I finally finished all the hemming yesterday.
I’ve now got the tablecloth soaking in a bucket so that I can carefully go around the whole thing and remove the wash out pencil marks. I’ve found that unfortunately, due to the density of the bullion stitches, the wash out pencil marks don’t simply disappear in water. I need to give the fabric a tiny (and I do mean tiny – there’s no scrubbing here!) rub with my finger nail. It makes it very time consuming to go around checking every stitch on the whole tablecloth, but when I’ve already spent *so many* hours working on it, I’m not skimping at this stage either!
The runner that I hemstitched on Wednesday was damp stretched yesterday, and I left it sitting like that overnight to make sure it was fully dry before removing the pins. Damp stretching makes such a good result. Full instructions will be included in the book, so that you can use this wonderful technique to have your embroidery looking “just so”.
I thought you might like to see the setup I used for the damp stretching yesterday.
Underneath the embroidery are my spongy mats into which I pin. I have used normal dressmaking pins, and lots of them! Around the edges are 4 cartons of my books which are holding down the edges of the spongy mats, to stop them from curling up under the tension of the fabric.
I could use anything heavy, really, but I’ve got lots of book cartons just lying around and they’re definitely nice and heavy! Having them that large around the edges does impede the airflow and probably slows down the drying a bit, but that’s a price that’s worth paying if it means it will give a good result.
White Threads is the blog of Yvette Stanton, the author, designer, publisher behind Vetty Creations' quality needlework books and embroidery products.
Can you provide a better description of “spongy mats”?
Hi Kathryn,
I have heard of people using a number of different types of things such as cork board, or polystyrene.
However, one of my dedicated readers here suggested to me to use those high density foam mats that have alphabet cutouts, the type that are for kids to put together as a large floor jigsaw. (You can slightly see the A and B in the photo.) I immediately saw the benefit of something like this: they can be packed away when not in use, and you can use as many or as few tiles as you need for the size of the piece. I knew that I was going to have to stretch my tablecloth, and this solved the problem of what to use perfectly. Not sure where in the world you are, but I got mine quite cheaply at my local Kmart store (Australia).
You could probably also use those roll up foam mats that people use for yoga – though because it has been rolled you would have to contend with the curve of the surface with weights.
For small pieces, in the past I had used my ironing board.
Now that’s a useful thought. Those alphabet mats should be easy to find! Do you have any trouble with the mats gradually interlocking less well the more they are used (suggesting that it’s worth buying a better quality of mat, and not just the cheapest!)?
Hi Rachel,
Given that there are about 30 mats within my pack, and I’ll very rarely use all (or any!) of them, I can’t imagine they’re going to wear out quickly. They will get wear and tear by being pinned into – the pin holes will gradually cause them to break down – but considering how long it will take for this to happen, and that I only paid $15 for the whole set, I think I’ll be getting very good value out of them! I wouldn’t think that you’d need to invest in a better quality set, unless the poor quality sets available to you are very poor!