Happy holidays from the American Sewing Guild!
What I’m Embroidering: Tile Embroidery
Gorgeous! Amazing! Exquisite! So detailed!
But how LONG did it take?
Diana Latino of the Princeton Chapter is getting used to comments like these that come every time she shares one of her completed tile embroideries. And she has a number of them done already.
What’s Tile Embroidery?
Tile embroidery is a complex design done on an embroidery machine in which up to 32 separate, usually very dense designs are stitched independently and then sewn together to create a complete picture for a wall size quilt.
Diane’s holiday design, Starry Night Santa from OESD is the perfect example of this intricate style. With the light just right, you can see where the separate tiles have been sewn together to create the image of Santa standing on a snowy landscape looking up at the Christmas star. Each tile is created by the embroidery stitches with a myriad of threads to create the subtle shadings. The entire design was more than a million stitches with about 32 thread changes per tile. And as for how long did it take, Diana claims to have completed the embroidery in just a week. Then she added, “But that was stitching 8 hours or more a day, every day,” and credits husband Mike with doing all the cooking which allowed her to focus on the stitching. With 32 tiles and each tile taking up to 3 hours to embroider, that was an intense 96 hour work week! But the results are spectacular.
Getting Started
Diana began embroidering in 2005, and discovered the tiles in 2010 when she got tired of just sewing for her kids and wanted something more challenging. She says she gets such a feeling of accomplishment when she puts the finishing touches on one of these designs, and even though many are holiday themed, she leaves them hanging all year. Her Santa’s Workshop, also from OESD, is another Christmas themed design. This one appears to be in black and white, but achieves its detail and subtle shadings through the use of 18 different shades of gray thread. Keeping the thread names, numbers, and spools coordinated is one of her biggest challenges. In fact, she once relied on the color name that came up on her machine and ended up with a blue ear on Santa! Now she lines up all her threads and labels them BEFORE she begins her first tile.
Adding Machine Appliqué
Some of the designs like Poppy also incorporate machine appliqué with the stitching. The use of fabrics cuts down the embroidery time and gives a more traditional quilting look to the finished project. Her Halloween from Molly Mine designs is another example of the use of appliqué. And another Halloween design this time from Anita Good is Haunted House.
Not all of her efforts go into holiday designs. Diana shared some pictures of floral designs from Anita Good, Connecting Flowers and County Church as well as the landscape, Beach.
Tips
If you have been inspired to try a tile embroidery, Diana has a few suggestions.
Organization is essential for any project, but especially when working with tiles.- Be sure to have the right threads and label them so you can easily select the correct color.
- To save fabric, instead of cutting out and hooping separate blocks, cut fabric into longstrips the required width for the hoop. This allows you to hoop the next design without the large areas of wasted fabric outside the hoop.
- To make stitching the tiles together easier, on each completed tile, label the back with the number of the tile to make sewing the project more organized.
- To line up the tiles more accurately, a bright colored thread in the bobbin for the outline stitch makes the alignment more visible.
- Trim the blocks to a ½” seam allowance instead of the ¼” recommended. The ½” is more manageable.
Diana regularly shares her embroidery projects with the online embroidery group of the Princeton Chapter where she has inspired and motivated members to experience the fun of machine embroidery.
~Diana Latino, Princeton Chapter
Border Prints 101
When shopping for fabric, we’re accustomed to seeing rows of bolts with an allover print. But look a little deeper and you’ll find some with unique features—border prints! Border prints are fun to work with and allow you to showcase this print feature in creative ways.
What is a border print?
Instead of a fabric having the same patterning across the full width of the fabric, border prints have a different pattern along one or both edges. The bands of distinct prints can be narrow or wide, and can extend their emphatic look across the fabric’s full width in some instances creating a beautiful graphic element.
- A double border print may have the same or differing designs along each fabric edge. A common pairing is to have one narrow border and one wider one.
- A border print is parallel to the fabric’s selvage, ready for showcasing in a garment, accessory or quilt and can be found on a woven fabric or along the cut edge of a knit.
- Another type of fabric considered a border print has a lengthwise edge detail like scallops or fringe along one or both sides.
Working with a Border Print
The primary difference in working with a border print is that the project needs to be on the crosswise grain of the fabric, rather than the traditional lengthwise spec. The design area is best showcased along a straight edge, like a skirt or sleeve hemline, pant leg, jacket hem, etc., though it doesn’t need to be at the bottom of a garment. The border can also be used along a pocket edge, in a bodice area or even at the waistline.
If you prefer to use the border vertically instead of horizontally, think about a jacket front, wrap skirt or side-seam accent. If you choose this orientation, be sure the border design isn’t directional—for example, you probably don’t want flower stems horizontal on a jacket front, or people lying down along a wrap skirt edge. The print should really be non-directional for vertical use.
Border prints can also be used to accent small areas, like collars and cuffs, totes, etc., and are also ideal for home décor projects, like on a curtain hem, pillow or quilt border.
Like any distinct print, matching is always a good idea, so consider where you may need to match a distinct pattern before you begin cutting. A hemline border should match at the side seams to avoid breaking the visual patterning.
Pattern Adaption
Some patterns are designed specifically to be used with border prints, but most are not. Look for designs with straight edges, like a gathered or pleated skirt, if you want to feature the print along the hemline.
- If the area you want to use the print in is curved, you’ll need to straighten it or risk losing part of the border to the curve.
- Redraw your pattern’s grainline to reflect the new orientation on the fabric. Use a ruler to change up the standard grainline 90°. Double check the fabric width to accommodate the new orientation.
