We love specialty stitching, and if you follow our project blog, you might recall that we recently gave away a festive motif library that StitchArtist owners could use add some seasonal flair to motif fills and decorative runs. If you’d like to grab the free design from that original blog post , you can follow the link here! That said, some last minute Valentine’s Day projects left the Embrilliance team thinking it was high time to add a few more motifs to that library. Scroll down to learn more and get your updated copy!
The library now includes 3 sizes of snowflake motifs – nice to mix and match in larger projects for both lines and filled objects, as well as the timely addition of a few new heart motifs, from a simple chain, to overlapped, triple hearts, and a more heavily-stitched heart motif for a bold, striking look.
These run stitch motifs are lovely both when used as stand alone decorative borders or dividing lines and when placed atop satin borders for stacked, textured treatment. Motif runs are a great way to elevate your appliques! We have a video on how to create this stacked look on our StitchArtist playlist!
We used this ‘stacked’ style to create the decorative border in the pictured in-the-hoop coaster design. The color breaks in a design file can be used to change thread color, but they are also used to signal a single need machine to stop so that the backing fabric can be put into position under the hoop as in this design. In this case, the motif run is a “finishing stitch” that secures the backing in place so that the majority of the bobbin stitches are not shown. See the original post for more information on the stitching this type of design.
These same motifs can also be added to closed shapes as a fill. Embossing designs for towels can be even more impactful when adding this festive twist to the filled areas! The samples below show the new motifs ad they appear in filled objects. Simply add a hole to a closed shape as shown in this video and apply a motif fill to create your own decorative embossed designs!
The free motif library in the download linked here works with all levels of StitchArtist. The included BX library file installs just like any BX font! After dragging and dropping or double-clicking, pay attention to the confirmation screen: it will let you know that your new motif library has been installed! If you had installed the previous library – no need to worry! It has the same name, so that it will replace the previous one! Once it’s installed, close the software and restart to make your motifs available.