Fall is officially upon us! Now is the time to settle in and sew! At the recent "Sew What’s New Parties," we had the most adorable freestanding design CDs. These are as cute as can be and include 3D seasonal items and even a village of houses. They are buttoned together so they stand up and can be unbuttoned to store flat when not in use.
These freestanding embroidery designs have been so popular and requested that I thought having these tips all in one place would be useful.
• A sheer fabric shows more. If your design calls for the use of fabric, remember that some fabrics are more sheer than others and that sheer fabrics will allow light to pass through them easier.
• Use a bobbin that matches your needle thread color. Consider the 80wt Quilter’s Select pre-wound bobbins. This bobbin thread is thin and the colors match the Floriani embroidery thread colors. This means the back will be as pretty as the front. The prewound bobbins have a thinner weight of also hold a lot more thread than ones you wind.
• Stitch it on a wash away stabilizer. The great thing about a freestanding design is that when stitched on a wash away stabilizer, like Wet N Gone, once rinsed only the thread or decorative fabric remains leaving beautiful lace.
• A tight hoop is best. Feel free to put two designs in a hoop if they fit but make sure that the hoop is tight enough to hold the stabilizer firm. Two layers of stabilizer are fine if using a larger hoop that has multiple designs.
• Put on a full spool of thread and a full bobbin and let it run!
• Don’t rinse it all out. It is ok to not completely rinse out the stabilizer. Doing so will allow the lace pieces to have some form and stiffness once the pieces are dry.
• For the easiest and best results in buttoning the pieces together, use the Alligator Clamps. This clamp easily fits through the loop that is stitched on one of the pieces. When ready to grab the thread button, stitched on the coordinating piece, you simply open up the mouth of the clamp to pull it through the loop. Make this even easier by moistening the button and loop first so the thread is more flexible. It will firm up again when dry.
• Make them shine. When all is complete, insert a tealight into the bottom of your finished project - the battery operated kind not the kind you light with a match - always remember… thread is flammable :). If you prefer, insert a strand of Pixie lights instead of a tealight. These have a soft wire so that you can focus the location of the lights as you like.
Happy Sewing,
Reva
