ImagesMagUK-July-2020

www.images-magazine.com JULY 2020 images 27 KB TIPS & TECHNIQUES Jade Haworth of Allsorts Embroidery combined a picture of a truck with handwriting for an intricate piece created in memory of a client’s father. She explains how she turned a plain jacket into a unique and memorable tribute using more than 120,000 stitches Anatomy of an embroidery www.facebook.com/allsortsembroidery2018 The idea of the design was to give Karen a gift that was linked to something she loves doing, driving trucks, but also had a memory of her dad, who had sadly passed away. Karen’s boyfriend asked if her father’s handwriting could be digitised so we could add that underneath the wagon to give it a personal touch. I always run a mock-up no matter how big or how small the design is to make sure the colours are as close as they can be. In this case the wagon and trailer are the same colour, however, due to the light shining on the wagon when the photo was taken it wanted to stitch it in a lighter colour. Once I got the design back, I changed the wagon to match the trailer and I was a lot happier with how it looked. The design is 231mm high and 240.4mm wide. It has 123,260 stitches and there were 29 colour changes, 30 stops and 209 trims. I used 14 different colours in the design, all of which were Madeira Classic 40 Thread. Ninety percent of the time I stick to Classic 40 as it can be stitched a number of ways and when the designs move, it always gives a different sheen. I’m always really particular about the detail in designs – I live by the saying ‘attention to detail’. The person that you are doing the work for has put the time and effort into the vehicle so this should be reflected throughout the embroidery as much as possible, whether it is the number plate, the lights, the personalised stickers or simply the colour. It was stitched onto a Uneek Ladies’ Classic Full Zip Soft Shell Jacket (UC613), and I used Ezee 40g tear-away backing. The machine runs 75/11 needles from Madeira, and for the bottom bobbins I used pre-wound ones from Madeira. I’ve had no trouble with them and they do the job! The back design took approximately four hours to stitch on a 15-needle single-head Ricoma 1501 TC embroidery machine, which has done me proud! There were three other designs on the jacket; it took just under five hours to complete all four of the designs on it. The design was digitised by David Sharp and took two days. I sent two different pictures to them (the wagon and trailer, and the handwriting) and they combined them for me. The handwriting looks identical to her dad’s handwriting.