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    Basic rules of hooping

    By Irina, in Machine embroidery materials and technology, , 2 comments, 5,579 views
    Original text by Marina Belova 
    Correct hooping and rightly chosen underlay — these are the two most important things that contribute to the quality of the embroidery. My own experience tells me that however good the embroidery design is, hooping will be a most crucial aspect. The main function of hooping is to hold both the fabric and the stabilizer pulled tight during the embroidery. What is the difficulty, one would think, in securing both the fabric and stabilizer between the two rings of the hoop, without displacing either one of them? 
    There is a vast amount of materials covering various nuances of hooping on the Web. Even I have already written about embroidery without hooping and also about the testing of the quality of the hooping. But no matter how much information there is on the subject, the question remains open, because there is a set of hooping tricks for every type of the fabric. Not to mention lots of interesting hooping devices (hoop station, hooping aid device, magnetic holding system, hooping fixture and so on). that were invented to aid the embroiderer. The subject of framing calls for a separate article. 
    Nevertheless, here are my two cents on how to hoop the fabric (or item). I will begin with the most basic rules. 
    There are several rules of manual hooping known to everyone and, therefore, banal, that should nevertheless be obeyed: 
    Always mark your item (draw dots or lines, along which your embroidery will be situated).  Find the right type of stabilizer that goes with that particular kind of fabric.  A sheet of stabilizer should slightly outsize the hoop.  Choosing the hoop size, pick the one that is suitable for this particular design, the smallest one possible. Round hoops are considered the best. And in case they are made of wood, and not plastic, even better.  Don't forget to trace the outline before starting the embroidery, making sure that there is enough space for the presser foot so that it will not touch the hoop.  Always hoop the fabric together with the stabilizer.  Use a stabilizer with an adhesive side or a temporary spray adhesive whenever possible. This will prevent the stabilizer from shifting in the hoop, and from pulling the fabric too tight in case it is very stretchy.  Adjust the tension according to the fabric thickness by turning the screw (or sometimes a wheel; it's not the same with different hoops) before hooping.  One should hoop the fabric on a flat surface. This sounds so obvious, but it is true.  The inner and outer rings should fit without effort, but not too easily. The fabric should be tight, but not stretched in the hoop, and the fibers should not be distorted. The alignment marks on the hoop and the fabric should match. As for the need to tug the fabric in the hoop, the question remains open for the debate. I've seen a huge variety of opinions on the subject, and they differ from each other greatly. I think it depends on the type of fabric used, and also on your experience.  Do not adjust the screw on the outer ring after hooping. It may damage the fibers. And it will result in pulling the fabric around the screw, which may have the impact on the quality of the embroidery.  Test the quality of the hooping. If you don't like the result, unhoop and start all over again, beginning with the fitting of the rings.  Digitize and stitch additional basting stitches. They will hold the fabric and the stabilizer together. If the fabric allows that, of course.  In order to avoid hoop marks (also known as hoop burn), you may wrap the hoop in the soft fabric or place an extra material under the outer hoop with the window the size of the design in it. Read more about wrapping of the hoops, adjusting the gap and other details in my article called "Hooping minutiae".  One should remember that the manual hooping does not tolerate any haste, requires sufficient skill, but can be trained to perfection with the right amount of practice. This article will tell you how to make the hooping easier with the help of hooping devices that can be made by everyone. 

