Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Preparing The Fabric

Enough procrastination, time to prepare my fabric for embroidery. First of all I shrunk the fabric by wetting it thoroughly. I cut a generous piece, quite a bit bigger than the design, and pressed it with a steam iron. Next, I used my sewing machine to neaten the edges:

Then I used a running stitch to mark the half way lines of the fabric:
Luckily I have a glass table, and with the sun shining today I don't even need a lamp underneath it. I taped the paper pattern to the glass table, then taped the fabric on top, matching the centre lines. Then I took a deep breath and started tracing the pattern onto the fabric, using a ball point pen:
The pen goes along more smoothly than the pencil I used for my sample and I was surprised how easily the job went.
The embroidery project is going to take me a long time and I don't want it to get dirty. So I've covered it with a light muslin, which I tacked down. I'll cut 'windows' into the muslin to expose the area I want to work on. So now I'm all set to begin:

4 comments:

  1. Well I have done it all except the windows in the embroidery that's a great Idea to remember.

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  2. The idea comes to me from Mary Corbett's blog. Makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

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  3. I consider these the necessary evils of any creative endeavour. Hate it, but what else can one do --- I would Gladly delegate them ;-P

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  4. Painstaking work - and it's so easy to miss a bit! It looks as though the hard part is done, now you can enjoy the project.

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