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[yancy]

Hi i am new to this so here is my question. How do you know where to place a design, ie on a tee shirt to centre it ? I would be grateful for any help . i have a janome 9000 machine and i have just brought a years subscription to this site , I cant seem to get the designs centred thanks yancy

[Cutiepie]

Truthfully, the easiest way to get a design centered is by manually finding the center of the item you want to sew on. That means that you literally take the t-shirt and fold the front in half, then mark it with a pin. Then, when you hoop the shirt, try to place that pin as close to the center of your hoop as you can. Do the final adjustments with the machine itself so that when the hoop is in place and you are adjusting it, the needle will go down right where you have the pin marking as center.

You can also print out a template of your design and pin that where you want it on your item. This is especially handy if you don't really want it "centered" but more artistically placed. When you have the template where you want it, mark the center of it with a pin. Then, just as described above, use that mark to center the item in your hoop and then on the machine.

The hardest part of the whole process is probably the hooping. Getting things hooped straight is trickier than one might expect. I have started just hooping my stabilizer and then using long quilter's straight pins to attach the item to the stabilizer/hoop combo. It makes it much easier to assure that everything is on grain and not stretched (which is a HUGE problem when working on anything knit, like a t-shirt). It also avoids the problem of "hoop burn".

Good luck, and I hope that you are stitching out beautiful pieces real quick. Feel free to ask if you have any other questions. Someone is sure to have an answer for you, even if it isn't me.

[yancy]

thanks a lot i will try it and see ,