embroidery Archives - Page 7 of 19

Face of a doll

Recently a Sew-Op colleague asked me to stitch faces on a pair of small soft dolls. Each doll will live in a cigar box with pre-cut fabric, thread, pins and needles in a pincushion, and other necessities for a young girl to sew her clothing. The girls are twins so the dolls are too. Let’s have a before and after shot.

I apologize for the photo quality; I was trying to get them returned the same morning I finished them.

The book they are on top of is The Fine Art of Making Faces on Cloth Dolls, by Colette Wolff. It was very helpful for feature placement, though it didn’t have much in the way of stitching mechanics.

I’m so-so on how these came out. Happy enough with them to not try to pull the stitches out and start over (although the fabric would not be so happy to accommodate that – I slightly snagged the first doll and gave her a permanent dimple; fortunately it was in a good spot), not happy enough that I feel like doing more. Here’s a close-up of each, first doll I stitched on the left.

My advice to anyone doing a similar project amounts to: stitch the face before adding hair. It gives you the opportunity to hide thread ends at the back of the head, and makes it more clear where the features should go for a realistically proportioned face. That’s basically it. Otherwise I winged it based on drawings on the front of the Wolff book!

Plush fabric coasters

Sometimes, an ordinary fabric coaster doesn’t suffice. At least, that’s what my sister told me a few years ago. Her water bottle at work was sweating through the paper towels she used as coasters. In those situations, you need terrycloth.

I made her one then, and decided to make her another one this year featuring some of her favorite hobbies.

I use a double layer of terrycloth and made the coasters a bit larger than my usual ones to accommodate the thickness. It is also much easier to quilt the sides individually than the whole coaster together – and in this case I think it counts as quilting rather than “quilting.”

I don’t have records of measurements and so forth from the previous coaster; this time I cut fabric into approximate squares 7″ to 7.5″ on a side. After finding the images I wanted to use, I traced them onto the fabric (roughly centered) with a fabric marker. Finally, I zigzagged them onto terrycloth and then cut them out, in an effort to reduce the amount of terrycloth lint in my sewing machine.

The quilting on the previous coaster was your usual concentric squares and parallel lines, but this time it was accomplished by embroidering the images. I covered and widened the marker lines with stitching through both the fabric and the terrycloth.

When I went to construct the coaster, I decided on a 5 1/4″ square. From the center of each image I marked out 2 5/8″ in each direction, discovering they were not at all centered on the fabric, and drew in the stitching line for the outer seam with a pen. I stitched around each face individually. To align the faces, I put a pin through each corner of the stitching on one face, with the pinpoint on the fabric side, and then put the pins through the corresponding corner, fabric to terrycloth, on the other face. “Up” is the same direction on each. After pinning, I stitched around the previous stitching lines, leaving the middle of one side open. I trimmed the seam allowance to between 3/8″ and 1/2″ and then turned it right-side-out, working the corners as far out as I could. I hand-stitched the opening shut and then top-stitched by machine between 3/8″ and 1/2″ from the edge (evenness was hard).

Incidentally, the yellow side of the coaster features Ballycumber, the yellow book mascot of Bookcrossing, a world-library project. The other side is for Markeroni, a historical marker with my sister’s Markeroni mascot on it. The colors even fit: many historical markers are green, and Peep the mascot is lavender. (I think. He may be a well-traveled pink.)

Embroidery: before you begin

I thought I’d put out my basic embroidery information. I’m not going to try to make an online stitch dictionary (at least no more than happens naturally from my own explorations), but I have thought a lot about embroidery for beginners through teaching it.

Fabric and thread to start: I like to start people with calico fabric (quilting cotton) and two strands of embroidery floss. That is a good combination weight-wise and those materials present no special challenges. Try other fabrics (coarsely woven, fuzzy or fluffy) and other threads (the full six strands of floss, perle cotton, ribbon) after becoming comfortable with the motions of embroidery. That shouldn’t be long, though, and then there are some rules of thumb for matching. Six strands of floss or something heavier like perle cotton is good on a very coarse fabric or to achieve a dimensional effect. On a puffy fabric such as fleece you’d likely want at least four strands of floss to keep the stitches from disappearing. For a smooth-surfaced fabric such as cotton or felt, two or three strands is good (for detail work a single strand might be employed).

Above: A sampling of materials. The fabric is cotton calico. The brown thread is Coats and Clark 6-stranded embroidery floss (6, 4, and 2 strands shown, left to right), the green at bottom is DMC perle cotton size 5, and the blue at top is Columbia-Minerva 100% wool “Persian-type” needlepoint and crewel yarn.

Tip 1: It is very difficult to separate a single strand of floss from more than one other strand without tangling to the point of knots. I find it easiest to separate two strands at a time, and if I want an odd number of strands, to separate a pair into singles and put the appropriate number together.

Tip 2: While stitching, your floss will want to twist, which can lead to tangles. One way to lessen this is to separate all your strands, run your fingers all the way down each to smooth them, and then put them back together. Wetting the strands when you smooth them helps as well.

Needles: Embroidery needles tend to be fine and sharp, but unless you are working on unforgiving fabric (delicate silk, say), use whatever needle is comfortable to work with, has a large enough eye for the thread, and is sharp enough to pierce the fabric. Wetting and twisting the end of the thread between your fingers will help in threading.

Knots or Not Knots: Knotting is typically not done in embroidery; instead, you leave a few inches loose at the back and weave them under your stitches later (or to start, if it is not your first length of thread). The same is done to secure the opposite end. Sometimes you have to knot, however, such as if you are stitching around the edge of a piece of fabric. In that case two or three overhand knots to start and a half hitch to end are easiest.

Above left: Overhand knot. Above right: Half hitch.

Tip 3: Let your needle dangle from the fabric after every dozen stitches or so. Its weight will help unwind the floss before tangles can happen. For more help, slide the needle down the thread until it is against the fabric, and use your fingers or a pin to separate and re-smooth the strands.

Tip 4: In a situation where knots are appropriate and you have two layers of fabric, provided the thread does not show through a single layer you can hide its end easily. After making your final knot, stitch through one layer only and bring the needle out a short distance away. Pull so the fabric is slightly compressed and snip close to the fabric. The end will disappear between the layers, and the tail should be long enough to stay put inside.

Comfortable Stitching. To keep your hands and forearms from getting sore, stretch and rub them frequently. Make sure you are not gripping the work too tightly, and change your hand position regularly. If it is difficult to get the needle through the fabric, use a thimble to push and a bit of rubber to pull (you may buy one for the purpose, or cut a 1.5-2″ square of a rubber jar opener). As a right-handed stitcher, I find it is most comfortable to stitch with the needle pointing somewhere between left and forward, and to tighten the thread up or to the right. Experiment for the best solution for you – for me it is frequently not the direction given in stitch instructions.