Ann The Gran Community

I have been embroidering like crazy the past week or two, and I have both a comment about water soluble stabilizer and a question about tear away stabilizer. 

 First...the water soluable stabilizer from Ann The Gran is absolutely awesome.  I had some other water soluable and although it works ok, there is no comparison with the "stuff" I bought here.  Fits great in the hoop with the fabric and tears away easily, leaving only a few places (mostly letters) where I had to "spritz" it away.  Thanx Ann...great product. 

 Now as to the tear away (also from Ann The Gran)...It didn't tear away easily, and I'm still struggling with getting it off the back of some of my items.  However, on one item I had not quite enough stabilizer to put on the back so I cut another small piece and adhered it to the back as well.  When I was finished, I found the stabilizer was much easier to remove because there were more corners and edges I could use as starting places.  Is there a problem with cutting the tear away into, say, three smaller pieces as long as the edges meet?  Seems like it would be easier to remove that way.

Rita

Rita - You make such a great point about multiple ways to remove stabilizers.

I hope others will add their favorite methods. 

Pat

Rita:

 As long as you are careful not to poke through the fabic it is fine to cut the stabilizer down between the letters, lines of text or anywhere else you fell is helpful.  I do this most of of the time anyway so I am not pulling on the fabric as much when I tear it away.     I have used Ann's tear-away on basic mid-weight cotton with lettering as small as 5mm.  It seems to tear away for me just fine as long as I do not use spray adhesives to help hold the fabric in place. ( I tested another piece this morning after I read you post.  I embroidered a multi-line phrase in 5 mm font on cotton.  It all came off easily.)   I make alot of quilt blocks and much of the time I use spray starch to stiffen my fabric before I begin the embroidery.  This seems to help hold the fabric in place and it doesn't pull when I am removing the stabilizer from smaller lettering or intricate designs.

 For times when we must use a spray adhesive maybe someone out there has some tips on easy removal.  I know I try to spray only around the edges of my quilt block so the parts where the embroidery lettering will be will not be stuck and will tear away more easily.

DB 

Hello Rita,

I, also, use pieces of stabilizer for projects.  I keep a zip-lock bag of "left-over" pieces of stabilizer for each type and label as such.  I overlap the pieces and actually keep this in mind when embroidering.  I also do this with the water soluble stabilizer on top of a project.  Collecting these pieces comes in handy.  You can actually get some good-size pieces for little projects.

After a project is completed, I would cut away the excess and suddenly realized that I had a whole lot of left overs.  I know the "purists of machine embroidery" are probably cringing right now.  But between being a quilter (we never throw away anything larger than 1") and, basically, being cheap!  For me, stabilizer must be ordered online.

Also, like the other comment to you, I also spray my pieces with fabric sizing or a light spray starch (usually lavender).  Iron all the layers together and then hoop or work outside the hoop.  It works out well.  I don't spray bulky items such as towels, robes.

Joan/NJ

I am a quilter as well,and I save all my good size pieces too.They do come in handy for many things.I also use the spray sizing too.You are right Joan,we never throw anything away less than that! It could be another quilt! (my hubby cringes when he see's some of them)Some even work well when doing appliques.

Great idea's out there!What a wonderful community of sharing!!