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Know Your (Hand-Sewing) Needles

Quick Tip: Stitch and Place from Nancy Zieman

Jennifer Stern, contributor

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This is what a square of underlay looks like. Underlay is used as a foundation for your embroidery, it helps to support the design and the stitches on any given fabric.

Photo: Jennifer Stern

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Once you get the hang of it, embroidery is easy!…It’s getting the embroidery designs to stitch out in exactly the right place that is the challenge. I have created garments for fashion shows like the Bernina Fashion Show at the Houston Quilt Festival and Pfaff Dealer Convention Fashion Shows—winning Best in Show, Viewer’s Choice, and Judges Choice—and I still have to struggle to get the embroidery in the right spot (…especially if the spot is small!)

I was poking around for something new, and I came across Nancy Zieman’s new software program that allows you to select an outline of a part of a garment, such as a collar. Combine the outline with your own selected embroidery designs and quickly position the part of the garment you want to embroidery on in the hoop…using the stitched outline as a placement guide.

You can quickly embroider on the very tip of a collar, the exact spot on a pocket, buttonhole placket or hemline that you hoping for!

There are over 400 stitch outlines for everything from belts, plackets, collars, necklines, cuffs, hemlines, pockets and much more! These outlines are formatted for ART, DST, EXP, HUS, PES and VIP.

Check out this video of Nancy showing you how easy it is to get perfect placement every time…I can think of more than one time I wish I had had an outline to guide my placement on a ready-to-wear garment.

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