Boutique Runway

How to Do Embroidery on Your Jeans?
If you are not keen on opening an embroidery business, you can still take a small step by doing odd jobs on your personal clothes including t-shirts and jeans. That is a nice way to start experimenting with embroidery. Did you know that you could add life to your plain old jeans by adding some embroidery at the right places? All you need is to get ready your embroidery thread, embroidery design, and embroidery machine. You could even experiment with hand embroidery, a skill you can achieve with some regular practice. Look for some interesting designs at your neighborhood embroidery shop or store, if you do not have one.

Get your favorite pair of jeans out of the closet, or buy a new well fitting one. The color of the jeans is important. Embroidery looks better on darker shades than on faded jeans. Plus, you look slimmer in darker jeans. So, to enjoy double benefits pick a pair of dark jeans.

The key to the embroidery is in its placement. It all depends on where you want the focus of people’s attention. Embroidery also helps to accentuate your frame or down play some evil elements in your figure. For a figure that is reed thin, add some embroidery patterns around the outer areas near the hip to give the hip a rounded appearance. And, if the hips are wide, use a horizontal design at the hemline to offset the effects.

Pockets are an interesting area where you can place your embroidery. All front and back pockets can be used to let your imagination go wild. Embroidery designs look best on a stretched derriere. If the hips are wide or the derriere large, embroider only one pocket to have a slimmer effect. Normal and slim derrieres can have embroidery on both the back pockets. Place you embroidery just below or above the curve of the front pocket. So as not to accentuate the wide hip, avoid pointing the embroidery towards the crotch or let it go across towards the side seam.

To begin with, draw the pattern on the selected location on the jeans. Put on the jeans to see how it looks. Start embroidering only when you are satisfied with the location. Next, pick up the embroidery thread and place it on the jeans to see whether it matches with its color. Use only those colors that will make the embroidery standout. For that, use contrasting colors. If your denim is dark, lighter threads will look outstanding. For faded jeans, however, use darker hues to make the embroidery prominent. To make your design further standout, use satin thread outlines.

You will need some large needles to embroider a pair of jeans, since the cloth is rugged and thick. Once the job is over, you are going to love the compliments that the embroidery will draw.

This article is for those who love doing their own fashion embroidery. Many women, who started doing embroidery as a hobby, are running successful businesses from home. However, the first embroidery equipment, apart from embroidery thread, embroidery fabric, and embroidery design, is a blank. The term “blank” is used for a piece of apparel on which you plan doing your embroidery, in a manner of a blank canvas used by an artist. So, as a blank, you could use t-shirts, caps, uniforms, pants, jackets, aprons, dresses and many more such material.

What, normally, should you be looking for in a blank to run your embroidery machine on, if you are not doing hand embroidery?  The blank should be a high quality fabric that has enough blank space to accommodate your embroidery design. Purchase a high quality garment so that your embroidery lasts longer. There is no point doing embroidery on a poor quality fabric, because all your efforts at embroidery will go waste if the fabric is not durable. Moreover, embroidery does not look nice on cheap looking fabric. If you have enough blank areas on the fabric, you will not be vying for space to place your embroidery.

While selecting your fabric, make sure that they are devoid of felt pockets, curvy princess seams, and flat-felled seams. The many layers in the fabric can make hoops a tough job rendering the embroidery tension uneven; although, you can use adhesive stabilizers to allow the use of hoop. But, keep in mind that you can do a better job using a single layer of fabric, than working on multiple layers. You could love curvy princess seams for the simple reason that they accentuate the female form; but they could spell nightmare for the embroider. The more acute the curve, the more difficult it is to straighten the fabric and embroider it. Pros do manage it, but with a great deal of difficulty.

Fabrics with linings can be quite a challenge. See, if you can easily remove the lining, or keep it from coming in your way as you do the embroidery.