    Linking the parts of a design

    By Irina, in Machine embroidery materials and technology, , 0 comments, 2,552 views
    Original text by Marina Belova 
    There were times when lining up the parts of a big design was a sealed book to me. Many lances were broken over this seal. But I'll relate the facts as they actually happened. 
    For example, even a beginner can align the design on the cem-135 machine. It's all due to its magic ability to rotate the designs by a required angle in accordance with the alignment marks. Which I successfully employed in my first embroidery design. It was no less than a pillow with initials and a wide border along the perimeter. 
    But after our department got a commercial eight-head embroidery machine, life instantly became complicated. 
    Everything was difficult, from hooping to the need to hit the right place with a needle. We learned bit by bit, and something the result was satisfactory, sometimes — not at all. 
    But I really understood how to align machine embroidery designs only after I left to work for the rival company. Then I learned to align the designs on single-head embroidery machines that had small frames. Their biggest frame then allowed to embroider a design about 33х52 cm. 
    After someone shows you how to do the alignment, all you need is skill and a bit of contemplation. Hats off to my previous employer for having demonstrated me how to create and embroider designs that require rehooping. 
    You can do miracles on single-head embroidery machines. There image size does not matter — you just split it into however more large pieces and hoop. 
    The only thing is that embroidering curtains or large tablecloths requires a lot of time and is rather tiresome. But the pull is less in such a small frame. I realized this when I moved to the bigger frame. 
    The alignment process on single-head machines was described well over ten times: 
    Mark the fabric with lines or dots, whichever ones you prefer, to understand, where the embroidery will be located.  Split the file, leaving alignment marks, which will help you to match the pieces after rehooping. You may encounter alignments crosses, Z-stitches and simple alignment stitches of various shapes. For example, the alignment stitch may look as the red one on the photo below. Embroider the first piece of the design  Rehoop according to the alignment chart so that the alignment stitch was located within the hoop.  Load the next file.  First, you stitch the alignment stitch, which, in the case of the correct hooping, should correspond with the alignment stitch in the previous piece. 
    This is not difficult at all, but requires some skill and practice. 
    Understanding that I can move mountains on my embroidery machine lifted my spirits, made me feel self-assured and proud of myself. At this very point, my conceit was deflated by the wonderful ZSK embroidery machine. 
    After having worked for the rival company, I returned to the machine with a devil-may-care attitude. But it turned out that I had yet to cover a lot of ground, starting from the very basic things like using the long frame. The thing is that you should frame the fabric in such a way that it will not be distorted, otherwise, curtains and curtain laces, tablecloths, and the other things like that can go directly into the garbage can. 
    I learned to hoop about 40 attempts after. Only then I began to "sense" the fabric. 
    But framing was not the hardest thing of all on this machine. Instead — a strange thing to say — a large number of heads each one covering a very small embroidery area presented the biggest problem. 
    The small size of the embroidery area demands the need for framing with extreme care in order to align the new part of the embroidery with the previous one so that they match. 
    There is no 2 or 3 cm allowance for hoop shifting in order to match the alignment stitches here, like on single-head embroidery machines. For there are rapports (that I used to dream of in the past), which are almost of the same width as the embroidery area and therefore cannot be moved. 1-2 mm, maybe, but not more. 
    In other words, even if the hooping went wrong, I could not move the frame a couple of cm left or right to hit the alignment mark, otherwise the rapports could not be embroidered, for they were 40 cm wide. That's because if I shifted the frame for 2 cm to either side, there would be only 38 left. I cannot even do the outline, for my design will not fit the embroidery area. 
    And then it dawned upon me, how important it was to plan the future design from the technical standpoint so that it would be easier to align the parts of the complex designs. The technical moments include distributing the embroidery areas between the heads and planning the positioning of the alignment marks prior to the design being created, let alone digitized. 
    But the more I embroider, the more I understand why all the well-known Western manufacturers do not create such a fuss of the embroidery machines as we do here in Russia. Moreover, they will never make much of those machines that are not fit for embroidering such designs.
    Because there are other kinds of equipment for this purpose, and have been for a long time now. Making this kind of embroidery is unprofitable.
    For the simple reason of their high cost. You cannot make much money on it. 
    This is Russian "kitchen-table-effort". This is all just a bravado, an attempt to show that we are all Koulibins or Cross-eyed Leftys from Tula here. 
    But, how it strength your brain to create such a design! 
    Read here how to join the parts of a simple design together. 

