How to Start Your Embroidery Without Knots – video

May 30, 2012
How to Embroider with No Knots - a video tutorial from Shiny Happy World

I always start my stitching with a knot (video here) and end it without one (video here). I do this because it’s easy and I love easy. And I really don’t care what the back of my work looks like – I actually kind of like seeing the knots and tails.

But some of you like the back of your work to look as nice as the front – especially when you’re stitching tea towels and napkins and hankies and other things where folks will see the back. And you’ve been asking me to show you how to do that. Your wish is my command! Here’s your video. 🙂

This is not as easy as simply tying a knot. You have to flip your stitching over to watch what you’re doing from the back a whole three or four times. Maybe I should start all my stitching this way from now on? Naaaaah. I really like tying my knots. 🙂

That tea towel I’m working on in the video is my It’s a Dirty Job embroidery pattern about doing the dishes. 🙂

Here are all my posts about knots.

Before you knot that thread you need to know how much to use, so here’s one more post that doesn’t really have a better place to live. 🙂 How Many Strands of Thread Should I Use?

Return to the Learn to Embroider main Table of Contents.

Move on to the lessons for the four most basic embroidery stitches.

How Do I Embroider on Quilts?

March 28, 2012

How to Embroider on Quilts

Want to learn the basics of hand embroidery with an easy online workshop – totally free?

Sign up for Embroidery 101 here. You’ll learn how to get started, the tools and supplies you’ll need, the four most basic stitches, how to transfer your pattern and how to display your work.

If you already know the basics – sign up for Embroidery 201. It’s also free! You’ll learn how to stitch on specialty fabrics like felt and stretchy T-shirts. Plus you’ll learn lots and lots and LOTS more stitches – all my favorites!

I have a question–I just bought your bird sampler pattern and I want to include them in pairs around a quilt that I am making.  I have the top finished and I was wondering–what do you recommend–embroidering before I make the quilt sandwich, and then do the actual quilting–stitch in the ditch etc, or do you think it is better to do the embroidering as actual hand quilting and pull it all the way to the back.  I am not sure, as I haven’t embroidered on any of the quilts I have made. The quilt is a combo of flying geese and Chinese coins patterns and the focus fabric has chattering birds on a telephone line–so I think random pairs of embroidered birds will be great.  Thanks for your help with this question!!

Sandy emailed me a while ago with this question. As is almost always the case – my answer is longer than you might expect. (I ended up doing a full-blown tutorial showing you how to start and stop without knots, hide your tails, and carry thread invisibly from place to place. Keep reading and you’ll get there.) I’ve actually done both methods – and like them both – but they do look very different. So. . . it depends. . .

It depends on what design you want to stitch, what stitch you’ll be using, and how much interior detail there is.

I thought the best way to illustrate this would be to show the backs of some of my embroidered pieces.

Running stitch looks the same back and front – so it’s a good candidate for something you’ll see from both sides. Read on and I’ll share a tutorial for hiding your threads when you carry from place to place (like between the eyes and mouth).

Backstitch doesn’t look bad either. It’ll be chunkier on the back than on the front, but with some care on your carrying and hiding thread tails, it can look pretty good.

Notice – what the image above has is nice, simple, open shapes. Not a lot of detail. Now for the opposite. . .

Aaaaack! Run away! This is quite ugly from the back – and that’s because the shapes are filled with cute chain stitches, French knots, and lazy daisies. Here’s another. . .

Again, this one has lots of detail inside the main shapes and it looks bad, bad, bad from the back.

So, quilting first and then embroidering through all three layers can be nice. Choose a nice, simple shape to stitch and stitch it in running stitch, backstitch, or split stitch. The quilt will “puff” nicely around the stitching and in the larger open areas of the design.

If you want to do some fancier embroidery – like the owls or the birds – embroider first and then layer and quilt. Otherwise the embroidery will be hideous from the back – and it will also compress the layers of your quilt too much and can distort the whole lay of things.

So – about that carrying? I said if you’re careful with carrying your thread and hiding your tails you can have something that looks pretty nice. Well, I ended up doing a full-blown tutorial on this.

