The BabyLock Embellisher
This is a fascinating machine.  It doesn’t use thread at all, just 7 barbed needles to “felt” fibers, threads, and fabrics all together to create fabric art.  These pieces can be created and used as is, or quilted, then used as wall art, or as part of wearable art, tote bags, purses, or just appliqués.

Here are a couple of pieces I created to experiment with fibers and techniques:

You will find that it is very easy to make lustrous backgrounds, twisted yarn trees, bits of fabric leaves, and all manner of special effects with very little effort.
7 needles
Special barbed needles
mesh fabrics together
 Surface Area Adjustment
Customize the embellishing area
by adding or removing needles
Additional Features:
-Presser foot height adjustment
-Free-motion embellishing
-Free Arm
-No Tread Required
-Electronic foot control
-Built-in accessory storage.
Accessories Included 
• Exclusive Baby Lock Creative Project Book
• Extra needles (10) size VP40
• Dust Cover
• 2 Allen screwdrivers
• Tweezers
 Warranty:
25-year limited manufacturer's warranty
• 10-year parts
• 2-years
• 1-year labor
• Ask your retailer about machine maintenance programs

FREE MINI LESSON

ON THE EMBELLISHER BY LINDA SCHMIDT AT EDDIES !

MINI LESSON

1. Begin with a base of soft, fibrous material with some body, like a piece of fairly solid batting like Hobbs Thermore or felt.  I like to use Thermore because it can be painted or drawn or painted on to give you a general outline of where you wish to put your colors. This way, after the batting is covered with fibers, you can just put a back on it and quilt it, if you wish.
2. Here is a sequence of pictures of a background being painted.

It helps to spray the background fiber with water before painting, and to use fairly diluted fabric paints – usually half paint and half water. 

Make certain that the background is thoroughly dry and heat set with your iron before you proceed, or you will get paint on your machine and you will not be a happy camper.


3. Then begin laying fibers on top of the batting, a bit at a time, laying soft fibers on top of your painted picture, working from the background to the foreground, then push the machine’s pedal, and the seven barbed needles will begin “felting” the fibers into the background. 

Here, I’ve started working on a rather brilliant autumn sky.  You can see where the needles are running over the fibers, meshing them into the background:

 
Here is the beginning of the sky:

 
Fibers
 – Almost anything fibrous will work:

Bits of cloth, yarn, silk tops, batting, threads, rovings, scrim, trims, ravelings from the edges of fabrics, dyed papers, Angelina and Tintzl fibers – the limit is your own imagination.  Here are some samples of fibers that work very well:

If you wish to use normal fabrics or paper, it works best to combine them with more fibrous yarns and threads, and to use small pieces rather than large pieces; frayed rather than neatly cut pieces, the better to secure the fibers to the background. 

If you are into landscapes, as I am, this information might be helpful to you:
Clouds & Water

To add clouds or water, you can cut small pieces of tulle, opalescent organdie or organza, lay them on the background, and run the needles over the edges to secure them into the background, preferably with some soft strands of batting or Angelina fibers layered on top to secure them in more firmly.  Here, the entire background sky was soft blue and white Angelina fibers mixed in with silk batting and soft, torn-apart yarns.

 
ROCKS

Some of these rocks are paper, some of them are fabric.  Paper doesn’t really work very well (ask me how I know!), but is quite adequate when other fibers are laid over the paper to help secure them to the background.  Just cut a vaguely rock shape, lay it on top of the background, run the needles around the edges, and you’re done.  If it is a resistant fabric, lay some other fibers over the rock – to be read as leaves, or here as snow, and run the needles around the rock again, which will keep it much more firmly in place.
TREES

To make trees, just lay your yarn on the back ground fabric, twisted or straight, and run the needles over the yarn.  In the picture above, I used a sparkly silver yarn; in the picture below, I used a variegated width hand dyed yarn.  Here’s the full tree:
Here’s a closeup of the treetrunk:
Leaves:

To make leaves, just cut fabric into small bits and sprinkle them lightly over the surface.  Run the needles over them, and they will be meshed into the background, making very believable leaves.  Here is a close-up of them:
Of course, you can also do any kind of abstract shape with your yarns and rovings, bits of fabric, fibers, and trims. 
I recently saw some Public Domain pictures of the Universe – comets, gas clouds, nebulae, and other wonders of space, and think this would be a wonderful machine and technique for capturing those images.

I do hope you have fun with your new machine!

Linda S. Schmidt
Fiber Artist
2003 Teacher of the Year