I'm compiling a list of my favorite learn-to-sew books - both for beginners and those who've been sewing awhile. Fifteen years ago there weren't many beginning sewing books available; now there are dozens, and I know I haven't seen them all! Here are a few of my favorites; what are yours?

Targeted at beginners, but great for anyone looking for fun quick-to-make projects:

• Sew Easy by Linda Lee - plus her Sew Easy: Scarves and Sew Easy: Bags - simple but fun & fashionable projects, good instructions, plus a brief but comprehensive booklet of general sewing terms and techniques.
• Sew What! Skirts by Francesca Denhartog & Carole Ann Camp and Sew What! Fleece by Carol Jessop & Chaila Sekora. Great information on sewing terms, techniques, materials, notions, as well as drafting your own patterns.
• Amy Butler's In Stitches - a beautiful book with projects for every room in your home, plus extras to wear and carry. Patterns included.
• Sew Subversive by Melissa Rannels, Melissa Alvarado, and Hope Meng. Great garment recycling and restyling projects; lots of sewing information, including a section on getting to know your sewing machine.

Useful resources for anyone's sewing library; I've been referring to these books for years and years:

• Anything by Sandra Betzina, including Power Sewing Step by Step, Fabric Savvy, More Fabric Savvy, No Time to Sew (includes patterns), and Sandra Betzina Sews for Your Home.
• Claire Shaeffer's Fabric Sewing Guide - everything you ever wanted or needed to know about sewing different types of fabric, including detailed instructions for all of the recommended techniques.
• The Vogue Sewing Book - there have been several editions; the one I have is from 1975. Especially useful for traditional techniques such as tailoring.
• Reader's Digest Complete Guide to Sewing - another book that has been reprinted several times; I have the 1980 version. Good basic sewing information.
• The Ultimate Serger Answer Guide by Naomi Baker, Gail Brown, and Cindy Kacynski - excellent trouble-shooting guide for any type of serger, with lots of great techniques.

Especially for BERNINA owners:

• Feetures Volumes 1-3 - instructions for hundreds of sewing techniques, grouped by presser foot (click here for an alphabetical listing by technique).
• Serger Technique Reference Book - instructions for dozens of serger techniques, arranged by stitch formation.

Don't forget your sewing machine manual - not only does it have instructions for using your sewing machine, it probably includes directions for several sewing techniques as well (check the index or look in the back of the book).

Last week I posted about using placement lines to embroider perfectly on your projects, and showed you how I embroidered a ribbon bookmark as an example. As promised, here's how to use the Designer Plus V5 software to make the placement lines.

Begin with a new, blank design in the software.  To figure out where to place your lines, you can measure the project carefully and follow the grid in the software as you draw, or you can scan the project and import the image directly into the software to trace around.

In this picture, I am measuring my ribbon with the gridded template for the large oval hoop. The ribbon measures four squares across.

And in this picture,  I scanned the ribbon and imported the image into the software. The ribbon fits into four squares across on the grid.

To draw the placement lines, I select the Open Object tool, making sure that the Single stitch is selected. Then, using left mouse clicks, I draw a line on each side of the ribbon, making sure to stay inside the hoop, and press the Enter key after each line that I draw. Pressing the Enter key is like telling the software, "Okay, I've finished drawing this line, you can turn it into stitches now!" When I've finished drawing, there are stitching outlines on each side of the ribbon inside the hoop.

(You will notice in these pictures that I removed the grid on the screen so you can see better; in the software, right click on the Show Grid button to take the grid away or bring it back.)

Next, I import the other design elements, using the placement lines as a guide to arrange the designs. I make sure that the designs are exactly where I want them inside those placement lines, keeping in mind that they represent my actual project.

The final step in the software is to make sure that the placement lines stitch out very first thing in your design. Use the Slow Redraw tool to watch how the design will stitch out in the software. If your placement lines are not stitching out first, move them to the beginning of the design by selecting the placement lines, and choosing Sequence to Start from the Arrange menu.

And that's all there is too it! Don't forget to use a practice stitch out with your placement lines to see how the design fits within the lines. Also, you can hold your project up to the stitch out to see how your placement lines match up to your project. Make any adjustments needed before stitching out the real thing. Check back with my last post to see how I hooped and stitched out this project with the placement lines.

I've been playing around with embroidery for years, but I keep learning new tricks all the time. And my new favorite trick is using placement lines to help me perfectly place embroidery designs on my projects.

Placement lines are used with the un-hooped method of hooping, and create guide lines to help you in placing your project down in the hoop. I used this method to make this embroidered bookmark.

Here's an example of how it works.  First, only the stabilizer is hooped and set on the machine. The placement line stitches out first, in this case I am embroidering a design on a piece of ribbon, and the lines show me where to line up the ribbon.

Once the placement line has been stitched, I remove the hoop and can easily lay down my project, lining it up exactly with the lines, using either temporary spray adhesive to hold the project down, or OESD's Stabil Stick stabilizer.

The hoop, project and all, goes back into the machine to finish stitching.

And look - it stitched PERFECTLY! Now how cool is that?

Not only does this method work for embroidery on ribbon, but it really helps with things like collars, cuffs, corners, pockets, and anything else that needs perfect placement.

Okay, so you're probably wondering how those placement lines got there, right? It's easier than you might think, and my next blog will have a quick description of making placement lines using the drawing tools in the Designer Plus V5 software.

Don't miss the CBS News Morning Show this Sunday - March 16 - they're doing a segment on quilting and an interview with Ricky Tims! Also featured will be the International Quilt Festival in Houston. Read more about it at TheQuiltShow.com. (photo by Justin Shults)

3/17 - If you missed it, here's the link - Jo

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=3944748n