Yesterday on QUILTsocial I prepped the Dreamweaver XE to embroider some words on the background fabrics that I prepared with stabilizer. Today I’m using the machine to stitch out some Christmas sayings.

I’ll use the Guideline Marker Key to activate the laser pointer. This will help me to keep the words straight on the fabric.

This feature is one of the things I like best about this machine! I’ve used it for so many projects. Check out my post on July 13th to see 3 different ways you can use the laser pointer for piecing.

I used a chalk marker to draw a line on the background fabric. I made the line fairly dark for photography reasons, but a faint line that you can just see will wipe away much easier.

Here’s a video that goes over the basic steps for embroidering words with the Dreamweaver XE.

After the machine is finished stitching, the threads connecting the individual letters can be clipped using sharp, pointy scissors.

Because of space constrictions, the main stitching screen doesn’t show all of the different options that are available for customizations. Pressing the function page key (two little arrows pointing up) will show all of the functions available in this screen of the Dreamweaver XE.

Now you can see the “mirror image” key, the “vertical mirror image” key (which isn’t an option that you can use with letters so it is grayed out), the “size selection” key, the “character spacing” key, and the “needle mode selection” key (for using twin needles). I’ll press the “size selection” key to switch to small letters.

I used the Dreamweaver XE to stitch out the same words in both large and small letter size and here you can see the difference between them.

The Dreamweaver XE has four different English alphabet fonts that can be used for stitching out words. Here, I picked one of the other fonts to stitch out my son’s name.

There’s lots to play around with on the Dreamweaver XE, and stitch out a few more Christmas sayings on the rest of my prepped background fabrics. Tomorrow I’ll get out some fabrics and start with our fusible applique.