SAL: tracing the pattern

Welcome to the Mountmellick embroidery stitch along! Even if you have decided not to stitch along with us, I’m glad that you’re following along. I welcome all questions. Just because I understand my reasoning for doing certain things doesn’t mean that you do! So please ask questions and make comments.

The first thing we need to do is to trace the pattern onto the fabric. Importantly, the front of the fabric is the smooth satin side. You see longer lengths of thread stretching across the surface of the fabric on the front, than you do on the back.

I have not pre-washed my fabric, as with this fabric, it can make it quite difficult to get the needle through. This MAY mean that it will shrink slightly in one (or both) directions at the end, when rinsed/washed, but as this is very good quality fabric, it shouldn’t be much, and that’s a chance I’ll have to take.

I have ironed my fabric – I’m using a fat quarter of the 100% cotton satin jean. I’m planning to make my stitch along project into a cushion, and a fat quarter is enough fabric for this.

For tracing, I lay the pattern onto my lightbox, and then lay the fabric over the top, right side up. I pin it in place so that it won’t move while I trace. If you don’t have a lightbox, you might be able to hold it up to a lighted window and trace it there, or if you have a glass-top coffee table, you could put it on that with a lamp shining up from below.

I use an HB clicky pencil – you know the ones, with lead that you click up – to trace it on. If you don’t have a clicky pencil, make sure your pencil is sharp so that it produces a fine line. Trace with a fine line and a light touch. You do not want a HEAVY DARK line, as that will not only discolour your thread as you stitch, making everything grubby, but it will also be a nightmare to try to wash out. Do yourself a favour, and make sure your lines are as pale as you can possibly make them, while still being able to to see them. They will need to either be covered over, or able to wash out.

I do not recommend using pens/markers that wash out or fade away. I just don’t feel that these are safe, and I can’t say what will happen to them long term. Therefore I feel that it is safer to use an HB pencil.

Because I need both a front and a back out of the fabric, I need to make sure that I can get both out of the one piece of fabric. To do this, I am going to use the following pattern layout on my fabric.I’ll be tracing the outside of the pattern only (the cushion back) onto the side of the fat quarter without the selvedge (the selvedge is the uncut edge of the fabric). This needs to be as close to the cut edge as possible, to allow as much room for the cushion front (to be embroidered) on the remaining fabric. Then the cushion front, outlines and all, except for the centre marker, should be traced right next to it. This will allow for the maximum amount of fabric all around the design, which will help during the embroidery process.

Here you can see my pattern traced on. I traced it on before adding the cushion outside edge onto the pattern, so I’ll have to add that later. Not ideal, but sometimes you don’t think of these things beforehand!

I’m not going to cut the fabric yet, as it will give me more to hold onto around the edges as I embroider, if I don’t cut the section for the back of the cushion off yet.

If you are doing the lily runner instead of the cushion, trace the pattern onto the centre of the fabric, or thereabouts.

In our next installment I will talk about getting inspiration from real life plants for how to interpret lily motifs into stitch.