 Here begins the tutorial
01 two lines

This is a quilt sandwich, ready for quilting. Instead of the usual quilting thread, I’m going to embroider one pink line with running stitch, and the other with backstitch and split stitch. I’ll use 4 strands of embroidery thread. I won’t use any knots, there will be no hanging tails, and you won’t see the thread carried from one line to the other. Ready to learn some sneaky magic?

02 starting thread

Start by inserting your needle about an inch from where you want to start stitching. The needle goes in just through the top layer of fabric, then travels between the two layers of fabric (and the batting) until I bring it up where I want to start visible stitching. So if I flipped this over right now you wouldn’t see any needle (or thread) at all from the back.

03 pull through

Pull the thread until the tip of the tail just disappears into the starting hole your needle made. Careful! Don’t pull it all the way through!

Now – take a tiny stitch through all layers. This is going to secure the thread instead of a messy knot.

Bring the needle back up through the start of that tiny stitch. I should have photographed this better, but that needle is pointing up.

Now the thread is coming back up at the original desired starting point. There’s no knot, but that tiny stitch is holding it in place. You can yank really hard on this and it’s not coming loose. The tail of the thread is buried in the batting between the two layers of fabric. Neat!

07 running and carry

OK. I stitched a whole bunch of running stitches and I’m ready to jump over to the other line. But I don’t want anyone to be able to see the thread between the two lines! So I get sneaky again and thread the needle between the two layers of fabric, right there in the batting. Easy peasy! The only drawback is that you can’t carry the thread any farther than the length of your needle. (Actually, there is a way. But I find it so tedious and irritating to do that I’d rather just tie off here and start over in the new space.)

08 tiny stitch

OK. I did some more stitching. Some backstitches and then some split stitches. Now I’m ready to tie off. I take another tiny stitch. See how the needle is coming up really close to the end of that stitch? I’m talking that tiny of a stitch. Tiny is what makes it tight and work like a knot.

I put the needle back in at the end of the stitching (really close to where it came up – remember – tiny!) but only through the top layer of fabric. Carry your tail through the batting for about an inch, then bring the needle back up and out.

There’s the thread tail, veering up off the top, waiting to be cut.

Snip it off really close to the surface of the fabric. Careful! Don’t cut your fabric. It’s ok if a tiny bit of thread shows above the surface.

Rub your finger over it once and it will pop right into the batting and disappear from the front.

13 finished front

So here’s the finished stitching from the front. That’s running stitch on top, backstitch on the lower left, and split stitch on the lower right.

And here they are from the back. Again – running stitch on top, but now the back of the backstitch is in the lower right and the back of the split stitch is in the lower left.

No knots, no tails, and no thread carries. Neat and tidy. 🙂

Whew! That answer was even longer-winded than I expected. And I know how I can be. 🙂  I hope you all find it helpful!

Best,
Wendi
That's me!

How many strands of embroidery thread should I use?

March 7, 2012
How Many Strands of Embroidery Thread Should I Use?

I’ve gotten several emails lately from people asking how many strands of embroidery thread they should be using – and how to separate the strands.

How Many Strands of Embroidery Thread to Use

First let’s tackle the question of how many strands to use. It all depends on your project! Think of it like choosing a fat marker or a thin marker. If you’re drawing something pretty small, with lots of fine details, you’re going to use a thin marker/fewer strands of thread.

If you’re drawing something big and bold without a lot of fussy details, you’d choose a fat marker/more strands of thread.

But how do you know how many strands? Well – that involves a bit of trial and error, and a willingness to pick out your stitches if needed. Take your best guess. Stitch an inch or two and then take a look. If I think it needs to be fatter, I’ll unpick, add an extra strand, and try again. If I think it needs to be thinner I’ll unpick, take away a strand, and try again.

Note: I tell you how many strands to use in the color and stitch guide of all my embroidery patterns. 🙂

Of course – save all the strands you separated out! You can still use them.

How Do You Separate Out Just a Few Strands of Floss?

Now – about separating those strands.  First make sure you’re using the right kind of embroidery thread. Click on the picture at the top of the post. I loaded up a large file so it should fill the whole screen when you click and let you look very closely.

The thread on the right is called embroidery floss (or thread) – or sometimes stranded cotton. It’s what I usually use. It’s 6 strands of thread that you can separate into as many as you need.

