Angela Wolf

Embroider Lace on Tulle Fabric Tutorial

How to Embroider Lace on Tulle

With the launch of my new lace embroidery collection A Touch of Lace, I thought this would be a good time to share a few tutorials showing how to embroider lace. I am going to start with my all time favorite, embroidering on tulle fabric. You might have seen my outfits with what I call “removable tattoos”. These sleeves are designed by embroidering on tulle fabric; then I cut out my sleeves from the embroidered tulle fabric. Let me show you how easy this is!

Supplies:

Tulle Fabric
Sew N Wash Embroidery Stabilizer
A Touch of Lace Embroidery Collection
Rayon or Polyester Embroidery Thread
#10 or #12 Embroidery Needle

Choosing Tulle Fabric

When you start looking for tulle fabric, you might get a little overwhelmed with the options. The main thing is to check the texture and hand of the fabric. For example, since I am using the tulle for a garment I want the fabric to be soft to the touch. I also prefer a drape vs. a stiff fabric. How can you tell? If you get a chance to shop for the tulle fabric in person, hold the fabric in your hand. Does the fabric lay stiff like a sheet of paper, or does the fabric drape softly? Does the fabric feel soft or scratchy? If you are shopping online it’s a little harder to tell, but you can always purchase a small swatch. Although tulle fabric isn’t very expensive, you might as well order whatever you need for your project. Worse case you can use the tulle in a gift bag!

Fabric Color

Tulle fabric comes in numerous colors, which makes this fabric fabulous for garment projects. Black, white, brown, and cream are my go to colors for nude or see through sleeves. Hold the fabric up to your skin; you might be surprised at how see thru this fabric really is. Another option is to choose a color to coordinate with a specific project. Below is a sample using navy tulle with navy thread and black tulle with black thread. I will talk more about the color of the fabric in the next few tutorials.

Navy Tulle Sample

Black Tulle Sample

How to Hoop Tulle

1. Open the embroidery hoop and place the lower section of the hoop on a flat surface. Center the Sew’N Wash Embroidery Stabilizer over the hoop, making sure the stabilizer covers the entire hoop.

TIP: Sew’N Wash embroidery stabilizer comes in different widths. I usually keep 12″ and 20″ wide on hand; the 20″ wide is ideal for the larger hoops.

2. Layer the tulle fabric, leaving at least 2″ excess around the hoop.

3. Place the top of the embroidery hoop onto the layers. Gently push the hoop together, leaving the tension loose.

4. Gently pull the Sew’N Wash embroidery stabilizer tight at each corner of the embroidery hoop. Check to make sure there are no wrinkles in the stabilizer.

5. Do the same for the tulle fabric, but be very gentle when pulling the fabric as the tulle fabric can tear very easily!

6. Tighten the hoop a little. Slide your hand across the center of the hoop checking for wrinkles or puckers.

7. When you are satisified with the hooping, tighten the hoop and you are ready to start embroidering.

Thread & Bobbin

I use different embroidery threads including rayon and polyester, each offers a different look to your project. I would suggest experimenting with a few different weights and textures to determine your favorite. Keep the samples in a notebook so you can refer back. I typically use the same color thread in the bobbin as I use for the top embroidery. This takes more time when embroiderying a design with multiple colors, but if you are going to see the backside of the embroidery it is worth the extra task.

Choosing an Embroidery Design

Depending on the area of the garment this embroidered tulle will be used for, choosing a design is very important. In my embroidery collection A Touch of Lace, I have included low density versions of each design. A low density designs has less stitches which will offer a softer, less stiff fabric when the embroidery if finished. If you opt for a dense design, make sure the lace will be used on a fitted area of the garment, for example the bicep area on a fitted sleeve. The tightness of the sleeve will prevent the thicker embroidery design from curling.

You are ready to embroider! Hopefully this tutorial will get you started to embroider on tulle. The next tutorials will give you some ideas for using the newly embroidered fabric. Can’t wait to see what you embroider with my new lace collection. Be sure to share photos of what you are embroidering using hashtag #angelawolf

Cheers,

Join my Fashion Sewing Club!

Choosing Easy Sewing Patterns for Beginner Sewing Success!

Hopefully you had time over the weekend to spiff up your sewing room. My Craftsy class “Sew Confident: Essential Techniques for Beginners” has officially launched and we are already just shy of 500 students. Very Exciting!

CONGRATULATIONS!

First things first, congratulations to Tracey McKoy from Baltimore, Maryland. Tracey was last weeks lucky winner and has already joined us in the Craftsy classroom. Guess what else I found out? She enjoys fishing! Good thing Craftsy drew her name or you might think I was swayed 🙂

Let’s Giveaway Another Class!

There was such a HUGE response to the class giveaway, I am going to giveaway another Sew Confident Craftsy class! To enter this time, simply leave a comment below telling me why you would love to win this class, joining students from all over the world – 1 random winner will be drawn Friday at midnight, EST … Good Luck! 🙂

Wondering what’s covered in the class? Here is a link to the trailer video and as promised a SPECIAL 50% DISCOUNT if you would like to join us today.

Beginners Guide to Fashion Sewing

Let’s get started! In case you missed last week’s message, the series for beginner sewing starts now.

Part 1. Choosing a Pattern

What’s the big deal about finding a pattern anyway? Scan the pattern books, find a cute cover photos, and you are ready for sewing success, right?

If only we can all be so fortunate, but in most cases the scenario pans out a little differently. I recall sewing my first pair of pants. The pattern cover showed a tall, elegant model (more…)

Fashion Sewing for Beginners plus a quick sewing tip!