    Imitating the Buratto technique with the help of the pulled thread technique

    By Irina, in Machine embroidery materials and technology, , 0 comments, 3,640 views
    Original text by Marina Belova 
    At last, I put my hands on the pulled thread embroidery. Pulled thread technique intrigues me because you can help you achieve the effect of the hand embroidery. For example, these medallions used to decorate the edges of linen towels, tablecloths, pillows and other things in the household.
    There were much more embroidered things in the past than there are nowadays: 

    The photo was taken from a book by Marsha L. Manchester called Antique Linens from the kitchen to the boudoir. 
    If you replace the Buratto technique, used for creating the background on the medallion, with the pulled thread work, it can make a wonderful present: "vintage" kitchen towels. You just need to learn to make Swiss lace in such a way that it would gather the fabric correctly. 
    I chose this design with a little kitchen hand for my sample, but decided to discard the flowers for now:

    I decided to create the background motif stitch by myself, and with that purpose I drew this star and saved it as a motif in the editor: 

    I digitized the entire design after that: 

    I had two colors in the file because the background (green) required a very thick needle, and there are no wing needles for commercial embroidery machines. I set #110. The rest of the design (red) was embroidered with the standard needle. 
    Little was left — to choose the right motif stitch size in the pattern and to find the right thread, which would gather the fabric as needed. 
    I embroidered the first sample with #30 cotton thread. The size of the motif stitch (the star) was 5 mm. I used no stabilizer. The fabric was not starched. I just hooped it, although I've seen the recommendations to use some kind of stabilizer (a tearaway or a water soluble one) for this kind of embroidery. This is what I got: 

    Thick cotton thread looks rather crude against the background, though it gathers the fabric correctly, making visible holes: Besides, the motif stitch seemed too high. 
    Therefore, I decided to change the background thread for the ordinary white polyester and leave the #30 cotton thread for the other elements. I used a very thin Guttermann #150 for the background. I often replace my bobbin thread with it. I changed the height of the gathering star to 4 mm so that the number of holes in the fabric increased. 
    The stitch count is rather high (13900) for such a 12.5x12,5 cm design. But it was worth it: 

    I increased the background thread tension greatly — screwed the nobs until tight, in order to gather the fabric more. But even with no stabilizer, the embroidery in this technique gives perfect results — nothing shifts, all the objects are where they should be. 
    The wrong side of embroidery is very neat, which brings me joy: 

    In my opinion, the motif stitch size should be lowered to 3-3.5 mm, so that the background of the medallion will look delicate. Especially if you create the interesting motif stitch and not a plain star. Everything was embroidered with very thin threads. If you use threads without luster on a good linen fabric of middle thickness, you may get a marvelous thing indeed, especially if you add some decorations apart from the motif stitching. 
    And the most important thing is that the design is very simple, without any special techniques or effects, except for the openwork. This means any embroiderer can do it, even a beginner. 