- Since some border prints are close to the selvage, it may be necessary to modify a hem depth if you want to use the print along the bottom of a skirt. A narrower hem, or a faced hem, could both be options depending on the design placement.
Yardage Adaptation
The amount of yardage needed for a border print will likely differ from what was originally called for if the garment was originally cut on the lengthwise grain. After redrawing the grainline on the pattern pieces, do a test layout to refigure the fabric before purchasing. Keep in mind that it’s best to cut all the garment pieces on the same grain to avoid any variance in directional prints or shading.
The width of the fabric may limit the use of the border on certain garments, or require you to piece a garment if you’re intent on using a particular fabric.
Note that you can also trim off the border and reattach it if needed, to get the look you want in your project.
Now that you know more about them, when you see a border print fabric, think about how you can showcase it in your next project!
~Linda Griepentrog
Linda is the owner of G Wiz Creative Services and she does writing, editing and designing for companies in the sewing, crafting and quilting industries. In addition, she escorts fabric shopping tours to Hong Kong. She lives at the Oregon Coast with her husband Keith, and two dogs, Yohnuh and Abby. Contact her at .
Sewing Basics: Fabric Terms
What is the one item that you absolutely must have for every sewing project you will ever do? It’s fabric, of course! Since the fabric you choose will have a significant impact on how your finished project turns out, it can help to have an understanding of how fabric is woven so that you can meet the expectations of your finished project. While weaving is a skill all on its own, understanding weaving principles can open our eyes to a greater depth of our understanding of fabric. Let’s start by watching this 7-minute video as we see cotton and hemp woven into fabric.
Fabric Terms
Now that we have a visual of the process, let’s look at fabric terms:
Selvage: The video provides a great visual representation of selvage and why it exists. The process of shuttling the weft threads back and forth is what creates the finished edge. Now, as you think about how that thread if shuttled from one direction then the other, wrapping the edge as you turn to the other direction, selvage makes a lot more sense. No wonder it doesn’t ravel! And since it is created by wrapping those vertical warp threads, it now makes sense why the selvage is so vital to determining the grainline, as well as the most stable part of the fabric. The selvage can be included when cutting a waistband to help reduce the stretch factor that is sometimes experienced while wearing a garment. Using the finished edge of the selvage in a waistband can add strength and may eliminate the need to turn another layer of fabric inside, thus reducing a layer of bulk.
Warp: As shown in the video, warp threads are the first to be set up and run the length of the fabric. Warp threads provide the structure for the weft threads to weave through and give the fabric stability. Warp thread and grainline go together — the grainline equals the direction of the warp thread. Doesn’t it make more sense now that the grainline is the most stable direction of the fabric?
Weft: Remember the threads being shuttled from the left to the right in the video? Those vertical threads are the weft, which also defines the cross grain of the fabric. The cross grain is the second most stable direction of your fabric but since they are not held tightly in place like the warp thread, they have a bit more “give” to them. However, since they are in a straight line, they have more stability than the bias, which we will talk about next.
Bias: Think of bias as a tic-tac-toe grid and draw a line from one corner to the opposite diagonal corner. That 45-degree angle is the bias. This has the most give and the least stability of any direction in your fabric. With an understanding now of how threads are woven, you can probably visualize the tiny gap between the threads. When you pull those threads at a diagonal, there is no straight thread to pull against, thus you are pulling across that tiny open gap between the threads. Sometimes we use the property of bias to the advantage of a project. For example, a garment made with bias-cut pieces will have a greater amount of drape and will skim the body much more than the same garment made of the same fabric that was cut on the grain.
Grain: By now, just by talking about warp and weft, we have already addressed grainline. But to see a little bit more focus on the grainline, watch this 6-minute video we published in January of 2020. It addresses some of the things already discussed here with a little more information about how to identify and use the grainline when cutting out your projects.
Hand: The final term in this discussion is hand. The “hand” of a fabric refers to the “feel” of the fabric against your skin. There are many adjectives that can be used to describe the hand, or feel, of a fabric. Words like cool, slick, smooth, loose, stiff, heavy and stretchy can all be used to tell someone about the hand of a fabric.
- Hand and drape are terms that are very closely related. The drape of a fabric is the way it flows over things. Stiff fabrics have less drape while fluid fabrics have more. You can feel the weight of a fabric easily by the thickness when you feel the fabric in your hand — it will feel either light or heavy.
- Think back to what you saw in the weaving video about the threads used in weaving the fabric. The characteristics of those threads play a vital role in the hand and drape of the fabric. The thicker and more stable the threads, the stiffer, and more stable the fabric. Delicate silk threads will weave together to create a much different hand and drape than heftier linen or cotton threads.
- Special treatments of the fabric after it is woven can also impact the hand or drape of the fabric. For example, the dying process can create a stiffer, less drapey hand based of the amount of mordant. A mordant or dye fixative is a substance used to set (i.e. bind) dyes on fabrics. Some mordants can create a stiffer hand and less drape in the final product.
We hope that diving into the art of weaving has given you a new perspective on fabric and has helped to explain the importance of understand the relationship between the fabric you’ve chosen for your project and your desired outcome.
~Sheryl Belson
National Button Day
November 16 is National Button Day! Buttons can be utilitarian, decorative, functional, collector’s item, or works of art and this special day is a celebration of buttons, whether they are in a tin in a drawer, attached to a garment, or displayed in a competition. National Button Day was founded in 1938 by the National Button Society and recognizes button collecting as an organized hobby. Watch our video interview with Jerry Dawson with Benno’s Buttons and see some of his unique buttons, then ASG members are invited to take advantage of a 15% discount from Benno’s Buttons using the code found in the Special Offers area of ASG.org.
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