Skills- Use them or lose them

I have not been keeping up with my OMG posts just as I have not been keeping up with some sewing skills.  My mother and I were invited to my niece's husband's birthday party.  My mother asked my sister for ideas for a gift and my mother and I went shopping.  I found a chef's apron and some other grilling tools.  After they arrived, my mother suggested that I do something to personalize the apron.  I have not used my embroidery module but thought I was up to this endeavor.  I created a design that I quite liked.  This took a few days because I totally forgot how to do any of it.  The manual does show you how to attach the embroidery module to the sewing machine but the manual has bare bones information on usage.   I went online to watch some how-to videos to create a design.  In my first attempt I copied the file from the software on to a USB drive to attach to my sewing machine.  The sewing machine did not recognize the file.  I fumbled around and tried resaving in different fashions until I finally remembered that I had to convert the file to a different format using the software.  I forgot I was supposed to push the sewing machine icon.  Software is all intuitive these days and my intuition often fails me.

I stitched out a sample with a thread I contemplated using.  It is a Superior Fantastico variegated thread of reds, oranges, yellows and blues.  I thought of these as flame colors ergo appropriate for the project.  I found a fabric that was nearly black for my test sample. 

Mom and I agreed that the bottom words were too small and not readable in the stitch out so I went back to the drawing board.

Then I made the next stitch out.

I was satisfied with it and passed it by my mother for her stamp of approval.  We discussed some possible edits but we went with the above design.  I hooped the ready made apron in my medium hoop and began the final stitch out.  When embroidering one sits at the sewing machine and watches the stitch out in case anything goes wrong( or change thread colors and all those other things people do with this process).  I was watching Thursday night football and working on Sudoku puzzles.  Sheppard's Grill and Flip had been stitched when I noticed that I had misspelled Flamin'.  Oops.  Panic time.  I decided I would wait until it stitched the end of Flippin' until I pushed the stop button.  I took the USB drive out of the sewing machine and put it back in my computer.  I went to edit the design on the computer only to discover that in the time that I spent watching the beginning of the stitch out, the original file did not save properly.  There was an exception error when I tried to open the file in the software.  I had to recreate it again.  This is harder than one would imagine because I had no idea what the exact height and width of the components were.  I could only approximate which makes repositioning a problem.  When I went to continue stitching, I touched the screen at the beginning of the Flamin' and the needle went chachunk chachunk and moved just to the left of Flippin' and started stitching on top of the existing word.  Panic time again.  I pushed the stop button after four or five stitches.  I tried several different things including moving the hoop by changing the width and height coordinates.  None of those things worked. OH NO OH NO OH NO!  What to do! What to do!  I kept pushing different buttons on my sewing machine.  I do not know what icons I pushed but the combination showed the stitch count on the screen.  I remembered that I used that stitch count to position the needle on another project a long while back.  I started guessing numbers to position the stitch count to get the needle to the end of Flippin'.  After half a dozen or so guesses I got the correct number.  I pushed to go button and lo and behold it started stitching Flamin' under Flippin'.  The word were stitched out and then the program went to stitch out the swoosh under Sheppard's Grill.  The stitching starts on the lower right.  It was Panic time again because it was stitching it closer than it should and I was worried that it would not fit the whole time.  The lower right ended up stitching out touching the bottom of the capital S.  Phew.  I thought I was going to need to pick out that section and rehoop or something to get it positioned correctly.  

Here is the stitching on the apron.  I hope they enjoy the gift.  I enjoyed making it despite the trials and tribulations.  I am so happy that I actually remember how to do some of this stuff because I plan to use my embroidery module to applique a Rose of Sharon quilt soon.  I guess I need to do some things more often in order to get my hippocampus to lock things in the long term memory of my brain.