    An attempt at creating the pulled thread embroidery

    By Irina, in Machine embroidery materials and technology, , 0 comments, 4,489 views
    Original text by Marina Belova 
    Pulled thread embroidery (also called Dresden work) is one of the most popular kinds of openwork. You create the openwork by pulling the fibers of the fabric in a certain order. You will get a netting with small holes as the result. The motif stitches form the basis for the netting. It is better to embroider on the fabrics with easily separated fibers (loosely spun linen, batiste, muslin, organdy etc. Even calico will be good). 
    It is said that this method can be used for almost any elements: flowers, leaves, wings of the insects, various enclosed areas. I think that this technique can mainly be used for decorating napkins, blouses, creating lace edgings and so on. 
    Of course, not all types of motif stitches are suitable for Dresden wrk. The main principle of creating the netting should be based on the following rules: in order for the fabric to gather, it is necessary that the stitches that form the design are repeated at least twice. These may be classic squares, diamonds, zigzags, stars etc. This repetition will allow for the fibers to gather even more, and a hole will appear where the needle pierced the fabric. I think that the suitable motif stitch can be found without effort in any embroidery editor. Or I will have to create the motif stitching myself. The only trouble is to find the motif of a suitable size that will gather the fabric. But this is what the test runs are for. 
    In commercial machine embroidery, the needles used for pulled thread embroidery are often thicker than necessary for the particular type of thread (I've heard the recommendations to use #100-120 needles with the ordinary type threads). In is necessary for the visible holes to appear in the fabric. The only thing that is not clear is how the thick thread will work with the needle thicker than needed. As usual, you won't know until you try. 
    As for the sewing and embroidery machines, it is better to use special winged needles that have flanges on both sides, which allow to substantially widen the holes. 
    I've read many times that you don't need a stabilizer for that kind of embroidery because the fabrics are mostly transparent. But I still have my reservations about this. After all, there may be ordinary kind of embroidery besides the puled thread work, and this embroidery will add to the pull. It is then possible that the stabilizer should be placed under the hoop after the pulled thread embroidery is completed. 
    I've more than once seen the recommendations to starch the fabric before embroidery. Perhaps, it is needed to make the holes more visible.
    Obviously, the thread tension needs proper adjustment, too. In my opinion, if you make it tighter, the pull will be greater, and you will get slightly wider holes as the result. Which is our goal. 
    Thread thickness and quality do not matter if I understand correctly. I'll just have to find the suitable ones by trial and error. 
    In theory, everything seems very simple (as it usually does). 
    Here is the result of my attempts to create something resembling the pulled thread embroidery in the flower cup: 

    For the flower cup, I picked a #80 needle and #30 thread. I used the standard polyester thread for the rest. I didn't use the starch because my fabric is dry and coarse enough. Both and warp and weft threads are easily separated. Which you can easily see in the photo. 
    Well... I have to practice again and again — not very satisfactory holes indeed. I am falling under the impression that the ordinary flat embroidery causes holes much bigger in size. Though I tried to create a motif stitching in which every stitch would be repeated twice, as suggested. Perhaps, 2 runs are not enough. I'll go and mull it over. I think that I should consider adding more color to the netting. 
    P.S. You can read the next chapter here. 

    Imitating long-and-short stitch in machine embroidery

    By Irina, in Machine embroidery materials and technology, , 1 comment, 9,946 views
    Original text by: Marina Belova 
    I have once written the theory of imitating the long-and-short stitch technique, which is used in hand embroidery. Today I will show you what comes of it. 
    Unfortunately, I do not have the fabric more suitable for such technique — organdy or batiste, for example. But I will use what is available — calico. It is transparent enough to suit my goals. 
    I decided against creating of the complex design, because you don't need one for testing. So I created a very simple flower pattern in order to use two colors for shading — green for the leaves and red for the petals: 

    In the original patterns created by the author of this technique, I didn't find any understitching, just the runs between different sections inside the intricate outlines. When I created my design, I suddenly got an idea to use the edge run as the underlay for the fills in order to outline the objects. It later turned out that I was right in using them: 

    My design that will imitate long-and-short stitch technique looks like this: the stitches on the right side of the fabric are hidden at the distance of approximately 1.5 mm within the outline. they lie inside the underlay, created by edge runs. The fill density is 0.8 mm. 
    In order to put my idea into action I hooped the water soluble stabilizer: 

    Then I embroidered all the fills right on it (they will show through the fabric under the flowers and leaves): 

    After that, the machine made a stop and I, having sprayed the fabric with temporary spray adhesive, stuck it directly onto the water soluble stabilizer: 

    I started the machine again, embroidered all the remaining parts of the design — the outlines of the leaves, flowers, and the flower cups.
    Took the hoop off and turned embroidery the wrong side up. The result was not so bad — the outline that stitched filling to the fabric, lay inside the filled areas: 

    With one exception: perhaps, the stitch ran too near the edge:

    But the filled area didn't fall to pieces, for it was secured by the understitching, which I was right to have inserted. Without it, the filling would fall into pieces. It means that the outlining stitch is necessary. You also need to pay more attention to the distance between the outlining stitch and the edge run. And everything will be just fine. 
    All that is left is to give the item a trial by washing as I need to remove the water soluble film anyway: 

    I creased the fabric with all my might, and the embroidery did not fall into pieces, which is good. Below is how it looks after the pressing: 

    Summary: this technique works, but does not look as neat as hand embroidery of a high quality. But frankly speaking, I'm unable to see the dance of the shadows or nuances that speak of beauty in it. In concerns both the hand and the machine embroidery.

