Before you start:
1. If you are new to the photo-stitch technique first try the design on
a piece of scrap fabric to see how it behaves!
2. Never start learning on a new sweat-shirt! Experiment with an old
one, or at least some sweat-shirt fabric.
Most manuals recommend the use of cut-away stabilizer for embroidering
knitted fabrics, because this type of stabilizer remains between the finished
embroidery and the fabric and helps the textile keep its shape.
On the one hand, photo-stitch designs deform knitted fabric easily and
one layer of cut-away stabilizer is not enough. On the other they are very
dense by themselves and if you use several layers of stabilizer, your sweatshirt
will resemble a piece of medieval armor and will probably be bullet-proof.
Although these can favorable qualities, they don't add much to the look
of the clothing.
Therefore, we recommend one layer of very fine cut-away stabilizer,
or organza, and several layers of water-soluble stabilizer. We recommend
Sulky's Ultra Solvy, which is very tough, for backing and Sulky's Solvy,
thinner, for topping.
The drawback to this method is that you'll have to put your brand new
sweat-shirt into a bowl of cold water for a couple of hours after finishing
the embroidery. However, we didn't find the water particularly damaging. |
