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I'm new to this wonderful site and spent the weekend searching for answers to some backing and hooping questions for very large designs on the different fabrics that we use. These designs are 50-120K stitch designs consisting of mostly satin columns in vines, flowers, crosses etc., very limited lettering. We do our own digitizing. These designs are used for church vestments, altar coverings etc. and it is very important that each large sew-out is aligned precisely with its neighboring designs to form a total pattern over a very large cloth or garment. I have developed a time-consuming process that entails hooping my backing, embroidering axis lines and a couple of walk outlines of elements of adjacent designs, then pinning my fabric to the backing matching up everything using the embroidered guidelines. I know this probably makes you all run away screaming, but our market is very different than most of yours. Most work similar to ours is done either by hand or using free-motion machine embroidery in countries with cheap labor. Over the years I have mostly used one layer of 2oz cutaway (melco c19201000) with an occasional floater of tear-away (is there a way to tell if it is wetlaid; its from Brewer Sewing and they no longer show it on their site.) The hoops are the 20.7x16.8 wooden tubular sash and the next size down, 17.?x11.?. OK, enough background, I hope.
1) Years ago I tried using a fusible polymesh for hooping our stretchier peau de soie satin. I now know that it didn't do a great job because it was embossed orthogonally rather than diagonally. But I have two other concerns: it shrank when ironed on the wool setting (that's about 260 degrees, right?) and the spaces between the designs looked stuck down. This may have been due to the puckering caused by some of my earlier digitizing, but something that releases from the unembroidered areas would be nice. Also for unlined items, it left a sticky residue on the back that picked up incense soot from the air. Does the newer polymesh take care of any/all of these issues?
2) we embroider on lots of velvet, both heavy cotton upholstery velvet and silk-like, drapey microfiber poly velvet. I digitize with two layers of fairly dense zigzag underlay and rarely need topping, but this is the fabric that caused me to develop my tedious hooping technique. I hate the peel away sticky-backs I've tried because they're stiff and slippery, won't hoop tightly and gum up the machine. Iron-on? nope, not even with micro poly which can take a bit of pressing. Sprays? scary around huge pieces of expensive fabric(is there a word for fear of over-spray and sticky fingers?), but I'm willing to listen if anyone knows about something that remains tacky for more than a couple of minutes and allows for repositioning and won't ruin my machine . Magnetic hoops? not big enough. Speaking of sticky - should I be using WD-40 rather than alcohol to wipe down metal parts?
3)finally, I'm getting ready to digitize designs for a 30"x84" funeral pall of 100% linen,med.wt.loosely-woven; its fully lined in the same fabric. The center will have a 15"x~45" text (the Orthodox Creed, if anyone is interested)with 3/4" letters that I plan to do in three extra large hoopings. I haven't decided on a font yet. The border will have a repeated 4-6"high x 16" design of satin vines etc that I am now working on. I'm afraid that the border embroidery will draw up the outside edges and cause the center to balloon outward. Here's my battle plan:
*digitize with the least density possible; embr. lettering first- bottom-up, center-out; then embr. the borders, starting in the centers and working towards the corners. what about lettering underlay - should I generate my own underlay a line or a block at at time to pin every thing down or just let it go one letter at a time?
*heavily starch the linen (learned that in doing heirloom table linens), then what? I'm thinking, two-layers of backing- one invisible(polymesh, fusible or not?), the other to help with definition but that will go away without tedious cutting or picking(Vilene or similar product?) Doesn't two layers of polymesh defeat the purpose of using something sheer? Unless someone can tell me a better way to do it, I'll use my tedious hooping technique to get the design matches I need.
Oh so sorry for the tome - I've been on my own for too long!
1) Years ago I tried using a fusible polymesh for hooping our stretchier peau de soie satin. I now know that it didn't do a great job because it was embossed orthogonally rather than diagonally. But I have two other concerns: it shrank when ironed on the wool setting (that's about 260 degrees, right?) and the spaces between the designs looked stuck down. This may have been due to the puckering caused by some of my earlier digitizing, but something that releases from the unembroidered areas would be nice. Also for unlined items, it left a sticky residue on the back that picked up incense soot from the air. Does the newer polymesh take care of any/all of these issues?
2) we embroider on lots of velvet, both heavy cotton upholstery velvet and silk-like, drapey microfiber poly velvet. I digitize with two layers of fairly dense zigzag underlay and rarely need topping, but this is the fabric that caused me to develop my tedious hooping technique. I hate the peel away sticky-backs I've tried because they're stiff and slippery, won't hoop tightly and gum up the machine. Iron-on? nope, not even with micro poly which can take a bit of pressing. Sprays? scary around huge pieces of expensive fabric(is there a word for fear of over-spray and sticky fingers?), but I'm willing to listen if anyone knows about something that remains tacky for more than a couple of minutes and allows for repositioning and won't ruin my machine . Magnetic hoops? not big enough. Speaking of sticky - should I be using WD-40 rather than alcohol to wipe down metal parts?
3)finally, I'm getting ready to digitize designs for a 30"x84" funeral pall of 100% linen,med.wt.loosely-woven; its fully lined in the same fabric. The center will have a 15"x~45" text (the Orthodox Creed, if anyone is interested)with 3/4" letters that I plan to do in three extra large hoopings. I haven't decided on a font yet. The border will have a repeated 4-6"high x 16" design of satin vines etc that I am now working on. I'm afraid that the border embroidery will draw up the outside edges and cause the center to balloon outward. Here's my battle plan:
*digitize with the least density possible; embr. lettering first- bottom-up, center-out; then embr. the borders, starting in the centers and working towards the corners. what about lettering underlay - should I generate my own underlay a line or a block at at time to pin every thing down or just let it go one letter at a time?
*heavily starch the linen (learned that in doing heirloom table linens), then what? I'm thinking, two-layers of backing- one invisible(polymesh, fusible or not?), the other to help with definition but that will go away without tedious cutting or picking(Vilene or similar product?) Doesn't two layers of polymesh defeat the purpose of using something sheer? Unless someone can tell me a better way to do it, I'll use my tedious hooping technique to get the design matches I need.
Oh so sorry for the tome - I've been on my own for too long!
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