    Seeking for 3D Puff replacement 3

    By Irina, in Machine embroidery materials and technology, , 0 comments, 3,156 views
    Original text by: Marina Belova 
    I've already written about my attempt to find a replacement for the water soluble film, but today I decided to seek for a 3D Puff alternative in case there it will be unavailable. 
    My starting point was the concept of "embroidery on cardboard", which exists in the hand embroidery. On this assumption, I began to replace 3D Puff with its paper equivalents, which happened to be at hand. 
    I created a design according to the same principles that regulate the embroidery on 3D Puff. The only thing that differs here is that first, the underlay for the whole object is embroidered, then the machine makes a stop to allow me to remove the paper leftovers, and only after that comes the finishing layer of satin stitches. 

    First, I took the dense (95 g) tearaway stabilizer leftovers, which I usually use for the chevrons. I folded it in 4 layers and put into the hoop: 

    Having embroidered the first layer of underlay, I tried to tear off the stabilizer. It didn't tear easily, leaving fibers behind — they were not very long, but yet visible, and they stuck out in all directions. From all appearances, in case of using paper the density of the underlay is not sufficient for a neat tearaway line: 

    The finishing satin stitch layer did not cover them completely: 

    But the embroidery was puffy enough. These fibers may be easily singed with a lighter. 
    After this attempt, I remembered that I had a tearaway paper stabilizer (60 g), which tears neatly along the perimeter of the embroidery, and I thought that it might be appropriate. I folded it in 5 layers: 

    Embroidered the underlay: 

    The stabilizer tore off easily. But instead of the fibers rather big pieces of paper were left: 

    The finishing layer of satin stitches did not really cover those bits and the white paper showed in between the stitches. I did not manage to fix it, for on this kind of paper a lighter cannot be used: 

    But how puffy the embroidery is! 

    When embroidering on this perforated stabilizer, I got an idea to use paper napkins, for their textures are very similar to each other. And the napkins tear so easily! So I decided to embroider on them: 

    It was a very unfortunate experiment — tearing them off required considerable effort, and there were very ugly pieces left: 

    The finishing layer of satin stitches covered them rather badly, and the leftovers stuck out in all directions: 

    After this failure I found a piece packaging board (left from a T-shirt) and decided to put it to a test: 

    This is how it looks with understitching: 

    The cardboard tears off rather neatly leaving very small pieces behind: 

    These pieces are easily covered by the finishing layer of stitches; nothing sticks out and satin columns look wonderful: 

    The summary is as follows: You can replace 3D Puff with other materials. But you will have to test them all and find the right stitch parameters for digitizing. For me, the ordinary cardboard turned out to be the best of all. It is quite possible to embroider on it, even if you hoop 2 layers of it for additional puffiness. But you'll have to use a thicker needle, no less than #80. Of course, not any cardboard is good, you'll have to find one that tears easily, but I was lucky: mine did. But if you don't have the cardboard, you can choose something else from the materials readily available. Using stabilizer for 3D embroidery is a bit harder, with all these pieces and yarns, but you can manage without 3D Puff anyway. 
    P.S. Two of my first attempts to find an alternative for 3D Puff can be found here and here.

