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eCourse Day One - Type of Stabilizer
Today we are going to try to help you answer a very important question you face daily.
"Which type of stabilizer/backing should I use?"
Picking out the right stabilizer is key to having quality embroidery. Every commericial embroiderer's goal is to have "the" best embroidery in town! I believe to achieve that goal, one key ingredient is to use the best stabilizer for the job. So lets get started!
photo copyright 2007 Kris Congo
First of all, lets define each type of stabilizer:
Tear-Away - A tear-away stabilizer does just what it's name says. It tears easily in both directions. This stabilizer is ideal for fabrics such as canvas, twill, denim, and other sturdy wovens. For example, a heavy weight canvas tote bag. It is important to remember that within the Tear-Away category there are subcategories such as light, medium and heavy tear-aways.
Tear-Away Adhesive (Sticky) - This is a Tear-Away Sticky Stabilizer that does not require any heat (iron) and is generally used for those hard to hoop fabrics and small items. For example, if you need to embroider a design on the shirt collar of a denim shirt, using a sticky tear-away will allow you to stick the collar onto the stabilizer and will keep the collar from moving around during embroidery. Most manufacturers state that the adhesive on sticky stabilizer will not damage nor gum up your needles, however, please be careful of this. The quality of the product you choose makes a big difference. If you start experiencing problems check to see if you needle has any gummy residue. If it does change the needle.
Cut-Away - A Cut-Away is just what it's name says, after the embroidery, you turn the garment inside out and cut away the excess stablizer with a pair of scissors. Take care not to cut too close to the stitches and take care not to cut the garment itself. Cut-Away offers maximum stability. Use Cut-Away on knit T-Shirts, Sweatshirts etc. Anything that needs extra stability. My personal choice is to use a cut-away on bath towels (terry cloth) because a tear-away stabilizer may break down after repeated washings. A cut-away will hold up through the washing machine. Another idea is to use a poly-mesh cutaway (see below).
Poly-Mesh - This is a form of cut-away but it is thinner in feel. It is usually a soft stabilizer, sheer and often referred to as "no show mesh". It is a great choice for children's clothing or where the stabilizer comes in contact with skin because it is softer than regular cut-away. This is also the stabilizer of choice when embroidering light colored shirts. For instance, a white men's dress shirt. The polymesh is more of a no-show stabilizer so you cannot see it through the shirt. No thick ridges can be seen from the front of the shirt. There is also a fusible poly-mesh which is the same great product but you iron it on to your garment (fuses) so you do not have to use a spray adhesive. This stabilizer is a great choice for light colored items, very detailed embroidery designs, knits, etc.
Weblon - This is very similar to Poly-Mesh, but is constructed of nylon rather than polyester. The brand I use is a different color than the ploy-mesh, more of a flesh color which helps you tell them apart when you have a lot of stabilizer in your work station.
Iron-On - This is similar to Tear-Away Adhesive but this backing uses heat from an iron for application. With this stabilizer you do not need sticky nor spray adhesives.
Water Soluble - This is a great stabilizer when you need something to wash away when wet. Dissolves when wet, and it comes in several forms. One form is a plastic type of film which is thick. Another form is a light weight plastic-like film, and then there is the fabric-like wash wash away. The plastic-like films are great on top of your fabric (so not as a backing but as a topping). This is a great choice when embroidering knits, fleece, terry cloth or any fabric with a nap. It holds the stitches above the fabric. Of course once the item is washed the water soluble stabilizer gets washed away too. The fabric-like wash away is great for doing Free Standing Lace because it still feels like you are embroidering on fabric, but the "fabric" is water soluble and will rinse away under warm water giving you fantastic FSL designs.
Dry Cover Up- This stabilizer is a topping. You can use this instead of a water soluble topping. It is a plastic-like film and you stitch on top of it, but you do not wash it out. It does not dissolve in water. The stitches cover it up so you do not see it, and it does a great job of keeping the stitches from getting buried into the nap of fabrics like fleece or terrycloth. Since it is permanent, it will not wash out in the washing machine so it will keep your embroidery design looking nice for a long time to come.
Okay, now that you are powered with that information, pull out the job that you are working on...
Let's say you are going to embroider a design on terry cloth towels. If I was new on the job I would first start off by looking at my guide above to see which would be the best. According to this guide I could use either a tear-away, a cut-away, poly-mesh, or a wash-away. Well, that isn't a lot of help now is it? Let's explore this further because here is where you will learn your preferences by basing them on your experiences and results. To do some research, use one towel for the trial. Embroider your design on this towel several times and each time you re-hoop, use a different stabilizer. Now you will have the same design embroidered all over this one towel, and each time you used a different product of stabilizer on the back. Wash the towel and put it in the dryer each time you do laundry for the next month and then take a close look at your results. Whichever one held up the best would be your ideal choice for future towels. My suggestion is to always use a topping stabilizer on towels...so you are doing this research to determine your backing stabilizer.
If you get stuck on deciding what backing to use just go back to the guide or search the Internet...google it! Or instead, conduct your own research experiments and save your results for future reference. The big thing to remember is always use stabilizer.
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