Stabilizers and Thread colors-Machine Embroidery

My personal life since the start of 2007 has been a bit on the hectic side and I have to admit I am way behind on a lot of stuff. “Something Blue” collection was to be released last weekend and I find that I am still not finished with its PDF file. Writing the PDF always takes quite a while as I must have all the directions and the techniques described perfectly. Not only that but this is the time of the year when all last years business documents must be combined together, reports from various shows must be combined, inventory taken of all left over purchased goods etc  for my tax accountant. D-Day for tax is not so far off. However, while I am busy in writing out the techniques, doing the paperwork etc, my machines have not been so idle.

From one of my classes last year, I had quite a bit of black Dupioni silk left over. From the looks of the yardage I figured I could create a shawl and a evening top with it with perhaps just a bit left over for a purse. I do have a great pattern sitting next to my sewing machine which is screaming for me to work with it but until I get my paper work out of the way, I dare not touch anything else.

Using the designs from “Something Blue” I decided to embellish the shawl but instead of blue colors, I opted for rust colors. I had purchased some very pretty rust colored beaded trim at the Sewing and Quilt Expo and this seemed just the perfect project for them. Using light yellow and rust colors I used one design continuously to make a border around the “v” shaped shawl. Btw, the shawl is very easy to make, simply fold one edge of the fabric onto itself and cut out a perfect square. Embroider two edges of the square and fold the fabric diagonally, a perfect shawl. My only concern was that the rust and yellows would not showcase the name of the collection “Something Blue”. But then not everyone likes blue as much as I do and besides, any set of machine embroidery designs need not be limited to a certain color.

Now came my biggest problem. As I was going to embroider on silk, I needed to have the right stabilizers. Usually I always treat silk with Sulky Totally Stable which is an iron on tear away stabilizer. Every time that I have used this stuff on silk, the embroidery has been perfect without any tiny creases or stretching the fabric causing ripples etc. As I usually purchase Totally stable by the bolt, it meant that I would not be able to work on the shawl for quite a while. Well….I’m not one for waiting but rather I dare to experiment. So, I decided to use the next best thing in my stash….water soluble or tearaway washaway.

I have heard of many friends using iron on mesh type stabilizer to stabilize silk before embroidering but I wanted the shawl to have a nice drape to it and not be stiff at all.  So I opted for the tear away washaway. Also I decided to place double basting stitches around the design (one for placement and one for holding the silk to the stabilizer as I do not hoop the fabric but hoop the stabilizer). The first basting stitch was directly onto the stabilizer which allowed me to see where to place the fabric. This is also a great trick when using a continuous border such I have done. Everything worked fine until I washed the silk after the embroidery was completed.

First of all, anyone using silk Dupioni or any silk, I would strongly advice to wash the silk before embroidering. Not all silks are alike but some do shrink a bit which this one definitely did…there comes some puckering. If you do have any puckering after embroidering, place a damp tea towel on top of the silk and then iron, all puckers will disappear. 

Using the tearaway wash away stabilizer made me think of the concept of the stabilizer and embroidery. Stabilizers help the embroidery be registered on fabric and also help maintain the embroidery onto the fabric afterwards. If a design is quite dense then it becomes even more of a necessity that some sort of stabilizer be present to help keep the embroidery from warping etc onto the fabric. The best embroidery is when after washing the fabric lays flat and the embroidery does not sink in making a dent into the fabric.  The tearaway washaway stabilizers are one of my favorites. They wash away from the open areas of the embroidered item but remain underneath the embroidery therefore always keeping the embroidery looking great and perfect. This stabilizer is not to be confused with water soluble stabilizer which completely disappears after washing. Although I did not have too many puckers in my embroidery yet I felt that the embroidery could have been a bit better with the iron on tearaway applied to the silk first and then a tear away hooped into the hoop.

Continuing with “Something Blue” I have a pair of faux suede type fabric boots which I purchased not too long ago. The boot seemed a perfect candidate for some type of embroidery so I took one motif from “Something Blue” and using the Superior Bronze metallic thread stitched out the same motif twice. The flash hides the rich look of the bronze metallic thread but I assure you the transformation of just plain black boots was amazing.  The fabric of the boot had a bit of stretch to it, so I simply used a medium weight tearaway in the hoop and basted the boot to the stabilizer. Holding the boot throughout the embroidery process, I was quite impressed with the transformation myself. I did wonder how it might be if I had used simply black thread on the boots, may have to find another pair of boots to try that out.

Ofcourse, I couldn’t resist using the original blue colors selected by me for “Something Blue” so I decided to create a small cushion. The crisp white antique damask fabric with the tone on tone blue embroidery simply creates cheerfulness.  As for the collection, the next target date is a day or so….fingers crossed.