Embroidery Designs Guide

The HUS machine embroidery format is well known to the modern embroiderer. What exactly is the history behind this relatively mysterious pattern.. Read on!

Husqvarna or Huskvarna was the name of a location in Sweden. It constituted the eastern part of Jönköping, the municipal seat of Jönköping Municipality, Sweden and had a population of about 21,500. Between 1911 and 1970 it used to be a city municipality of its own. There was a royal rifle manufacturer named after the city founded in Husqvarna in 1680 and lasted until 1757, when it was sold to private owners. It supplied the Swedish and Norwegian armies with rifles (for example, in 1870 some 10,000 rifles were finished). War time through, the same company later switched over in 1872 from crafting firearms to the production of sewing machines and bicycles.

Today, it is known as Husqvarna (it never changed the old spelling), an internationally known company with a variety of products. The machine embroidery formats that came through these sewing machines became known as the ‘HUS’ formats and is widely in use today.Secrets of Embroidery has some beautiful tutorials on Husqvarna/Viking by Carolyn Duncan. You could navigate through Tutorials on the home page and click on Husqvarna/Viking. These easy-to-understand guides prove beneficial since they enable you to harness the potential of your Designer sewing embroidery machine and gives you insights into 3D digitizing and sketch designs that form a hallmark of Huskvarna.

HUS is famous for its realistic embroidery designs and all patterns are accentuated and clear. The pussy cat portraits by Diana Kaufholz in Secrets of Embroidery display this feature (Navigate to ‘Designs by Category’ and click on Dianas Dezigns). Notice how the emotions/feelings of the cats are captured in these machine embroideries.

So, where are the freebies! You could go to Sewterific to download some cute free hus embroidery designs! The Mad flower next to this post is part of this collection.

What on earth are applique floral quilts? Well well, you have been missing out on some eye stopping embroidery designs if you haven’t come across these patterns till now.

A quilt is a type of bedding— a bed covering composed of a quilt top and a layer of fabric for backing. The two are secured by tying which is a technique of using thread, ribbon or yarn to pass through all 3 layers of the quilt at frequent intervals. These are strong bonds and hold on even when the quilt is being washed. Most quilts are decorative and find easy uses as wall hangings apart from the normal bedding. Over the years, attempts have been made to make this quilt look more and more exotic and flowers or animals have been frequently used to add a natural touch to the hand embroidery. Appliques florals are flowery designs sewed on a separate fabric which is then stitched on to the master quilt cloth.

If you would be interested to learn this art, we have for you a masterpiece book from Bonnie Lyn McCaffery called Fantasy Floral Quilts: Creating With Silk Flowers (That Patchwork Place). This book contains step by step instructions along with beautifully photographed quilt designs to help you on your way. The quilts here are made from fabric and silk flowers and embellished with glistening threads and beads. This is not a very easy art, but Bonnie with her easy-to-understand logical instructions makes applique floral quilting a breeze.