I had an email today from a reader who said she would have wanted to do the sampler, but needed a bit of a 101 crash course on embroidery. She had few good questions, so I thought I'd back up and answer these. Surely, if she had these questions, others do too. I know I've mentioned some of this before, but I think it will be nice to have in one place. There will be a category for Embroidery 101 on the sidebar if you ever want to read it again.

Before I get started answering these questions, I want to say a little bit about how I'll answer. I like to answer questions in the first person. (i.e.: "I do this" or "I use this".) I'm trying to always do that because I want you to be aware that there are many ways to skin a cat, and I do not claim to be the foremost authority on embroidery. I love it, I do it a lot, I love sharing it, it was my first foray into sewing many moons ago and truth told, sometimes I make up my own rules... just so you know. Ahem.

Also, if you as a reader know a different way to do something, I invite you to share it. In fact, I'd love an article on it from you if you are interested in doing that. Just let me know.

Here are the questions this reader had:

 1. What do you embroider on? Is it a special kind of cloth?

It depends on what I want to use the piece for. I'll embroider on almost anything (even paper), but I definitely want to use high count fabrics so my pieces will wear well.

2. Do you need to stabilize the cloth at all or just go for it as is?

If I'm working with a quilt weight cotton, t-shirt material or any light weight or stretchy material, I do put a piece of woven cotton fusible interfacing such as heat and bond on the back of my work to stabilize it. Lately I've been using transfer-eze (more on that later) and when I do, I don't find it necessary to back in fusible.

3. How do you get the design onto the cloth (I did some cross stitch when I was a little girl, but those came as an iron on)

There are many ways to transfer designs. I've used a light box and traced the design using pencil onto paper, I've put my designs up on the window and traced them as well.

I also use Frixion pens which are iron erasable sometimes.

I have tried dressmaker's carbon paper and other transfer papers before, but I don't love it. I find it difficult.

You can also buy iron on transfer pencils at most fabric stores and Sulky makes a marker that I describe how to use in this post.

Recently I found an awesome product called transfer-eze... described here... I really love it. It dissolves in water after you stitch on it, and it serves a double purpose in that I've noticed it stabilizes the fabric as you work. I'd add one caviat to the transfer-eze. I have never had a problem with it, but I did hear one time of someone having an issue with it not dissolving properly. The only thing we could discern was that she had heavily starched the fabric beforehand, so possibly there was a chemical reaction. Not sure, but she has also used it a lot and not had problems before... bottom line is, I'd recommend to not starch.

Many patterns do come with iron-ons as well. (I know Sarah Jane and Lynette Anderson's do for sure. And I'm printing a few as well for this coming season.)

4. Strands of embroidery floss....do you need to separate. How do you know how many or what weight to get?

There are many kinds of flosses. Crewel wools and perle cottons come in one chunky yarn like piece and you don't separate and then there are six strand flosses. Those you do separate. I very often use Cosmo multi-work 2 strand floss because it comes on a spool and you can just use the two strands and not separate. If you need to add strands you can double it. I love the stuff and use it as often as I can.

I choose what kind of floss and/or how many strands based on the look I'm going for. Do I want a heavy look that will stand out? Do I want to fill a space fast? I might pick a perle cotton or a wool. Do I want an elegant look? I might use strand floss. Do I want it to be luxurious? Maybe silk. Lots of different ways to go here. There's a needle point shop near where I live, and I love to go over there because they have walls and walls of different threads and flosses. It would take two lifetimes to try them all. In the end, I'd say, bend the rules (are there rules?), test things out and have fun.

5. What are the best flosses out there? I know DMC, but I bet there is better ones (like using Coats and Clark sewing thread vs Mettler or Gutterman)

I love love love Cosmo flosses. I do design fabric for Lecien who makes it, but without bias I can tell you it doesn't knot up as much as some others do. It really stitches like butter. If I do have problems with my floss knotting, I use a product called thread heaven which is a thread conditioner. I also use Thread Heaven for applique and quilt binding when working with regular thread.

6. What about needles? What do I need to use?

I've noticed that if you ask stitchers about needles in particular, you get lots of different answers. I'd say It depends on what floss I am using and what kind of embroidery I am doing. For stranded flosses I love a size 10 embroidery needle (straw). I happen to like the Jeanne Kimballs needles. Crewel requires a crewel needle with a reatively large eye. Sometimes with perle cotton I'll use a chenille needle.

Needles are numbered. The larger the number the smaller the needle. I make sure the needle size I'm using is appropriate for my fabric and for my floss. In other words, if I'm using a chunky floss (perle or wool) I want a bigger eye. But I want to make sure I'm not going to poke great big holes in my fabric. I like to have an array of needles on hand so that I can test to see what is going to work best for the particular project I'm working on.

 

About finding supplies:

Many of the wonderful online retailers and I carry the products described in this post... please check out the We Love French Knots Supplier List to find them. (Note: the supplier list is not paid for advertising, it is currently a free service offered by We Love French Knots. If you'd like to be added to the supplier list please let me know by emailing me at bari at barijonline dot com.)