If you love to embellish with decorative stitches, and especially if you WANT to do more embroidery work with decorative stitches, I highly recommend making a stitch book. A stitch book is just a “book” of stitch outs of all your machine’s decorative stitches. Whether your machine has only a few decorative stitches, or hundreds of them, stitched out, they look so much different (and nicer!) than they do on the stitch chart or touch screen of the sewing machine. These stitch outs will help you see how your stitches look and will serve as a “menu” when you want to combine different stitches into a combination.
A stitch book can be as simple or complex as you like it. For an easy version, cut 8 ½”x11” pieces of fabric and back them with stabilizer. Draw parallel lines and sew out a few repeats of each stitch. Write the stitch number next to the stitch, slip the fabric pieces in a clear sheet protector and place in a three-ring binder. If you choose, you can even try varying the stitch width and length and experimenting with pattern elongation if your machine allows that, again, make notations on the fabric if you wish.
For my stitch book, because I have several machines that not only have built in stitches, but I can create my own stitches on the computer to import into the machine, I went even fancier. I cut fabric strips about 4 ½” x 12”, fused stabilizer to the back. Marked a line and sewed twenty stitches down each strip, running the edge of the presser foot along the previous stitch’s edge. I then trimmed the strips to 4” x 11 ½” and overlocked the edges with Wooly Nylon thread to cover the ends and frame it nicely. I then printed out strips of numbers on my computer and glued all to heavy chipboard as free-standing cards as this method is just a little too big to go in a three-ring binder.
I keep my stitch book cards on my shelf near my sewing machines so whenever I have to urge to dress something up with more than just a plain hem or I want to make a shirt placket something special, I can use my stitch boards like a menu to find just the perfect stitch each time. Try it! People always say “I don’t know what to do with all of those stitches!” Well, why did you buy a model with all of them if you aren’t going to use them? Once you play around with stitching them out to get to know them, trust me, some ideas are going to pop into your head, and write them down, or better yet, stitch out a combination or two you think looks nice. Then pin those samples to your bulletin board and you have some ideas ready to go next time something looks just a little too “plain”. The best things in sewing come from playing around, give yourself reasons to do that!
