Tips & Techniques

Omnigrams Done in the Hoop (Viking 1+ Large Omnigrams)

By now, you know that the large omnigram designs are quite difficult to stitch out properly. The beginning of the design and the end of the design are supposed to meet, but more often than not, the design is left open. Viking has included a balancing feature whereby you are supposed to move the last stitch to the left or the right or up or down to close up the design. Once you get it balanced, it is supposed to also balance all the other designs too, but it just doesn't quite do the job and can be very frustrating.

If you want them to stitch out perfect every time, I suggest doing it with the embroidery unit. The design will always comes out perfect and the other nice thing is that you can enlarge it by 5, 10, 15 or 20% by using the "+" above the stitch width and stitch length on the machine. Each time you press the "+", it increases by 5%. But, make sure you change the stitch length and the stitch width so it will be changed proportionately.

Insert the embroidery cassette and turn it ON. Then remove that cassette and insert the omnigram one and choose the stitch you want and enlarge the stitch length and height to 6 for the largest size.

Then remove the omnigram cassette and insert the embroidery cassette again.

OMNIGRAM TEMPLATES FOR HOOPING

These designs does not start in the center like embroidery designs. So, I make my own templates for perfect placement. I purchased some of those plastic grid sheets in the quilt department that they make templates with.

I laid the hoop over the template and aligned the vertical and horizontal markings on the hoop with one of the heaviest horizontal and vertical grid lines on the plastic. This makes the center vertical and horizontal lines very noticeable.

Then I took a permanent pen and traced around the inside of the hoop. I cut out the template on those lines. You now have a template resembling the ones that came with your embroidery unit.

At the ends of those center vertical and horizontal lines, I cut tiny slots to resemble the templates that you get with the embroidery unit. I punched a hole in the center where the two lines meet for the center of the design area. I made one of these for every large omnigram I may want to stitch out.

HERE'S HOW

Then I hoop a piece of stabilizer all by itself. I attached the hoop to the unit and chose one of the large designs. I enlarged the design by pressing on the + above both the "stitch length" and "stitch width" buttons on the sewing machine to make the designs as large as possible.

I used black thread on the top and I just let it stitch out. Then I removed the hoop from the embroidery unit. I laid the plastic template over the top of the design and carefully traced the design onto the template with a permanent marking pen.

Now , I had a template to place on any item I wanted to embroider that design on and I knew exactly where it would land by using that template to place the design and make my placement markings just like I do for my embroidery designs. I did this for all of those big designs. One template for each design and I knew that every time they would stitch out perfectly with the embroidery unit.

Oh, one other thing, I always stitched them out twice and they looked so much nicer, a lot like redwork looks. But, this is important. Always, press the stitch selection again and make the size changes and then stitch it the second time. If you just stitch it again, sometimes, it doesn't go over the same lines. Don't know why, but I learned the hard way.

You could also use two spools of thread on top and thread as though it were only one thread.

COLOR CHANGES

Also, some of the designs can be stopped for color changes. You must press the "stop" button as soon as you choose the design so it will stop at the right spots. It isn't automatic like embroidery designs. So, if you pick a design like the flowers with the little stem, you can make the flower one color and stems another. When you choose the two birds, you can stitch the first bird one color and then change colors for the branch and then change again for the other bird.

Not all have color stops and sometimes it is hard to remember which ones do, so I just automatically press the "stop" and if it is one of those kinds of designs, it will stop for color changes.

The other thing about using the color stop is that you can decide to stitch only part of the design. Maybe you only want one bird and nothing else. Or maybe you want the bird on the left side only or the bird and the branch.

The N cassette is an optional cassette you can purchase that has more of the small flowers with stems and it also has a Xmas tree with a star on top that can be a separate color.

The two color designs on the L cassette are: 5, 7, 15, 27 and 49.

The two color designs on the N cassette are: 5, 8, 9, 15, 19, 25, 47 and 48.