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Tips for transferring embroidery designs to fabric.

Trudy Horne, longtime columnist for Creative Needle Magazine and owner of Collars, Etc. Pattern Company, recommends using a 3B soft graphite pencil for tracing embroidery designs, especially delicate, detailed motifs. She suggests placing starched & ironed fabric over the embroidery design and tracing with the soft pencil. For more detailed information, go to the Collars, Etc. website (http://www.collarsetc.com/news.html)

Sewing the Neck Binding to a Bishop Dress

Having trouble sewing in the binding for the neckline of a Bishop Dress? Can’t seem to keep it close to the first row of smocking? Try this simple solution:
Using a light weight, tear-away stabilizer (the kind used in machine embroidery), mark
the length of the finished neck opening. Position and pin the Bishop on the
stabilizer, right side up and distribute the pleats evenly. Loosen the
pressure on the foot of your sewing machine, then carefully stitch along neck
edge close to the first smocked row. Tear away the stabilizer. Pin the neck
binding to the neck of the Bishop with right sides together and sew along the previous stitching from the wrong side. Trim neck edge, if needed, turn binding to wrong side and blind
stitch in place by by hand. Don’t forget to turn in ends at the back.
Note: refer to your pattern for length and width of binding.

Originally submitted to MSS Newsletter by Barbara Scappaticci

Sewing Sense

If you have trouble determining which is the “right” and which is the “wrong” side of your fabric try to remember this:

The selvage edge, usually 1/2” wide, is peppered with tiny holes.  If the holes look like little volcanos coming at you, that is the “right” side of the fabric.  If the holes look like tiny depressions in the cloth, that is the “wrong” side of the fabric.