working with fabric

Working with Fabric and Stabilizer
As an embroiderer you know that not all
fabrics are the same. How do you know that
your fabric will work with this project? Obviously,
the more durable the fabric the better your
results will be. As you’ve read so far you know
that we used silk dupioni for this project. Even
silk dupioni comes in different weights. What we
do at Anita Goodesign to insure great results is
back our fabric with fusible interfacing. If you
have never used fusible interfacing with your
embroidery projects you should start. Fusible
interfacing will eliminate puckering and
distortion in your embroidery designs. Many of
you have used fusible interfacing to strengthen
your fabrics when sewing, so what is the
difference when you’re embroidering a design?
Absolutely nothing! We use a medium weight
iron on fusible such as armo-weft, ultra-weft or
whisper-weft. You want to avoid any of the thick
craft interfacing because they will make the
fabric too thick. To use the interfacing simply
iron it on to the entire piece of fabric that you
are embroidering. You will notice an
improvement right away.
Now you may be asking what about
stabilizer? Even though you used interfacing on
your fabric you still need to use some type of
stabilizer. Interfacing will strengthen your fabric,
your stabilizer is needed to support your
embroidery threads. If you interface your fabric
properly you will only need to use a single piece
of medium weight tearaway.
There is one more tip we can give you to
insure optimum embroidery results: proper
hooping. Since you are only hooping a piece of
tearaway stabilizer with a piece of muslin we
recommend hooping and not stick back
stabilizer or magnetic hoops. These designs are
very stitch intensive and need to be hooped.
When you hoop your fabric make sure it is tight
in the hoop. We also suggest doing a test with
your brand of stabilizer. If you get puckering with
tearaway try using a cutaway instead.
If you visit our facebook site you will see
numerous videos on embroidery techniques like
using interfacing and stabilizer. Simply visit our
website at www.anita-goodesign.com and follow
the link for facebook.
This is a photo of the interfacing we use.
Fuse the stabilizer to your whole piece of fabric.
This is a close up shot of the interfaced fabric.
For best results use the same technique on your
cotton base fabric.