I have been having a battle with the embroidery module to my Bernina 440 since the outset.  We have a love-hate relationship (my machines are alive) since I bought it.  You see, I don’t like to embroider.  It is too passive for me.  I like to sew and free motion quilt. I like to use some creativity, not just watch a machine work…when it works…  So I don’t use it very often, but I would like to be able to do some limited embroidery for labels, monograms and such.

The Bernina prefers to speak with Windows and I have a Mac.  So I have added Parallels and Windows to my Mac.  Still, sometimes Mac and Bernie give each other the silent treatment, as they did last Friday…for the entire day…  I almost resorted to buying an inexpensive laptop or netbook just to run my embroidery module, but that just added more questions regarding computer compatability requirements.  So I went back to the old plan and updated Parallels to match my Lion update, and it worked.  They were talking again.  I could finally get into ArtDesigns and set up a couple of patterns.  Then, of course, it took a bit to get Mac to really cosy up with Bernie, but finally it happened!

My mind tends to wander while Bernie is embroidering.  I get distracted, wander off and forget to listen to what Bernie is saying.  Inevitably, I hear the call for help too late.  The problem is sometimes too far gone for me to backtrack…although this practice helped me to figure out how to backtrack to the last decent stitch to avoid gaps and complete flops.  I thankfully had a project to complete for a friend, so that made me keep at this, figure it out.  Now next time perhaps it will be easier, and then the time after that, etc.  However, I would recommend to others to not buy a sewing machine that embroiders if they like embroidery, because it is a somewhat time consuming to add the module, computer, etc.  And a machine solely dedicated to embroidery would do a better and faster job, than the module.  AND you could sew while the machine was embroidering.  But…I think for labels and the odd piece of embroidery this module should be just fine…and that is why I have continue with the battles, and hope to win the war.

This is a sample of the project, one of 25.  Merry Christmas bandanas for ‘let’s go pets!’ four footed clients.    Again, an embroidery machine would be much faster!