The thread on the left is called perle cotton, pearl cotton, or sometimes craft thread. See how it’s twisted together? You can’t undo that – not without making an unholy mess. It’s lovely to stitch with – and you can buy it in several different thicknesses – but you can’t alter the thickness yourself. My favorite is Sulky 12 wt Petites – the equivalent thickness of 2 strands of regular DMC embroidery floss.

The tricky thing is that these two kinds of thread are often displayed together in the same section of the store. Luckily, it’s easy enough to tell the difference if you know what you’re looking for.

So – now that you have the right kind of thread – how do you separate it without ending up with a snarl?

Don’t cut your thread too long. The experts say it should be no longer than the distance from the tips of your fingers to your elbow – but I confess to cutting mine a bit longer than that.

Now – hold it up in the air so that the whole length of thread is freely dangling down. Tease out the number of strands you want and slowly pull them away from the mother strand. The strands are very lightly twisted together so there will be a bit of untwisting as you pull, but if you pull slowly it shouldn’t tangle.

Stitch away!

Here are all my posts about knots.

Before you knot that thread you need to know how much to use, so here’s one more post that doesn’t really have a better place to live. 🙂 How Many Strands of Thread Should I Use?

Return to the Learn to Embroider main Table of Contents.

Move on to the lessons for the four most basic embroidery stitches.

Sulky Sticky Fabri-Solvy – Embroidery Pattern Transfer and Stabilizer

March 6, 2012
How to Transfer and Stabilize an Embroidery Pattern - with my very favorite product, Sulky Sticky Fabri-solvy

I was browsing through the Sulky website recently and I saw Sulky Sticky Fabri-Solvy – a stabilizer that I’ve never seen in a store or even heard of. It sounded amazing, but it was kind of expensive and I thought it might be too good to be true so I ordered just one package to test it out.

I AM HOOKED!

I can’t get over how tremendously, perfectly useful this stuff is! Especially for those of us who buy digital patterns! It’s so amazing that I did a video just for this one product. It replaces everything I normally use. Everything!

See this video on how to transfer embroidery patterns? And this one about embroidering on stretchy fabrics? And this post about removing stabilizer? I now use Sulky Sticky Fabri-Solvy instead of all the products I showed you in those old videos. It works on light fabrics, dark fabrics, napped fabrics, and stretchy fabrics. It’s MAGIC!

I say it all in the video – but it’s worth saying here again. Here’s what’s so great about it. . .

  1. It’s 8 1/2 x 11 inch sheets that can go through your inkjet printer or a photocopy machine. (Update – it now goes through a laser printer as well!) No more tracing patterns. Ever! Tracing patterns is my least favorite part of an embroidery project and I Will Never Do It Again!
  2. Peel off the paper back and stick your pattern to your fabric. It sticks REALLY well, but doesn’t leave even a trace of adhesive on your thread or needle. (Update – I’ve since learned that if you leave your embroidery sitting in a hot car in the summer, it will affect the adhesive and make it leave a slight gummy residue on your needle as you work. Yuck! But if you use a little Thread Magic conditioner on your needle and thread it eliminates that residue completely. Yay!)
  3. Stitch right through the pattern and fabric. The pattern sheet actually stabilizes your fabric, making your stitching even neater. And it works on stretchy fabrics too!
  4. Dunk your finished embroidery in water and swish it around for a minute or two and every trace of the stabilizer dissolves away.

Watch how it works. . .

(You can find that You Are My Sunshine embroidery pattern here.)

I love this stuff! One package contains 12 sheets and costs $14.99. That works out to a little bit more than $1 per sheet. At first I thought that was a little on the pricey side and I’d just use it on more complicated patterns, but now that I’ve used it on a few projects I’m totally hooked. Pay a buck and I don’t have to trace the pattern, my fabric is beautifully stabilized, it doesn’t matter if I go off the lines a bit, and it rinses away in minutes? Yes please!

I am all about tools and techniques that make my crafting easier and more enjoyable. This is supposed to be fun – right? 🙂

You can buy the stabilizer here. You guys are going to love this stuff!

Here are all my posts about working with patterns.

Pattern Sources

How to Resize a Pattern

Return to the Learn to Embroider main Table of Contents.

Move on to the posts about knots. Yes – a whole section about knots. 🙂

How do I enlarge and reduce digital patterns?

