Tutorial: Embroidery project using scrapbook designs!

I wanted to share how I made this embroidered tea towel using scrapbooking designs from The Lilypad! I'm going to give it to my Mom as a Christmas gift.


First, I used a wreath design and word art from the lovely Memory Pockets Monthly, Twinkle Collection, simply placing the word art inside the wreath for my embroidery design. Using my regular old Epson inkjet printer, I printed out the design on adhesive fabric that is made for embroidery.


This stuff is so easy to use -- it prints just like paper and then you peel the backing paper off to reveal the adhesive and stick the printed design onto your fabric. It sticks perfectly and you just stitch right through it and then the printed design DISSOLVES in water at the end! Magical.



I am not an embroidery expert so I just looked up some very simple embroidery stitches to use -- satin stitch, backstitch and french knots. There are tons of videos online about how to embroider and these stitches are very simple. The whole design took me a few hours to embroider working on it a bit here and there over a few days.

I am so delighted with how it turned out! Here it is before removing the pattern


And the finished version after dissolving the pattern in water



This was a fun and rewarding project and I found embroidery really relaxing. It was nice to create my own pattern using digital designs from TLP so that I didn't have to buy anything from a craft store or Etsy. I highly recommend giving it a try!

 

LOL. It's been decades since I embroidered anything but I learned when I was a kid so maybe some of it stuck with me. I did find YouTube tutorials to be really helpful also!

 

It really works beautifully! It dissolved with just a couple minutes of soaking in water -- didn't even need to wash it or anything.

 

The only supply I used was this adhesive stablizing fabric from Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/Sulky-409-02...embroidery+paper+dissolve,aps,184&sr=8-7&th=1

You run it through your printer (just like you would any printer paper) to print the design on it. Then you stick it onto your towel or whatever you're embroidering. This was the first time I've tried this but it worked so beautifully that I would probably just stay with this same product. I used a flour sack-type towel that I also got on Amazon and a bunch of embroidery thread that I had from previous craft projects.