—a longer foot AND longer feed dogs for improved fabric feeding with box
feed.
12. And
the finale…did I mention undo’s? A user
can undo a whopping 50X! That's a super feature for those of us who like to change our minds a lot.
Our first project in Oh Brother,
Part I was about mostly about Scanimation, Borders,
Fills, and Stippling.
Now we’re moving on to project #2 on the DREAM machine, which was the
Couched Clutch.
Brother has a new foot for couching
that can be used with the
MuVit Digital Feed foot.
This foot was used to complete this project shown below:
 |
The men at Pocono Sew and
Vac can talk the talk AND
walk the walk! |
 |
| Paul's pretty good at this! |
It’s always fascinating how people can dream
up ways to create simple projects that are a snap to stitch up, and the Couched
Clutch is one of them. It would be a
perfect party favor for a group of young girls or a simple, crafty tote. Each group was given a placemat (the
inexpensive dollar store variety), along with a stencil, measuring, and marking
tools. At right, Paul doing a trace off
of a stencil with a disappearing marker onto the placement. Measurement lines for fabric folds were added
as shown at left. Next we set up the
machine to couch yarn on the stencil design.
It’s a quick and easy process.
Notice the guide attachment we installed on the side of the machine for
the yarn which was then guided directly into the hole on the couching foot as
shown below.
 |
Guide attachment for the
Couching Foot. |
The couching foot/technique
is very easy, but it’s important to make sure enough yarn is loose so that it
feeds freely from the skein. Also, you
can understand the importance of the pivot feature when examining the curves of
the flower design.
Thank you, Brother, for that fab function!
Two features, exclusive to Brother machines, which were especially
useful on this project, were the laser line and virtual stitch
functions. The serpentine and blanket
stitches were chosen to stitch the ribbon in place on the placemat. Sometimes when a sewist is using a ribbon
along with a decorative stitch, the width needs to be customized to tack down
the ribbon to the fabric. The following
pics illustrate how the chosen stitch image is superimposed in real time over
the ribbon.
 |
This Virtual Stitch Preview.
SEW cool! |
 |
Virtual Stitch Preview with the serpentine
stitch. |
This is what Brother calls,
“Virtual Stitch Preview" shown at right and left. It’s easy to see if the stitch needs to be
widened or narrowed. This is such a
super useful feature! No more guessing
games and test stitchouts to see if a stitch width fits the sewing task. Simply view the stitch pattern on the ribbon
in real time and step on the pedal or press the <GO> button. And as for that laser guide, we used it when
stitching this project for a perfectly straight sewing guide line as show to
the left. Not necessarily a new feature
for Brother users, but it’s still amazing!
See that laser guide in action as shown at left.
 |
That laser guide sure comes
in handy! |
Moving on to the task of creating a
custom stitch. It’s probably an
underutilized feature for many users, but it’s nice to mention that it does
exist and allows for stitch patterns beyond the built-in machine stitches. It was really easy for us to
create a custom stitch, however, it was not without errors. Rest assured, error-prone users or ones that change their mind a lot, the
50X's undo feature is especially handy. So don’t worry about
getting into a jam and wanting to change something with a very limited number
of undo’s. An ample allotment of undos
will get you out of virtually all tricky situations. .
 |
The Custom Stitch feature. It's actually very easy to
create custom stitches. |
 |
We're working on our
customer stitch. |
All in all, the clutch project took
about 15-20 minutes and about 30 if one adds in creating a custom stitch. We did use our customized, decorative stitch on the clutch. Our finished clutch will be on display at the
store when the DREAM machine arrives in late September/early October.
Note: Go easy on us ;) . We stitched fast to complete the project. It’s not perfect, but the workshops move very
quickly to cover the highlighted features.
 |
The finished Couched Clutch! Not perfect, but everyone has to work fast
in order to take home a finished project. |
Overall, the DREAM machine features
utilized on both the embroidery and sewing projects were very impressive and a
breeze to use. Brother thought of just
about everything. Here at the store, we can’t wait to have this awesome machine
delivered and setup on our showroom floor.
Come in and ask for demos on the great, TOL machine. We have already taken several pre-orders and
are taking trade-ins in order to help you take home the machine of your
dreams. Yeah, it’s THAT good! By the way, shown below is one of the best souvenirs I saw in Nashville! Feel free to take it to heart :) .
Now how about that DREAM machine!
Stay tuned for Oh Brother, Part III.
As always from your friends at Pocono Sew and Vac, have a Great Day and Happy Sewing!