    Embroidery technique netting and practice of application

    By Irina, in Machine embroidery materials and technology, , 3 comments, 9,747 views
    Today I decided to check whether the high-quality lace embroidery designs on netting without using a stabilizer is possible. What kind of stabilizer do you need for the netting? Either water soluble film or other water soluble stabilizer. This means an extra cost, and not a small one; besides, you'll need to wash the embroidery afterward, which also complicates the matters. I also checked whether it was possible to embroider on such a delicate material as netting using any type of needle. I do not have SUK ball point needles, which do not cut through the yarn, only the standard
    R and SES ones. 
    I created a machine embroidery design: 

    Set the most ordinary density, 0.4mm. Put 2 edge runs of understitching under the satin columns. In my opinion, an underlay like this one allows for the satin columns to maintain their shape and work as a backbone, because the stitch has nothing to rely on within the particle, and it therefore creates the ugly ragged edges. 
    The reason for ragged edges is the large particle mesh size, so that some of the stitches fall first into one particle, then the other, and so on.
    And because the mesh particles are on different levels, the edges become ragged. I saw this method in the Italian embroidery design when I was just beginning to embroider on netting. 
    I hooped the netting without the stabilizer. It was the ordinary netting — knit and quite stretchy. There are no difficulties in hooping the netting. I just place it on the inner ring of the hoop and cover it with the outer one, without tugging it in the hoop and other intricacies. The pressure caused by the outer ring is enough to pull it tight. The crucial thing is not to overstretch the netting, in order not to damage the mesh even before starting the embroidery. Otherwise, it will break during the embroidery under the pressure of the stitches pulling it, and very ugly-looking holes will appear along the perimeter. 

    I chose a standard rayon #40 thread right away. Polyester, in my opinion, is not good for netting. I may be wrong, though. 
    Below is the result of my first attempt, still in the hoop: 

    Numerous perforations along the perimeter and in the corners are visible right away, as well as  the underlay showing in several places: 


    Below is the photo of the netting already unhooped but not yet pressed. The pull is not critical and can be corrected by pressing: 

    After the pressing: 

    In my opinion, there exists a number of reasons for perforations: 
    High density  No stabilizer  Wrong type of needlepoint  As I cannot change the type of needlepoint, I decided to lower the density by 20% (it allowed me to save about 2000 stitches), and in order for the fill to look dense enough, I changed the embroidery thread from #40 to #30. Now I'll try to embroider again. 

    The holes along the perimeter and in the corners are still present. Maybe not so many. 
    The pull is not so bad: 

    After pressing the item some of the holes become less visible, but don't disappear completely: 

    But if you try, you try. Then I decided to embroider on the netting with large square mesh. I hooped it without a stabilizer as well: 

    But my attempt to embroider on the netting with a large mesh particle size (on nothing, as one may say) didn't work out. Thread kept breaking, and the embroidery became distorted:

    That's why I decided to put a piece of thick water soluble stabilizer (80 microns) on top. Using thin stabilizer for this purpose is like flogging a dead horse.

    I instantly realized that I cannot spare the stabilizer this time. This is what I got — like it had been embroidered on the ordinary fabric: 

    Almost no puckering: See the photo of this embroidery after washing and pressing below. An excellent sample. I thought it would look much worse:

    Then I decided to try to embroider on the ordinary netting (like in the first 2 tests), but with the use of the thin water soluble film. But instead of placing it on top for cost reasons, I hooped it together with the netting, as required:

    In this case, the advantages of using stabilizer are apparent — the result looks much better than the one without it: neat and tidy, without the underlay showing. I cannot say anything about perforations until I wash off the film: 

    Below is the photo of the already washed embroidery:

    The pull is visible, of course, but I'll try to iron it out. The ironing goes smooth and without effort. And the most remarkable thing is the absence of the perforations along the perimeter.

    It means that the needlepoint and high stitch density are not so much the reasons for perforations as using only one layer of thin water soluble stabilizer. Stabilizer is a great invention. Though too high a density is not good for embroidery. To put in a nutshell, my experience convinced me of the futility of not following the standard procedure, even for cost reasons. 
    Here you can read my article about embroidery

