Bible Cover & Tote Bag

This Holy Bible cover project and the Tote Bag project were kindly sent to us by Betty Faske, the owner of www.betsysneedlesandpins.com. Betty, thank you so much for sharing your beautiful creations!

Christian Symbols

Christian Symbols

Betty designed this unusual cover using the Christian Symbols design collection, and used all metallic threads on this cover.

Grapes & Wheat and Grape Vines Gold 

Grapes & Wheat and Grape Vines Gold 

This handbag Betty created using the Grapes & Wheat and Grape Vines Gold designs, on upholstery fabric. Betty added her initial in the center of the front panel. Betty, thanks again:) The projects are beautiful and inspiring, as usual!

Embroidery Font Newbie!

We've just published this new Poinsettia Gold Font, to compliment the popular Poinsettia Gold design set. So they go great together! The font features 26 capital letters, 6.3 inch height.

This font looks especially beautiful when some of the elements are stitched with Metallic Thread.

Metallics add sparkle and festiveness to Christmas projects!

Snowflakes, Snowflakes, Snowflakes!

Snowflakes are special. It's hard to stop looking at them, and there are never "too many snowflakes". Today we publish 3 new collections of snowflakes - all different and beautiful.

The first one is fulfilled in red-work technique, and features 12 openwork snowflakes. It's a great set for quilting projects for Christmas.

The second is designed especially for embroidery with metallic thread, and includes 12 snowflakes designs, each one in 2 sizes. This set will perfectly fit the style of our Christmas Gold and Poinsettia Gold collections.

And great news for owners of 7x7 and 8x8-inch hoops. You may also purchase this set, with Super-large Snowflakes for your hoops!

And the third snowflake set includes a total of 46 snowflakes designs - in various sizes, shapes and styles.  It requires a 5x7-inch hoop, and is designed in traditional white-work technique.

All of these new snowflake collections will give you endless possibilities for creating your Christmas and Winter projects:)

The Year of Golden Tiger

Tiger is one of the most beautiful and powerful creatures of animal world. Many Asian cultures adopted it as a symbol of courage, power, passion and royalty. We wish you all of these features combined, for this year, and forever.

We've also prepared a small New Year gift for you - a trio of two tiger designs and a calligraphy. To download the designs, please click on the appropriate format for your machine, and pick up the "Save" option. Please none that each of the three designs requires a 5x7-inch hoop (their height is 4.9").

If you like this free design, please VOTE FOR US. This will help others find us, and allow us to keep growing. Thanks!

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These designs look absolutely amazing when embroidered using metallic thread. You may get the most suitable colors in our "Classic Colors" metallic thread kit.





You may find many many more of free embroidery designs in our freebie archive.

Preparing to Christmas in August!

We've prepared a new Christmas collection, and hope that you will love it. We did our best to make it the most colorful and festive.

The set features extremely elegant shapes with Poinsettia flowers, golden curls, pine greens and pine cones. Very beautiful for anything Christmas!

The new "Poinsettia Gold" set perfectly matches the "Poinsettia Lace" collection and will look great on "Medallion Tree Skirt" and it's matching Tabletopper.

Visit the New Items for Embroidery page to see the latest stuff we get, and make available for you.

To completely stock up with supplies to stitch a "Poinsettia Gold Tree Skirt and Tabletopper" project, you only need to get some embroidery thread. We've prepared a combo thread kit that includes all necessary colors of polyester & metallic thread, to embroider the new Poinsettia Gold Set.

New Grape Vine Gold set for Metallic Thread

This new set, digitized especially for embroidery with metallic thread. These designs stitch out extremely fast, without any jumps, can adorn a huge variety of projects. On free designs page you may download a freebie from this set, to try it prior to purchase.

Many of our design sets and fonts are created especially for use with metallic thread. Metallics add elegance, festivity and shine to any project. Visit the Designs for Metallic Thread, to see all embroidery designs of this category!

New Embroidery Project for Metallic Thread

Stylish Heraldic Decor Project in "Goth & Rock Pub" Style

Low-density designs may be embroidered on great variety of materials, including leather! This project was kindly sent to us by Gary Perkins. Gary utilized Heraldic Gold designs and metallic thread. A Fantastic project!

Gary manages a a big goth and rock pub, and he created these stylish accessories for a colleague. As you may see, these are pouffea, and couple of fringed cushions. They're made of artificial leather, and adorned with embroidery designs. The designs have been embroidered in metallic thread.

Fast-to-stitch designs

NEW Birthday Gold

There's a new handy Birthday Gold designs collection ready - it's intended for making Birthday & Anniversary projects. Due to numerous requests, it's in the same lightweight style like our popular Christmas Gold set. These designs look great in metallic thread, stitch out awesome on paper, and are FAST to embroider.
The large Birthday Gold pack is divided into 4 small sets - Anniversary, Birthday Elegance, Birthday Balloons and Birthday Party. Hope that you will find among them the sets and designs you like :o)

These embroideries are designed especially for use with metallic thread.

Dealing with Metallic Thread

Here are several tips for working with metallic thread. These rules apply to any thread brand. We hope that they help you to get the best out of your metallic thread, because metallics really are more tricky than regular embroidery thread. If you experience any trouble with metallic thread, please try the following steps, in this order:

1. Make sure you are using a quality, new, SHARP "Metallic Needle." Metallic needles have a larger eye, which allows metallic thread to run smoothly. Often, this eye has Teflon coating, for even better effect.

2. If you see that the thread is coming off of a spool too easily, and is causing loops and knots at the very beginning, try using a thread net (spool net). These nets really help with looping issues, and they cost pennies. Here's how thread nets look like (the first photo shows a closeup of thread net on metallic thread cone, the second is a photo of cone with thread net in vertical position, and the last two pictures - in horizontal position):

Most metallic threads, especially the brands that have a high sheen and really are "metallic," have this looping issue. But it's easy to solve, while the benefits of using shiny metallic thread are huge. Another possible solution to "early looping" problems is to use a QUALITY vertical thread stand (thread feeder), since extreme looping is especially noticeable on machines that have horizontally positioned spool. If you have a good thread stand, try it.

3. Machine speed should be reduced. Turn on the lowest speed your machine allows, and observe the results. Increase the speed little by little, to the point when it begins to cause thread breakage. Now lower the speed down a bit, to the point of good performance.

4. Make sure top thread tension is low enough for a metallic thread. Usually, metallic thread require a lower thread tension than regular embroidery thread. Decreasing thread tension can also help guard against shredding.

5. Make sure that your DESIGN is suitable for metallic. Many designs work badly with any metallic thread. When working with metallics, avoid designs with following properties:

- Many overlapping objects that create 3 and more stitch layers
- Designs with many small stitches
- Designs with very dense areas

6. Make sure that you're using an appropriate backing. Metallic thread usually works MUCH better with backings that have a Viscose or Cotton component in them. 100% polyester backings are usually quite sturdy, and create too much friction with needle and thread. This friction can cause unwanted thread breaks. Whenever you can, use a backing with a viscose or cotton component. Soft cutaway backings usually work best with metallic thread.

7. Make sure that you're using a suitable type of fabric. One that is too thick or too dense, can cause unwanted friction, and therefore thread breaks. When working with metallic thread, always try to use soft materials and natural fibers.

8. Some metallic thread work better if they're cooled in a freezer for several minutes before embroidering. Happy stitching!