Sewing Tip of the Day!

NEVER use a dull seam ripper!!!!! I buy my seam rippers in bulk from WAWAK Sewing and you should too 🙂 Then you can throw them away at the first sign of dullness and grab a new one.

(more…)

How to Make Covered Buttons

All About Buttons!

Embellishing is one of my favorite things to do, in fact sometimes I even add touches to ready-to-wear garments. One of the easiest ways to restyle is to change the buttons. Even better, your own custom covered buttons! From simple to couture, this is what I will cover in the next series of blogs.

First, lets start with the basics on how to cover a button. The base of the button looks just like the ones above and they come in many sizes. There at two kinds available, I prefer the ones with what I call “teeth”, like this one from WAWAK.

Each button has 2 parts: a top that you will wrap your fabric around and a base that snaps onto the back, securing the fabric.

Let’s get started!

Cut out a circle from your fashion fabric, just little bit bigger than the button.

Note: the circle above is too large for that button, it should look more like the photo below

2. Wrap the fabric around the curve of the button top, securing edges of fabric in the teeth. If the fabric is plaid or striped, take care in placing the button and check the alignment of the shank to make sure its the same on every button.

3. Continue all the way around until the fabric is tight and secure.

See why I prefer the teeth, so much easier to tighten the fabric!

4. Place the backing on and snap into place with needle nose pliers. Snap all the way around the button to make sure the back is tightly closed.

Trouble Shooting: If you can’t snap the back of the button in place, you might have too much fabric inside. This means the circle of fabric was too large, but you can still trim out the excess fabric to make it work.

That’s it! Super easy and trend with a touch of couture 🙂

I have quite a few more buttons to go, but this jacket has been cut and sitting in my “to do” bin for over a year! Hand-dyed silk charmeuse lining and all, I must finish this before spring!

One more thing about covering buttons: A little trick that I do to make my buttons look more professional is to add a touch of cotton. You can use cotton balls, make-up remover cotton, batting, even a thin piece of polar fleece.

Center the cotton on the button, then wrap the fabric over the cotton. Now when you secure the fabric tightly you won’t see any metal through the fabric and it softens the look. Now when I want to add beading to the button I can actually get my needle through the fabric. If you have a hard time keeping the cotton in place, use a tab of super glue, just let the glue dry before covering with fabric.

Buying Covered Buttons:

There are so many covered buttons to choose from it can get a little overwhelming, so I have included links to the ones that I use from WAWAK Sewing:

These are all 12 packs, but trust me you will go through them. These buttons have a curved top, they also carry a flat top.

Next time I will show how I made these custom buttons:

Hope you had a great week! Off to work on samples for It’s Sew Easy TV taping next week.

Cheers,

THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH!!!!! Just one more round to go!

I just got back from a 6 day Sit & Sew tour visiting all the Allbrands stores which started in Louisiana and ended in Texas. Fabulous trip, but definitely dragging a little today. I will be sharing details of the week as soon as I organize all the photos. In short, I met so many wonderful people, ate some amazing food, got over my fear of bridges, I now have official Mardi Gras beads …

In the meantime, I posted this message to facebook and realized not all of you are on facebook, so I thought I would THANK YOU again.

Saturday was the last day of teaching and I was flying out the next morning. Super tired, but before crashing I decided to scan my emails and came across one from Craftsy with the title “Are you a blogger award finalist?”. I clicked on the link and couldn’t believe it! You nominated my blog to the top 4 Best Sewing Instructor Blog again. You all are AWESOME! This means so much to me, thank you, thank you. I also know it is a little work to nominate a blog at the first stage, you have to fill out a lot of things. Thanks so much for going through the effort, you inspire me to keep at it 🙂

One More Round of Voting

Now, there is a last round of voting that ends Wednesday at midnight. This vote is quick and easy:

Click here to vote: Scroll down the page to Vote Now! Best Craftsy Sewing Instructor’s Blog and you will see my name. Vote and then watch the tally live.

Just being in the top 4 is such an honor and knowing it’s because of your effort to nominate me really makes my day and a huge THANK YOU is all I can say! By the way, while you are scanning the page you might want to check out a few of my friends blogs that also made the top 4 in their category: Leah Day has a great one for quilting and Lisa Shaw in Embroidery.

WARDROBE CHALLENGE

The 2014 Wardrobe Challenge was so much fun! Seeing your outfits on flickr and following your Pinterest boards has been a treat and a quick way to get in the sewing mood, I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I have. There have been a few hiccups on my end, so thanks for your patience. (Note to self: Never plan anything while I am traveling to teach, tape It’s Sew Easy, or shoot online classes – just not enough time and brain space ) In fact, I still need to post the list of winners, but I wanted to give you the last challenge.

LAST CHALLENGE

I told you the last challenge would be an easy one. Take a picture of the clothes in your closet that you have sewn this past year and post it on Flickr before February 15th (the same way you posted the other photos – click here if you need help uploading to flickr). Even if you only have 1 garment, your photo qualifies you for this last challenge. Winners will be all random drawings from the entrants, so even if you haven’t participated yet or you feel intimidated by the rock stars who have really used the challenge to fill their closet, let us see what you have made. Again this is just 1 photo, just like mine. Good luck and thanks again to all that have participated.

I don’t know if you read my last post about the cooking adventure, but many of you gave the best tips for cleaning the pan! the baking soda worked like a charm and I wrote all the cleaning tips down so I am ready for the next burn. Well, I am off to edit pictures and explain to Winn how I got my mardi gras beads 🙂

Cheers and one last thank you,

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