How NOT to Stitch Napped Fabrics

Today I thought I'd share with you some of the quirks of stitching on napped fabrics. I love stitching on napped fabrics - especially velvet and velveteen. There's just something so lush about the way the stitches sink into the pile of the fabric. Delicious! But there are a few things to keep in mind - things that I sometimes foget (or miscalculate) myself.

This was my first try at the Sweet Dreams Prince. FAIL! Those of you who follow me on Facebook or Twitter saw my post about needing to start over on this project - now I'll tell you why. :-)

First - let me note that when I stitch on napped fabrics I use this product to transfer the image. It's REALLY hard to draw on velvet, so I draw on this stuff and then layer it over the fabric I want to stitch and hoop them as one. You can see the video here. It works GREAT - but it means you don't see your stitches right on the fabric until after you rinse the stabilizer away. I know I should test these things out before stitching up an entire project (even a quick and easy one like this). I also know I should make a muslin first any time I'm working with a new sewing pattern, and test my thread for colorfastness before I throw it in the wash. But most of the time I just don't. And sometimes that comes back and bites me.

Because the fabric has a pile - the stitches tend to sink in instead of standing on the surface. That's exactly what I like about stiching napped fabrics - but it means you need to use more strands of thread than you would normally. When I stitched this design on smooth cotton (what you see on the pattern cover) I used 4 strands of thread for the outlining, and 2 strands for the stars. On the sample above I used 6 strands for the outlining and 3 for the stars. So far, so good. The outlines showed up pretty well.

The problem came with the lettering. Based on your suggestions for the original sketch, I made the lettering a little bigger (and therefore easier to stitch). But it was still pretty fine. I didn't want the letters to look like blobs of thread, so I used just two strands to get a nice fine line.

Big mistake! It just looks like a bunch of dots! I might have tried it with 3 or 4 strands, but my gut told me that while that would be bold enough to stand out on the pile of the fabric, it would be too bold to actually be able to read the letters. Back to blobs to thread on the fabric. So - when I restitched it I decided to use a standard smooth cotton fabric. I'm happy with how it turned out - and it gave me a chance to remind all of you (with a nice concrete example) to choose really simple patterns if you're stitching on napped fabric.

The end. :-)

Happy stitching!

Best,
Wendi