    Making water soluble film reusable

    By Irina, in Machine embroidery materials and technology, , 1 comment, 5,528 views
    Original text by: Marina Belova 
    Recently I became fond of creating FSL, and it raised the question of saving the water soluble stabilizer, for it is quite expensive. A well-timed advice that I've often seen on the Web instantly sprang to my memory: you may try to mend what remains of the water soluble film with an iron.
    So, thought I, if I find the correct temperature, I will be able to join the leftover pieces of soluble film together and use them again. 
    This advice came from Deborah Jones. This means that our American colleagues are prone to saving the consumables as well. She presents this method of working with water soluble film as a possibility of changing its thickness by gluing the layers together, and as a possibility of using the leftovers by joining the pieces until the resulting piece will be big enough to be hooped again. 
    According to this internationally acclaimed machine embroidery expert, the process should look like this: 
    Take 2 sheets of kraft paper (brown packing paper).  Place pieces of film so that they overlap (if you need to join them) or several layers on top of each other (in case you need to make it thicker) onto the sheet of kraft paper.  Cover it with the other sheet of the kraft paper.  Take an ordinary iron, set the temperature very low, and switch off the steam. Press the film down for some time (it is not specified for how long, so you'll have to calculate time yourself).  Here is what you should get: the layers of the film stuck together.  You may use waxed tracing paper instead of the kraft one. I've also seen recommendations to use the ordinary printing paper. 
    So I decided to give it a try. It seems so easy. 
    So I found kraft paper, took out the pieces of the dense water soluble film and tried to repeat the steps described above: 

    What can I say? I've tried it every known way. I set the iron to a minimum. The heat softened the film, but didn't glue the layers together. No matter how hard I tried to find the right mode, the pieces didn't want to join. Then I decided to use steam. When steaming them from a distance, the layers of film begin to stick together. But they stuck to the paper as well, sure as death, so I couldn't tear it away afterward: 

    No matter what kind of paper did I use: the kraft one, the printing one or even thin tracing paper. The result was the same — the paper stuck to the film, but the pieces of film stuck together, too, if you used the steam. Without the steam it was no good. 
    Then I thought that it must be the paper that didn't allow for the steam to spread evenly, and tried ironing without it, through the cotton cloth. I set the iron for wool setting, and steaming at «1» (numbers on my scale range from 0 to 7). And — a miracle! — the layers of the film began to glue together, and the result came off the paper without effort: 

    It turned out, that it was important not to steam the film for too long, just a few seconds would be enough. It requires practice, in order to sense the right moment for removing the iron. The only disadvantage (and quite a big one) of all these manipulations with water soluble film is that it seems to have become thinner and less durable after them. You can hoop the result at all accounts: 

    We'll see how the embroidery will look like on such an uneven surface (all these lumps and dents). 
    Anyway, the pieces of film may be of good service in future. 

    Cording, part 1

    By Irina, in Machine embroidery materials and technology, , 3 comments, 9,134 views
    Original text by: Marina Belova 
    A few day ago I decided to practice cord embroidery, hence I have the required equipment. Without further ado, I chose the simplest possible design from the old Briggs’ Patent collection, which was originally intended for embroidery with cord or ribbon. Here it is: 

    I digitized the design with a simple running stitch using the same methods as described in my previous article on cord embroidery. Below is the preview of my design: 

    So I started the embroidery. Before pressing the start button I inserted the newly bought silk cord 3 mm wide and set the piping foot in a required way. The cord was of an appropriate size and could fit into the biggest groove under the piping foot on my machine. 

    But something went wrong. I stopped the whole process, soon after having started.

    The cord turned out to be too tightly woven, and the thread kept breaking. As I didn't have any monofilament yarn, I tried to sew it with ordinary polyester thread. 
    And I didn't like the result in the least. I chose one of my knitting threads — soft cotton one, made of several twisted fibers, and wound it instead of the cord on the same plastic spool. 

    This time, the embroidery went without any problems. There were no complaints about the quality of the sewing, except at one place. I even inserted bar tack stitches at the beginning and the end of the cord, and understood that the next time I'll better not do it. The quality was utterly disappointing. 