February 22, 2012
How to Enlarge or Reduce a Digital Pattern

I get a lot of questions about enlarging and reducing the size of embroidery patterns. Here’s one from Holly. . .

I purchased your cat embroidery pattern and I totally dig it. Those kitties are great. It turns out my girl, who is 6 and very fond of felines, is pretty handy with a needle and thread. I wonder if there’s an easy way to biggen the picture? She’d have more success, I think, with a little bit larger deal. I’ve tried opening it in a photo editor thingy, but to no avail, since it’s a pdf…. is that on purpose? Or maybe I’m not doing it right?

Good question! One of the things I love about embroidery patterns is that they’re really versatile. See the dog in the photo? That was a teeny-tiny pattern (2 inches square from this collection) that I enlarged and stitched on a T-shirt for my daughter. I could also have turned it into an applique pattern, or used it for woodburning, painting, collage, etc. Buy one pattern, use it a kajillion times – that’s my motto. 🙂

And one of the things I love about digital patterns is that’s it’s really easy to enlarge and reduce your pattern without going to the copy shop (for me that’s over an hour away).

Important note! These instructions only work for patterns without seam allowance! So you can use them for embroidery and applique patterns, but not stuffed animal patterns. Pop over to this post for special instructions on enlarging and reducing patterns with seam allowance. 

Of course, if tech-speak makes your eyes glaze over please just print out your pattern and enlarge or reduce as necessary on a copy machine. But if you want to do it on your computer, here’s some help.

First – a warning. These are going to be pretty general instructions because I assume you all have different software. But the general steps should work no matter what program you use. If you need specifics for your software – with helpful screenshots or even a video – google something like “opening a PDF in Photoshop” or whatever your photo editing program is. I use Gimp, which is free and awesome. It’s not always super intuitive, but there are lots of terrific tutorials on YouTube teaching you how to use it.

Ready?

1. DON’T open the image as a PDF. Instead save the PDF to your computer.

2. Open whatever photo editing software you use.

3. Now inside your photo editing program, open the PDF file of your pattern.

Opening a PDF in a photo editing program will usually involve some kind of importing command. Most programs will pop up with some sort of window saying, “Whoa! Hold on there Missy! You can’t just open a PDF all willy-nilly in this program! You have to import it.” It will probably prompt you to choose which page of the PDF you want to import and at what resolution. If you can, choose just the page with the pattern you want, and set the resolution pretty high (like 300 dpi). That will import the page as a picture, which will allow you to play with it. Neat!

4. Now you should see that full pattern page as a single image. It’s going to include the full page, with lots of white space, my title, the Shiny Happy World link in the footer, and the entire pattern. Crop away any parts of the page you don’t want. For Holly, she may want to crop away all but one of the cats. If you’re enlarging one of the birds from the bird sampler to stitch on a T-shirt, you may want to isolate just one bird. Crop away anything you don’t want.

5. Time to resize. Use the scale image command to adjust the image to the size you want.

6. Save your new image.

7. Print!

Like I said, these are general instructions and you may need to play around with your computer a bit to find the exact commands you need, but this should give you enough guidance to get there. If anyone else has helpful suggestions, please add them in the comments!

Don’t forget! If you enlarge or reduce the image you’re stitching, you’re also going to need more or fewer strands of floss than what the pattern calls for. Hop over to this post for more info about how many strands to use in any project.

Here are all my posts about working with patterns.

Pattern Sources

How to Resize a Pattern

Return to the Learn to Embroider main Table of Contents.

Move on to the posts about knots. Yes – a whole section about knots. 🙂

What are the different kinds of sewing needles?

February 15, 2012
What are the different kinds of sewing needles?

Want to learn the basics of hand embroidery with an easy online workshop – totally free?

Sign up for Embroidery 101 here. You’ll learn how to get started, the tools and supplies you’ll need, the four most basic stitches, how to transfer your pattern and how to display your work.

If you already know the basics – sign up for Embroidery 201. It’s also free! You’ll learn how to stitch on specialty fabrics like felt and stretchy T-shirts. Plus you’ll learn lots and lots and LOTS more stitches – all my favorites!

Liz recently asked me. . .

