CANDLEWICKING IN Thred

Have you ever looked at stunning hand-candlewicked quilts in awe? I wish I had the patience to craft these wonderful heirlooms so lovingly. However, Thred and I can do a machine stitch that will have that candlewicked 'look'.

[Health warning:- If you have an aversion to trimming jump stitches (as I normally do), then 'candlewicking by machine' because of it's nature, is probably not for you. You do need small scissors to trim between each stitch and the jumps between areas. But try it - you might just think it's worth it (my daughter actually tried fried zucchini and mushrooms (yum) last night and liked it!)]

Create this 'candlewick' stitch in Thred, then you can use it as a clipboard fill along a line form. Just follow Step by Step.....

HOW TO CREATE THIS STITCH STEP BY STEP

(Click image to see enlargement)

Click on this picture to see the 'candlewicked' design that
you can download below in cotton thread cream on cream.

You can print this page or save it for work off-line.

Note: In this Step by Step you will not be utilising forms to create fills, as you would normally do in creating designs. When I create special 'stitches' (by which I mean a group of straight stitches forming a fancy stitch), I generally find it easier just to add stitch by stitch as in this fancy stitch. You will be creating a form, but you will just be using this as a circular shape to follow.

Open Thred. If it is already open, left click 'File' (menu bar), left click 'New'.
Left Click 'view' (menu bar), left click 'Set', left click 'Default Preferences'. By doing this, you are resetting your preferences to what they were when you first downloaded Thred.
Left Click 'Pref' (menu bar) to bring up the Preferences box.
Left click the 'Hoop Size' box, and change to 'Custom'.
Left click the 'Hoop Width' box, and enter '8' in the box.
Left click the 'Hoop Height' box and enter '8'in the box.
You have just selected to create your stitch in a design area of 8mm x 8mm. (This is going to be a very small design!) The reason why you do this is just for ease of placing stitches accurately.
Right Click away from the box to make the 'pref' box go away.
Left Click 'Form' (menu bar), left click 'Regular Polygon'.
In the box enter '32' and press the <enter> key.
When you move your mouse around the screen, a circle with 32 points is attached to it. Left click on the left hand side of the design area to place the form.
Note that you still do not have any actual stitches in your design. The form is still empty (and in this step by step will remain so).
Right Click near a point to select the Form. A box will appear around the form.
Left click and drag the bottom right hand corner of the selection box to make the form bigger. Don't worry about the exact size, as you will be resizing the stitch exactly later on.
Press the 'Q' key to make sure everything is now deselected.
Now to add stitches... Left click 'add' (menu bar). Following the picture to the right, left click between the form points in the order indicated, and continue like this all the way around the circle.
When you've finished, your circle should look like this.
You should have a total of 32 stitches (look on the very left hand side where it says 'tot 32').
Press the ' Q ' key to deselect everything.
Right click on a form point to select the circle form. Press the <delete> key, then press the 'S' key to complete deletion.
You have now deleted the circle form, leaving just the stitches.
Now we want to resize the fancy stitch to be exactly 2.5mm wide.
First, left click 'pref' and change the Hoop Width and Hoop Height to be 25 and 25.
Change the 'Grid Cutoff' to 1. (This means that when you zoom in once the grid will display.)
Change the 'Grid Size' to 2.5. (This means that the grid will display in 2.5mm gaps.)
Press 'Q' (to make sure that nothing is selected), and 'X' to make sure that you are zoomed all the way out.
Place your mouse cursor over the center of your stitch and press the 'Z' key. This will zoom you in once and you should see the grid display.
Left click 'edit' (menu bar), left click 'Select', left click 'All Stitches'. (Or press <Ctrl A> to select all stitches.)
A box will appear around the stitches, allowing you to move and resize easily.
Left click in the center of the stitch, and without releasing the click, drag the stitch until the square around the stitch aligns along the top of a grid square. Release the mouse.
Now left click the bottom right point of the square around the stitch and resize the stitch until the box around the stitch exactly aligns with the grid square.

You have just made a 2.5mm size stitch. To check this, left click 'view' (menu bar), and left click 'Design Information' to view the design size (it may be a little bit off, but don't worry).
Finally, you need to add a stitch to make the gap between the 'candlewicking' stitches. (If, for example you want a 3.5mm gap between your stitches, you need to add an extra 3.5mm stitch.)
Left click 'add' (menu bar), and left click on the right hand side of the candlewick stitch (this just creates an extra stitch to finish off the candlewick stitch).
Now create a 3.5mm stitch. Remembering that the grid shows 2.5mm, left click about halfway over in the next but one grid box. Press 'Q' to deselect everything.
You should be able to see the length of this stitch as it should be the one listed as the max stitch on the bottom left of your screen. You can click and drag this stitch until you are happy with it.
Try to get the y coordinate the same as the first stitch (press Home and End to go to first and last stitches).

You should now have a candlewicking stitch. Save this in .thr format. You can use this stitch in border clipboard fills to create candlewicking designs.

For Pfaff 7550 and 7570 users, you can also use this stitch in the machine's P-memory. (Open stitch in PCD Designer, change hoop size to 9mm and Machine menu / Send to P-Memory.) That way, you can do large unhooped candlewicked designs.

Lastly, after stitching the design, to get each stitch standing independently, you need to trim the jump between each and every stitch. You need small sharp embroidery scissors for this, and just a modicum of patience!

There will be a step by step in using the clipboard fills, to show you in detail, but for now, download the design below, and see how I've done it. (It would look nice in cream on cream.)
Also, for the time being until I do the clipboard fill, have a look at my appliqued heart, which uses border clipboard fill.

Please send your comments to Caroline

Candlewicking to Download in Thred format

Click on the image to download

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