    Whether it was due to my knitting threads being unsuitable for the purpose or the design imperfections, I cannot say. And I want so much to know, where to use this fabled cord! 
    I instantly remembered, even without doing the web search, the embroidery samples of the old past, which can now be found in the museums around the globe. In those days cord was used in applique: it concealed the edge cut. Though it was, of course, done by hand, you can try doing something akin to this on your machine. 
    I've been searching for a suitable design for a considerate time. I perused lots of clipart and settled upon this picture: 

    Inside this intricately shaped thing, I decided to put an applique, the edges of which I would then decorate with a cord. The rest I intended to embroider with satin stitches, partly in the Thread Velvet technique. I had to modify the original design, adding several elements. The resulting design contained almost 32 thousand stitches thanks to the Thread Velvet: 

    Now that the design is ready, all I need to do is to embroider it. I hoop the fabric with the stabilizer: 

    And embroider the outline for the future applique: 

    Then I put the applique material on top: 

    Stitch it to the main fabric with the running stitch, outlining the design at the same time. Then, after the machine makes a stop, however more carefully trim the extra fabric around the edges: 

    Get the piping foot ready, placing it under the needle: 


    Hit the start button and begin sewing cord to the fabric. It'll look like this: 

    This is the cord already sewn along the perimeter of the applique: 

    On one of the photos above you may see that there are missing stitches inside. For that reason, I stopped the embroidery even before sewing the cord, added the missing elements and embroidered all the rest: 

    Some time after that everything is ready: 

    Now little is left — to cut the threads in the satin columns, in order to fray them a bit so that they look like having been done in the Thread Velvet technique. I did this with an ordinary razor blade: 

    The general look of the ready embroidery: 

    The closer look: 


    This experiment suggested to me that the cord looks splendid in combination with any embroidery technique. The design was not difficult to create. The second time I succeeded. The most important thing is to choose the right type of thick twisted thread or cord and correctly adjust the piping foot. 
    Although there were some mistakes. One of them is as follows. In my first version of the design, the applique was to be embroidered last. And only after that, I proceeded to cording. All other elements were embroidered at the very beginning, including the bulky Thread Velvet satin columns. This is how it looked before sewing the cord: 

    When I was cording the edges of my applique, the piping foot shifted a bit every time satin column appeared to in the way. And of course, the groove, into which the cord was inserted, shifted too, so the needle began to hit not the hole in the foot, but the foot instead, and therefore broke. On the photo below I've already changed the needle. 

    I didn't even finish embroidering the first sample. 

    See how thick were my Thread Velvet columns? 
    The summary: you can achieve anything by trial and error. 
    P.S. Cording, part 2

    Testing solid 3D Puff

    By Irina, in Machine embroidery materials and technology, , 0 comments, 2,496 views
    Original text by: Marina Belova 
    Once more I was convinced how important is to choose your machine embroidery consumables properly. What's even more important is understanding what to use, how, where and when. Not so long ago I published an article on embroidery on EVA Foam. I embroidered on a soft foam material and was a bit disappointed, for I did not get the desired 3D effect. Though there are numerous photos on the Web with the embroidery that looks quite puffy. 
    I had a sneaking suspicion that the foam I used was not solid enough. Therefore, I, on my own account, bought a sheet of solid 3D Puff of the same thickness — about 3 mm. 
    I must say that I was satisfied with the result. Though I digitized in exactly the same way as the last time. So, this is all about solidity, upon which the creasing property of the material depends. What a pity that none of our consumable materials suppliers tells or writes about it. I'm falling under the impression that this is their way of increasing their sales: if one material turns out to be unsuitable, the buyer will return to purchase something else. Or maybe they are wrong, and their sales will drop, because a customer, having received an unsatisfactory result, won't buy anything from them the next time. Because 3D Foam is not the cheapest thing on the market. 
    This is what my logo looked before I used a lighter on it: 

    And this is the logo at its finest: 

    Only now I've decided to read the information on 3D Foam. You don't have to go far: go to the manufacturers' websites and read all that is written there, going deeply into details. Nobody can give you a better advice anyway. 
    Gunold, for example, states that soft 3D Puff is used for embroidery on garments, and solid one — for caps and logos. With this you can decide for yourself what and where to use. 


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