Hand Embroidery with a Coffee Filter

I know this post is late. I promise to try to get back on schedule of posting every Sunday. To be honest, I only get to see my husband on the weekends, so I kinda put everything off when he is home.

Back in 2013, Fandom in Stitches hosted a Dr. Who stitch along. I decided I wanted to make this awesome blanket for a friend of mine. My downside was that I didn't actually know the first thing about hand embroidery. A friend taught me this trick, and 36 blocks later (my blanket may be a wee bit bigger than originally designed), it has been extremely helpful.

I have had lots of people ask me how I stitched onto dark fabric. This didn't make sense to me, until I figured out that most draw their designs onto their background fabric with either water soluble pens or chalk. With this method, it doesn't matter what your background is.

First, start with some coffee filters. You know, the ones that are like $5 for 500.

Then grab a bunch, I usually grab about 1/4 inch worth, and then take the iron to them, making them as flat as you can. You will most likely be flipping the stack a few times.

Now, print out your handy template.

Tape your flat filter as tight as you can to the paper. (Sometimes your design will be bigger than the filter. You may have to use two filters. In this case, make sure your design is fully covered by over-lapping filters and trim as much excess filter as you can. I leave about 1/4 inch of overlap.)

With a sharp pencil, trace your template. be careful, the filter doesn't take kindly to the eraser.

From here, gently pull up your coffee filter. Leave the tape attached, it will become helpful when positioning on your fabric. Here I have centered my pattern and put my needle through the filter and fabric to hold it together while I press down on the tape and get it into my hoop.

You want to get as much of your design in the hoop as possible. The more you have to re-position, the more the filter will tear apart. Here I have gotten all but two letters fully into the hoop. I will show you later.

Start stitching!

Now, I know it is going to be a little hard to see because of my thread color (which is glow in the dark, btw.) But in theory, you notice the grey disappearing. This is what I mean about getting most of your design area in the hoop. I have the top of the k, the e, and the tail of the j that extend past my stitching area. I will stitch everything but these letters so that my filter is as stationary as possible.

Once I shimmy the hoop around and get them done, then the hoop is removed for what I consider the fun part!

When tearing the filter off, I try to get the largest amount off as possible in the first pull.

From there, it becomes picking at little stuff. Sometimes I have to use my needle to help pry it up. Tweezers might also be a good tool here.

Ta-DA! We are done.