Sunday, April 29, 2012

Craft Time: Framing Embroidery

So I put together this little tutorial on the simplest way to finish your embroideries. I was learning as I went, but they came out awesome. You will need:
  • the embroidery...duhh
  • a wooden hoop (painted a cool color and sealed with a fixative)
  • a piece or thin fabric (for the back)
  • iron
  • towels
  • pillowcase
  • dish liquid
Ok, first things first, you have to clean the piece, so fill up a sink with lukewarm water and a tiny bit of dish soap.....and swoosh the embroidery around a little, don't go too crazy....

oops, too much dish soap 











Let that sit for about 10 minutes then rinse it off really good under running water. Now you have to pat it dry some, so place it in between two towels and pat away....Depending on the fabric you may have to let it sit in between those towels awhile, you want the fabric damp not wet.














Now its time to iron. Place your embroidery on a pillowcase, and with your iron on the correct setting, mine was on the highest cotton setting, start ironing. its a good idea to start it off by ironing it in between two pillowcases first to make sure your iron isn't too hot. then move on to ironing it straight up with the iron. iron it face down first then flip it. if your piece is really 3 dimensional, and you don't want to flatten it or it's really delicate or done on some fancy ass fabric, then keep it between the pillow cases and don't bare down too hard, mine didn't matter so I ironed the fuck outta it.

Now its time to frame! Place the outer hoop where you want it, and flip it over, then place that piece of back fabric down, this makes it look cool and protects all those loose and crazy threads back there. Now place the inner hoop and push it down. You will have to tighten the fabric and stretch them so its smooth on the front, if you embroider you already know all about that shit.



Trim the excess fabric now. the back fabric can be cut pretty close to the hoop, but the embroidered fabric needs enough over hang to fold down the inside edge of the hoop.


You may notice that the embroidery I am using has miraculously changed, this is because I had to re-soak the skull in the soap cause I got it dirty, be careful! Make sure your work area is clean!






Ok now back to the demo...See, nice over hang!!!









You can decide now if you want to iron the fabric overhang over the hoop so its easier to glue or not, the first one I glued I didn't iron but the rest I did, I found it faster to have it creased. Anyway, get your glue, I used this shit I found at the craft store, its pretty awesome. 














So, run an edge of glue on the top lip of the inner hoop as well as around the inside edge. Do it a few inches at a time. Fold and smooth the fabric down over the hoop to secure. 








Because the hoop is round you are gonna get bunching so go with it, try to make it as neat as possible and secure as possible.








And that's it, you're done!!! look how pretty!!!!

1 comment:

Spring said...

Good lord, Dee, I love you so hard!