Have you ever thought about how many embroidery designs you actually own? I know I try not to. I do however try to make the most of my current designs by eliminating certain elements or changing the appliqué option into an outline. Appliqué is a great technique to use when you are trying to cover a mistake or stitch a large size design without a high stitch count. However, it does take some patience and time to select the fabrics and trim excess fabric during the stitching process.
Recently I purchased an adorable pontoon boat embroidery design for a client and used the same design on tote bags and terry cloth towels. I had two reasons for eliminating the appliqué fabric. First, I was leaving for vacation in a matter of hours and needed to get the order out the door. Second, I thought the wear and tear of a tote bag (for a boat owner) would be more practical without fabric.
On my multi-needle embroidery machine I quickly changed the colors accordingly to “pop” on the different color tote bags and towels. The black tote bag was stitched with a gray thread color for the pontoon portion and on the white tote bag I used black thread for the pontoon section.
The terry cloth navy blue towels were embroidered with the appliqué fabric and will hold up well with repeat laundering because I pre-washed the appliqué fabrics and dark colored towels. I also suggest testing the design before stitching it on the final product to check the density.
Take a look at some of your current designs and use the tools in your embroidery software to change or alter the design as needed. I choose to delete the placement and tack down thread colors so the machine would only embroider the final satin stitch colors. As multi-needle embroidery machine owners we have the technology to quickly change the thread colors in an embroidery design right at our finger tips.
5 COMMENTS
Gail Beam
10 years agoLove the boat design and changing the applique design to an embroidery design turned out so neat.
Saundra Romanus
10 years agoWhen you do an applique on terry when do you place the topping on the design?
eileenroche
10 years agoI place the water soluble topper on the terry before stitching color 1, the placement guide. The placement guide will tack it down. Next, I add the applique fabric and stitch color 2, the applique tack down. The water soluble topper is sandwiched between the applique and terry and will protect the terry while I trim the applique.
MJ
10 years agoSuch a nice and seemingly obvious idea, but I don’t usually think of something like this. Thank you so much!!
suba suba
5 years agoYou made some decent points there. I looked on line for that issue and identified a lot of people will go coupled with with all your website.