Threads - for people who love to sew

Advertiser Marketplace | Login | Create an Account

Machine Embroidery: A Marriage of Fabric and Design

comments (1) November 1st, 2008 in tools & supplies, embroidery

Pin It

Threads Magazine, editor

20 users recommend

Small designs scattered over a garment can maximize the embroidered effect. These shapes are from the Dot Font design card by Cactus Punch.

Small designs scattered over a garment can maximize the embroidered effect. These shapes are from the Dot Font design card by Cactus Punch.

Prev 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 next> View all

Add Comment
Print

Backings and topings

Hooping a backing beneath the fabric and/or laying a topping over the hooped fabric can help stabilize and prepare the fabric for embroidery. Select the backing or topping to coordinate with the fabric or design used.

Common backings

* Nonwoven tearaways (Sulky Stiffy, Tear-Easy, Totally Stable); can use on most fabrics
* Nonwoven and woven cutaways (Sulky Soft 'n Sheer, Cut-Away Plus); use on knits and lightweight wovens
* Sticky backings (Sulky Sticky; Stick-It-All from Hoop-It-All); use on fabrics that cannot be hooped, such as velvet, Ultrasuede, and leather
* Meltaways, burnaways, washaways (Solvy; Sulky Heat-Away; Stick-dsolv from Hoop-It-All); use on sheer and lightweight fabrics and for cutwork designs

Common toppings

* Water-soluble films (Solvy, Stick-dsolv); use on textured knits and on top of other stitching
* CoverUp from Hoop-It-All (available in colors); use on fabrics with high-contrast colors
* Lamé, or mylar; use to create shimmering effect through embroidery.

A word about stock designs

Stock designs are those available from your machine manufacturer or from independent design companies and formatted for your machine. You can also find an abundance of stock designs available free on the Internet. Professional design companies have experienced, knowledgeable staffs who spend a lot of time creating and testing their designs so you'll get excellent results when they're used properly, but this may not always be the case with free designs.

All stock designs are created for what I call average fabric conditions. This means the fabric on which the design works best is a solid-color broadcloth that's hooped on-grain and is light or neutral in color. If you stitch out stock designs on fabrics that vary from this norm, you may run into some problems, even with perfectly good designs, and you'll need to make some adjustments to your fabric to get good results. I'll talk about that in a moment, but first let's look at how to determine whether a design will work well for your fabric. The best way is to do a test run on the actual fabric or one that's very similar. Watch as the design stitches out to observe how the underlay is produced, where the jumps are, and the direction of the fill stitching.

If you see that the design is not stitching out to meet your expectations, what do you do? You could edit the design to suit the situation, if your software's features and your ability with the programs permit. Or you could contact the company from which you purchased the design and have it edited (for a fee) or have a new design custom-digitized. But keep in mind, if you have a design digitized for a specific fabric, it may not work well on other fabrics.