Boiling Mountmellick embroidery?! Why?
The fabric that we have used for the Mountmellick embroidery stitch along is the gorgeous high-quality 100% cotton satin jean fabric. It comes slightly off-white. At the completion of the embroidery, we boil it to finish whitening off the fabric. It is only a subtle difference, but it definitely does make a difference.
The boiling is done at the completion of the embroidery as I believe that if you do it before, the fabric can become too hard to get the needle through. I can’t say I’ve ever tried boiling before embroidering though – I’m just happy to go along with what others have told me, as far as that is concerned! I do boil before sewing on the knitted fringe though, as I don’t want it to all get tangled. However, as this is what would be done with old Mountmellick embroidery to get them back to white, there is no reason why it can’t be done. I just prefer to save myself the hassle of untangling!
To boil the embroidery you will need a largish pot for the stove, pure soap flakes, a stove, a spoon for stirring, and the embroidery. You can see from this photo that the white of the stitching is more white than the fabric, which has a more yellowish hue. This is what we are endeavouring to get rid of.
Put the embroidery in the pot and cover it with a good amount of water. Add a slurp of soap flakes – yes, very exact that, isn’t it? Enough to make it soapy, but not so many that there are bubbles everywhere! In the photo you can see the flakes of soap floating around. There are more than that, they’re just down the bottom and under the fabric. There’s no need to try to make them dissolve by stirring lots, as they’ll dissolve of their own accord in the warming water.
Turn the stove on, and bring the water to the boil. I usually leave the lid on, set the oven timer for about 10mins (unless you have a large quantity of water that will take much longer to boil) and go away and do something else. When the timer goes off, I come back and check it, and give it a swish. Usually its not quite boiling yet, so I just hang around, making sure it all stays in the water and doesn’t float up out of the water too much. There’s no need for constant stirring as the fabric is 100% cotton and therefore won’t melt even if it touches the bottom of the pan.
When the water is boiled, carefully empty the water into the sink. (Its hot, so be careful, ok?! I accept NO responsibility for burns and scalds. Sorry!)
Refill the pot with water. Set it to boil again. The water will probably cloud up again, from the soap residue that is still in the fabric. When it boils again, empty the water, and refill again.
Keep boiling and refilling, until the water no longer clouds up with soap. Empty the water and rinse the embroidery. Hang out to dry, then press from the back.
For the amount of soap that I used, and the quantity of water, I had to boil mine four times to get it to clear. You may need more or less times depending on the quantities you use.
You can see a subtle difference in the two fabric colours here. The embroidered one is slightly whiter than the other one, so you can see that boiling does make a difference.
If your Mountmellick embroidery ever becomes less than white, it can always be boiled white again, using the same process. Do NOT boil the embroidery if your fabric is not 100% cotton though, as you will risk it melting or warping in the heat.
The nice thing about cotton fabric is that it can withstand this sort of treatment. White cotton tablecloths are much less trouble than polycotton, even if they do need ironing!
I am so GLAD I’m not the only one who boils finished embroidery, or needlework fabric, for that matter. (I often do a boil-cold water – boil – cold water rotation with linen, before embroidering, if I want to make sure every bit of shrink is out of the fabric.)
This is also a great way to remove stains, as well, including tough stains. I often use cream of tartar in the water (about 2 teaspoons) if an item has a stain or soiling on it, as this helps remove some stains really well. (Wine, for example.) I don’t know why it works, but it does!
This is also done with traditional Schwalm work – the lines they use are kind of “inked” on (or pounced on, though it looks more like a heavy blackish-grey ink applied with a stencil or something), and it’s frightful to think of doing all that work with those dark lines on there. But when boiled, voila – the lines are gone, the piece comes out crisp-white.
Ahhh. I love boiling.
Interesting about the boiling only after the stitching is done. I hadn’t thought about the fabric tightening up and being tougher to stitch on, I was thinking maybe whatever finish was on it might help keep it from getting dirty while working on it.
I also never heard about sure the fabric was shrunk before stitching, I had only heard about washing threads so they wouldn’t bleed/stain when washing after stitching.
I’ll need to make a note of these to keep with my stitching notes, for when I get back to starting a new project.
forgot to mention – Lux is a brand I haven’t seen in YEARS! I’m guessing the Ivory is the only brand of soap flakes left here. At least I think it’s still available. Would Castile soap shavings work as an alternative?
As long as Castile is pure soap (ie no optical brighteners etc), it should be fine.