I have a question for you – what sort of sewing needles do you use? I am experimenting with different sorts but haven’t yet found the  perfect one. It looks like you are using six strands in your eyes video – which needle are using for that? And what would you recommend for three strands?

I’m going to use this as an opportunity to talk about sewing needles in general. See that photo up there? I loaded it up in a large file size so you can click on it to see it closer – and that’s a sewing bobbin in there for size reference. The three needles there are the ones I use most often (which is why they’re the hand sewing needles I sell in my shop).

Types of Hand Sewing Needles

Let’s start from the top. . .

The top needle is a size 5 embroidery needle. That’s the size I most often use for regular embroidery because I like to stitch with 4 strands of thread and it’s perfect for that. It doesn’t hurt to use fewer, and if I concentrate really hard (and remove my glasses) I can get six strands through that eye.

I often use a size 8 embroidery needle when I’m sewing or embroidering on felt. The needle hole can actually be visible in felt, and I’m usually only stitching with 2 strands of thread – so it’s better to switch to a smaller needle for that.

I also use a size 8 embroidery needle for Big Stitch quilting.

The middle needle is a size 4 sharp. That’s a basic sewing needle. (Basic sewing needles are called sharps – just to confuse you. All the needles in the photo are sharp, but the middle one is actually called a sharp.) If you click on the photo to see it larger I hope you can see that the eye is much smaller than the embroidery needle. In a pinch you could maybe fit 3 strands of embroidery thread through there, but it would be tough. That said, I have used a sharp to embroider with 1-2 strands of thread and lightning didn’t strike me for using the wrong needle. 🙂

The bottom needle is a size 8 between or quilting needle. I have no idea why quilting needles are called betweens. I think it’s just one more thing to scare away the people who opted out of Home Ec. Anyway – this is a good small size for traditional hand quilting, but I often recommend for beginners to start with something larger and work their way down. That’s why the quilting needles I sell in my shop come in a pack of assorted sizes.

This needle is also sharp, with a small eye like a sharp, but it’s shorter and thinner. I’ve been known to sew with a between, but I never quilt with a sharp.

And now one more thing to confuse you – as needle size numbers get bigger, the needles get smaller and vice versa. So a size 5 embroidery needle is smaller than a size 3. It’s like wire gauges.

So there you go – an intro to the basic types of sewing needles I use most often – along with many (many!) asides reminding you that you can use whatever kind of needle you like best. The needle police will not come and lock you up. 🙂

Got any other sewing or embroidery questions? Send them to me here.

Happy stitching!

Best,
Wendi
Applique Wendi (with fabulous hat)

 

Felt Embroidery – All My Tips and Tricks

February 1, 2012
Tips and Tricks for Embroidering Felt

I’ve gotten a few questions lately about felt embroidery – and I’m going to answer them all here today.

Most of your patterns use smallish shapes. Do I transfer the pattern, hoop them and stitch, and then cut them out?

Well – I buy the good stuff (there’s no point embroidering it if it’s going to get all pilled and nasty-looking the first time someone touches it) and I don’t like to waste any of it. That means no excess for hooping. You don’t really need to hoop felt anyway – and it’s hard to get the crimp marks out when you do. It’s stiff enough to embroider easily without a hoop. Just be careful not to pull your stitches too tight.

My method is to transfer the pattern, cut it out, and then stitch.

How do you transfer your pattern to felt? You can’t trace through this stuff, and any pen or pencil tends to lift the fibers.

I use one of my favorite embroidery products–I call it The Magical Embroidery Stuff and you can read more about it here. I use it for all of my embroidery, but it really is pure magic for felt embroidery. In fact – it’s so magical that I wrote a whole post here, just about how amazing it is with wool felt.

Where do you find wool felt in such gorgeous colors?

I recommend Benzie Design. They have an amazing selection of colors – including lots of gorgeous felt bundles.

By the way – that picture up at the top is a close up of some of the blocks from the Felt Blocks Embroidery Pattern. Those were so much fun to stitch!

If you’re looking for a free pattern to try, I recommend Flora the felt bird.

Flora the Felt Bird - a free pattern from Shiny Happy World

She’s so pretty!

Here are links to all my posts about embroidery tools and supplies.

For Beginners

Specialty Fabrics

Threads

Stabilizers and Pattern Transfer Tools

Return to the Learn to Embroider main Table of Contents.

