Ann The Gran Community

Boy do I need help.  I am embroidery the thin dish towels (tea towels) and I read the blog on stablizers and used wash away stablizer.  Did not come out too good.  Seem to me there was too big of gap between item and embroidery foot.  Stitching was so so.  In doing tea towels, what is the best stablizer to use?  Thanks in advance. 

Hmmmm, could you give us a photo to see what happened?

A water soluble stabilizer is what I would recommend for this item.  The question is, was the stabilizer light, medium or heavy weight?  So so stitching hints of a tension issue.  There are plenty of people here to assist you, let us see what happened.

Light weight fabrics use heavy weight stabilizers.  Consider this towel as a 'test sew out' and lets figure it out together.

Pat, The Avid Embroiderer

If the tea towels are light weight and smooth fibers (no loops), then I would suggest using a tear away (light to medium weight depending on the density of the design) in the hoop with spray adhesive and then place your towel loose on top pressing down onto the adhesive to keep it in place. Nothing is needed on the top of the towel.

If the tea towels are terry towels (with loops), then I would suggest again using a tear away (light to medium weight depending on the density of the design) in the hoop with spray adhesive and then place your towel loose on top pressing down onto the adhesive to keep it in place. PLUS I would use some water soluble stabilizer on top of the towel and pin it in the corners where there is no embroidery being done to keep it in place. This water soluble will give you a crisper design and the loops will not come through.

When finished ME –unhoop and tear away the stabilizer from the bottom and use a wet to damp rag or paper towel to dissolve away the pieces that you can’t get off from the top with your TWEEZERS. (take off as much as you can first with tweezers).

As far as the gap between the towel and your foot, this is normal on all machines.

I hope this will help you some.

Have fun ME. Nancy

hi! i would love to have  have a look at your spread sheet if you would send it to me  ihave been doing

embroiderey for 3 years

You can download that spreadsheet at this link.  It is at the top of the post and called "Cost Analysis 100507.zip"

Please check out my blog and let me know what you think.

Pat, The Avid Embroiderer

Hi Margie, When I embroider thin towels that are a woven fabric, I prefer to use 2 layers of easy tear.  You have less chance of distorting the design. I tear away 1 layer at a time. Now if your design is dense, I would use 3 layers or a heavier tear away. You could also hoop up 1 or 2 layers and float one under your hoop. I always baste my design. I would think that if it is that very light wt. tea towel you wouldn't use a dense design.

If you are doing terry cloth, I do it the same way, only I add WSS on top and hold in place with my basting stitch. I know all machines do not have that ability, but there are basting stitches that you can add to your design,  If I have a heavy terry towel, then I use sticky back or spray. If you remove the sticky back as soon as you finish the design, then it is much easier to remove without pulling your loops.

Just remember, the denser the design, the more you need to stabilize. I also use cut away sometimes. It really depends on the design.