Blackwork T-shirt question

Cotton knit, as in a t-shirt, is pretty stretchy - so, personally, I'd use the waste canvas. Or stabilise under where you will be stitching. It's an interesting idea.

Ellice

I did , best way is to line with some Flisseline [only name i know ] i mean that Stuff you glue inside a collar when you sew one. mirjam

Il Mon, 19 May 2008 22:47:54 -0500, Keith Barber ha scritto:

DMC France has a new product, Toile Magic (Magic Fabric): a special waste canvas that can be washed away at 40°C.

Ellice

I've done a lot of stitching on garments -- t-shirts, sweatshirts and various things made of woven fabrics. When doing ANY type of stitching on ANY type of knit, I **ALWAYS** use a firm stabilizer on the underside of the fabric. In all cases, when stitching a design that is counted, I have used waste cloth of some sort on the face of the fabric AND a stabiizer on the underside of the fabric. If I am doing a design that is not couted, then I will only use the stabilizer on the back side. As someone else pointed out, knits are really stretchy and it is almost impossible to get decent results without use of a firm stabilizer on the underside. I also use some sort of hoop and it's totally impossible to get a knit into a hoop and hot have it get all wonky if you don't use a stabilizer! CiaoMeow >^;;^<

PAX, Tia Mary >^;;^< (RCTQ Queen of Kitties) Angels can't show their wings on earth but nothing was ever said about their whiskers! Visit my Photo albums at

Tia Mary wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net:

Thanks to all of you for your suggestions, I am now looking forward to giving this a try.

If it's embroidery that can be done "in hand", then I have found a stabilizer is not necessary on knit fabrics.

A stabilizer, however, is not what Stefania was talking about. She was referring to a wash-away waste canvas.

A designer in "Inspirations" magazine used waste canvas on a hand knit item. So, there's many ways to work with knits.

Dianne

Tia Mary wrote:

Stefania didn't, but I did, and I imagine that's what Mary was remembering. Personally, though without your amount of experience, I'd be uncomfortable embroidering a large area on a knit such as a t-shirt, without some kind of stabilizing. Just a small motif in hand is of course another story.

Seems we all agree on that.

Ellice

I have purchased any number of knit sweaters that have absolutely gobs of embroidery, beading, sequins, and not one has stabilizing. Perhaps they use a washable stablizers, but I doubt it. Otherwise these sweater would have to go through too much of a process. These are hand embroidered with probably laborers who need whatever sum they can get for their work. It often doesn't last. The thread ends aren't very well anchored.

The wash-away waste canvas sounds perfect for knits, and I wouldn't think a backing would be necessary. Remember: a knit is suppose to give. A stabilizer that doesn't wash out isn't going to "give". You need to embroider a little more loosely than you would otherwise embroider.

Dianne

ellice wrote:

Dianne Lewandowski wrote:

The original reference was to doing a blackwork design on something like a t-shirt. To me, this means a design that is very geometric and trying to do something like this on a t-shirt "in hand", especially without some sort of stabilizer, seems to be asking for trouble because most t-shirts don't really have a lot of body. While someone who is experienced in stitching geometric designs on knits could likely to do it without use of a stabilizer, it just makes more sense to MOI to use one. The original post didn't sound as if it was from someone who had much experience in this type of stitching. Stitching on something like a sweater, even a light weight one, is a whole world different than stitching on a t-shirt because sweaters are knit with much heavier fibers. In addition, the commercially made sweaters I have seen with embroidery have "general" type embroidery designs, not any sort of counted or predominately geometric designs. Also, for those who have never done any stitching on garments of any sort, regular counted designs -- those meant for even weave fabrics -- don't look quite right on sweater knits. Likely this is why most of the designs you see embroidered on sweaters are not cross stitch or any other sort of geometric design. You see lots of what I term "surface" or "general" embroidery designs -- more free form type designs like florals, silk ribbon embroidery and such. Not to say that's the only type of design you see but they obviously aren't anything counted. IIRC, designs made specifically for stitching on sweater knits are called duplicate stitch designs. Anywhooo, as I said, I always use a stabilizer when working on t-shirts or sweatshirts because I put them in a hoop and a woven backing fabric is absolutely necessary. I will add that once the stitching is done, I cut away ALL of the stabilizing fabric that is not covered by stitching so that there is none of the backing fabric left uncovered by stitching. IMNSHO, even if you didn't trim away unstitched parts of the backing fabric, it wouldn't make the garment stiff but it would sure make it bulky and uncomfortable to wear! Been a very long time since we had a thread about this topic. Glad to see we have someone interested enough to ask questions :-). CiaoMeow >^;;^<

PAX, Tia Mary >^;;^< (RCTQ Queen of Kitties) Angels can't show their wings on earth but nothing was ever said about their whiskers! Visit my Photo albums at

Oh, I totally understand with respect to embroidery on sweaters. And since you knit, no doubt have done plenty of embroidery or embellishment on sweaters. But, in thinking about embroidering on a tee-shirt, which I'd expect to be going through the laundry, that's a different issue, or variant in my mind. I have some little cotton knit shirts which have hand embroidery around the neck line - they're a step up from t-shirts - and consequtnetly, require gentle washing, line or flat drying. And they don't last all that long. OTOH, the workshirt I embroidered over 30 years ago, has held up just fine - but that was embroidery on chambray/light denim and has seen plenty of washing machines (OTOH, I think I can fit it on one arm, not all of me).

True. Since the original question was about doing blackwork, which isn't as free from in actual stitch design as say a floral, that's why it seems to me that stabilizing would be a good idea. OR the waste canvas. I've seen many knit shirts with sections embroidered, with permanent stabilizing, that wash and look just fine - not weird with the embroidered section. But, those are essentially areas say 4' x 6" . A bunch of my EMS uniform stuff, and shirts that DH gets for his 6 Sigma stuff - they're knit polos (like golf shirts) with some cutsom embroidery - which has been done by machine, with stabilizer behind. They go thru the laundry, and look fine - the rest of the shirt stretches/ breaths, but the embroidered section doesn't stretch quite the same. But, it doesn't look weird or puekered around the edges. Of course, it 's much heavier stabilizer than I would use at home.

Ellice