Move on to the posts about working with patterns.

Do I need to prewash my tea towels?

January 25, 2012

Reader Question: Do I have to wash new tea towels before I embroider them? And then should I iron them before I stitch them?

I pre-wash everything. Everything. I don’t mess around. When I come back from the fabric store, everything I just bought goes straight into the laundry hamper and isn’t allowed in my sewing room until it’s been washed, dried and ironed. I’m a little obsessive about it – but I have a good reason.

The very first thing I ever sewed was a tablecloth. Truly, the ugliest, worst-made tablecloth the world has ever seen. One of the many things I did wrong was that I didn’t pre-wash my fabric. So the first time I threw the tablecloth into the wash, it shrank just enough for every seam to pucker and look terrible. This was exacerbated by the fact that I had a seam running right down the middle of the table – the long way – but that’s a whole other sewing problem. 🙂

Now I always pre-wash everything.

Including tea towels.

They’ll come out all wrinkly and you’ll definitely want to iron them before you stitch on them. The hoop will leave rings in your fabric and you can press them out – but I usually throw the whole thing in the wash again. It’s a towel, right? And it’s going to be washed a million times. Just go ahead and wash those creases out. If you need to iron them after you’ve done the embroidery, do it carefully.

There’s a video here showing how to iron finished embroidery without squishing the stitches – but I don’t iron my finished tea towels because I’m lazy and I really USE them.

Good luck!

Got any other sewing or embroidery questions? Send them to me here.

Happy stitching!

Best,
Wendi
Applique Wendi (with fabulous hat)

How to Embroider the Hem of a Knit Skirt – video

January 24, 2012

How to Embroider the Hem of a Knit Skirt - a video tutorial from Shiny Happy World

Want to learn the basics of hand embroidery with an easy online workshop – totally free?

Sign up for Embroidery 101 here. You’ll learn how to get started, the tools and supplies you’ll need, the four most basic stitches, how to transfer your pattern and how to display your work.

If you already know the basics – sign up for Embroidery 201. It’s also free! You’ll learn how to stitch on specialty fabrics like felt and stretchy T-shirts. Plus you’ll learn lots and lots and LOTS more stitches – all my favorites!

I love using a little bit of embroidery to fancy up a simple garment – like this T-shirt skirt I made for my daughter.

I’ll tell you – I love this skirt. I’m going to be so sad when Jo outgrows it!

I really need to make one for myself. . .

But you want to know about the embroidery. That’s what the video is for! 🙂 I show you exactly how to do it. It’s easy. Even easier than the ruffles video I shared last week. But it takes longer – that’s why I waited to do it second.

Want to know something else? You don’t have to do this only on a skirt. You could totally stitch a rainbow like this around the hem of a regular T-shirt and it would look awesome! Just make sure it’s not too tight a T-shirt, because this stitching will kill the stretch.

Want even fancier fancification? Jump ahead to this post showing how to crochet a scalloped hem. Oooh. . . 🙂

Happy stitching, everyone!

Best,
Wendi
Applique Wendi (with fabulous hat)

Wrist Exercises for Knitters and Crocheters

January 17, 2012

If you knit/crochet a lot (or embroider!) . . . chances are you suffer from some achy wrists! I know that during last week, when I was crocheting up a storm, I certainly did!

Here are a few exercises that I do to relieve my sore wrists. Try to give these a whirl every hour or so while you’re working.

1. Swirl your wrist around! I don’t even know if this counts as an ‘exercise’… but moving your wrist in all sorts of directions (especially the directions it doesn’t move while you’re knitting/crocheting) really helps it out.

2. Prayer position. This is a little move I picked up from yoga class… it’s just like prayer position, but you’ll want to raise your elbows a little (while keeping your wrists still) to get a nice stretch in your wrist area.

3. Reverse wrist stretch. This one is the opposite of the stretch in point 2. Lay the back of your hand on a table, and press down lightly with your arm.

4. Rub those wrist bones! Use your thumb and massage all those little bones and tendons (and whatever else) that are in your wrist.

5. Squeeze. With your opposite hand, just squeeze your wrist. This gets all of your joint fluid flowing around.

Update! Stacey added a video showing some of these stretches here.

Happy wrists make a happy stitcher!

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