Welcome back! Hopefully, you saw in yesterday’s post the importance of doing some sample stitching before committing to the final elements. That thread color just wasn’t going to work.

Today, I’m touching a bit more on some lettering, but I thought it was equally important to spend some time showing you how easy it is to learn the ins and outs of the Husqvarna Viking Designer EPIC. 

Let’s face it, this sewing and embroidery machine has a lot of stuff going on. If you’re familiar with the Husqvarna Viking sewing machines and/or are somewhat familiar with machine embroidery techniques, the learning curve won’t be that difficult, but if you’re brand new to Husqvarna Viking or machine embroidery, learning to operate the Designer EPIC could be daunting.

The good news is that there are three extremely useful tools to help you learn how to use the Designer EPIC.

The User’s Guide no longer comes as a hard copy with the sewing machine. That’s not a problem as the entire User’s Guide is available on the interactive tablet right on the sewing machine. All the pictures, all the table of contents – everything is right there at your fingertips.

There are even instructions on HOW to use the User’s Guide. You gotta love that!

The User’s Guide is available for you to browse through by chapter as we’re most familiar with in a hard copy of the User’s Guide.

However, the topics are also listed in alphabetical order so if you’re looking for a specific function or feature, it’s easy to go through the alphabet tabs to find what you’re looking for.

When you touch any one of the tabs, the list is expanded so you can see the individual topics that start with that letter.

It’s so easy to maneuver through the lists.

And if that isn’t enough, you can also search on the topic/feature/function that you’re specifically looking for.

It’s great to have this online version of the User’s Guide right at your fingertips and not have to remember where you stored your copy.

The User’s Guide is also available online as a .pdf document. You can access the document online where you can view it on your tablet or computer but you’ll have to be connected to the internet in order to view the document. You can also download the document to your tablet or computer where you’ll be able to browse the User’s Guide anywhere even if you’re not connected to the internet.

Technically, you could print that .pdf document out if you absolutely wanted a hard copy, but we’re becoming so technically savvy these days that almost nothing you buy comes with a hard copy of the user’s guide. I’d like to think that anyone who uses this amazing sewing machine wouldn’t need a hard copy guide.

However you access the User’s Guide, it’s a good idea that you browse through it.

There’s a lot of information in that User’s Guide, and the folks at Husqvarna didn’t write it because they had nothing else to do that day. It was written to make your life easier. They’ve also made it accessible for all styles of learning. You don’t want to touch the Designer EPIC until you know everything, then read the User’s Guide from front to back. You want to dive in and learn each topic as you need – then read the topics.

However you choose to use the User’s Guide, I would suggest that you take one section at a time and preferably sitting at the sewing machine, go through it. Identify all the physical parts of the sewing machine. Then identify the various functions on each of the screens. Soon you’ll know all the bits and pieces and you’ll be well on your way to becoming an expert on the Designer EPIC.

I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it until everyone believes me. There’s a LOT of good information in the manual. And every time I read the User’s Guide, I usually learn something.

Let’s say that you’re sitting at the sewing machine and there’s a function or button on the screen and you’ve no idea what it is or what it does. You can’t even search through the User’s Guide because you don’t know what you’re searching for.

Yep – that’s happened to me a lot.

So if you touch the QUESTION MARK in the top bar and then touch whatever button/function that you’re puzzled about, you’ll get a pop-up window that gives you a brief description. And if you want more information, there’s usually a link that you can follow that’ll provide even more details.

That’s like having an expert teacher right at your side and guiding you through the functions of the Designer EPIC.

When I wanted to know more about the Grid Lines that were in the “hoop” on the screen so I could better position my rows of lettering, I touched the Question Mark and got more information.

Hey – I learned that I can set those grid lines to 4 preset metric settings, or 4 preset imperial settings (YEAH!) or I could create a custom setting for the grid lines. I didn’t know that before!

Now I’ll remember how those grid lines work for future!

I’ve changed the grid lines to ½” spacing. Now it’s easy to position those lines of lettering. I’ve also left ½” above and below each of the lines with an extra ½” between for wiggle room.

It’s so much easier to do something when you know what you’re doing.

If I need to position the lettering exactly, I can use the POSITION functions on the bottom right to get the lettering just where I need it to be. It’s also easy to center these lines of lettering (side by side) using the Position functions.

I know that I need to become more familiar with the metric system for measurements less than 12″. I need to make that a goal, but it’s a challenge when we use rulers with inches for all of the cutting of our projects.

Did you notice that I changed the purple background to grey? I did find the purple distracting so I changed it to orange which was also distracting.

I found the neutral grey was the best choice, but you can change that up once a day if you felt like it. There are lots of colors to choose from.

The other thing if you were clever enough to catch it – I forgot to change the hoop size and the hoop selected is large – 360 x 240. Some of those lines of stitching will be too long for my blocks so they’ll have to be resized or I may have to revert to two lines of stitching which will mean the sashing is going to have to be 1½” wide finished, not 1″ as was my original intention.

I ran out of time to play with it, but I saved the file to my USB so I can go back and play with it and once I’m happy, then I can save it.

The third option when searching for information is called the JoyOS Advisor which is comprised of four sections. The Sewing Advisor, the Quilting Advisor, the Embroidery Advisor, and the Knowledge Center. All four are filled with excellent tutorials, videos, projects, and other very helpful information.

You can also download the JoyOS Advisor to your Smartphone. It’s an app that’s available in the App store. So if you happen to be shopping and need to know what stabilizer to buy, you’ll have that information with you. The list of tutorials on sewing, quilting and embroidery techniques is HUGE.

Within each of the sections, there are tutorials and videos that’ll provide more information on that particular technique. That’s exciting especially if you’re new to any of the techniques covered.

Within the Knowledge Center is information on Stabilizers, which is something that all of us need to know. There’s a Quick Start Guide if you’re stuck, some workbook projects and some sewing instructions.

I’ve run out of time but I wanted to at least touch on one more thing about lettering.

Once you have a line of lettering, it’s a simple process to edit that lettering and have it placed along different line shapes rather than just a straight line of stitching. This would be awesome for labels. The best part about this – you don’t have to do any calculating. You don’t have to manipulate those curves – you just select the functions that you want and the embroidery editor will do all the hard work for you.

It doesn’t get any easier than that.

All these information sources do NOT replace a good class from your Husqvarna Viking dealer.  The class will give you a good overview of everything that’s possible, but it will be difficult to remember it all.

These amazing reference tools will help you when there’s no one to guide you at home.

The key to remember is to search through or read through the information in bits. Sit at the sewing machine. Touch the buttons, see what happens when you push all the buttons. You can’t really hurt anything and all you have to gain is knowledge.

I’ve barely touched the surface of the options available on the Husqvarna Viking Designer EPIC. There’s truly a whole lot more to explore and I hope to touch on more options in future posts.

Tomorrow, I’ll be making a label for one of the quilts that I made sashing for this week.

Have a great day!

Ciao!