If you are looking to employ embroidery on your skirt, a straight or A-line skirt is better than circle or bias skirts. If your skirt has a lining, a free hanging lining is better than efforts to remove lining stitched at the hem. Your fashion embroidery will look good on a pant if it is without pockets, has a flat front, and without lining. The same goes for jackets and t-shirts. The rule is – lesser the encumbrances, the better the fashion embroidery goes.

Appliqué
This technique includes sewing of different pieces of fabric on a base fabric.
Hastings embroidery is a typical example of appliqué. The technique is normally used in quilting. Amish, Baltimore album quilts, and Ralli quilting are well known appliqué examples.

In appliqué, all a person needs is cut a few patches from different fabrics and sew onto another fabric, forming attractive designs. Embroidery too can be done to supplement the effect.

Assisi Embroidery
Assisi embroidery belongs to the town of Assisi in Italy. It involves filling of the entire background of the fabric with cross-stitch except the motif, which is left blank. The motif is outlined by Holbein stitch. Traditionally, red, blue, green or gold colors are used for the background stitches, while outlines are done with black or brown colored thread. The traditional motifs are largely heraldic animals surrounded by filigree borders.

Back Stitch
The back stitch appears to be similar to Holbein stitch, although it differs in technique. One line of stitching requires a solitary journey from one end to the other. Back stitch works well with fabrics that are evenly woven, which allows for easy counting. The stitches are typically worked two steps forward and one step back.

Basketweave Stitch
The basketweave stitch is a form of tent stitch, which is worked diagonally across the fabric. Although the front does not suggest a basketweave design, the back of the fabric forms a basketweave pattern. It is used to cover large areas of a fabric without distorting the fabric weave.

Blackwork Embroidery
As the name suggests, blackwork embroidery is black thread work on white or off-white fabric. It is used mainly on even-weave fabric. Blackwork is counted-thread embroidery, where the number of strands is counted before beginning the threadwork. Normally, silk thread is used on cotton or linen fabric.

Brazilian Embroidery
Brazilian embroidery is done using rayon thread and not silk, cotton or wool. High-sheen rayon thread is used to cast embroidery that includes mostly flowery patterns. Like other embroidery kinds, knotted and cast on stitches are used, but they are dissimilar technique-wise. The difference lies in the way the thread is manufactured. Cotton thread is made using the ‘S’ twist, while rayon is manufactured using the opposite ‘Z’ twist.

Buttonhole Stitch
Buttonhole stitches are handmade stitches where the needle after going through the loop of the thread returns to the backside of the cloth at 90° from the start position. It normally appears like the letter ‘L’. Buttonhole stitches are used for creating buttonholes and sewing blanket edges. The stitches are close together when stitching a buttonhole, while they are far apart when sewing blanket edges.

Candlewick Embroidery
The embroidery is so called because of the thread used resembles a candle wick. Traditionally, candlewick embroidery (also known as candlewicking) is done on an unbleached muslin fabric using unbleached cotton thread. The traditional form of embroidery consists of works depicting nature, insects, flowers and more.

Chain Stitch
Chain stitch comprises looped stitches that acquire the shape of a chain as the stitches proceed. Its most popular usage is seen in crochet, needle lace, tambour lace and others. Some of the variants of chain stitch are: knotted chain stitch, twisted chain stitch, open chain stitch, and zigzag chain stitch among others.

Chikankari
Chikankari is an embroidery style that belongs to the city of ‘Nawabs’ Lucknow, India. The style is not only popular in India, but is acclaimed internationally too. The stitches used include chain stitch, back stitch, and hem stitch, which are traditionally carried out with white thread on thin see-through muslin cloth. With changing times, colored threads are also being used on different types of fabrics.

Continental Tent Stitch
Continental tent stitch is usually used to form a single line or creating embroidery on small areas. Generally worked from right to left on the fabric, continental tent stitch moves horizontally, though it can also be used to stitch vertical lines. Because of the tension the stitch produces, it can distort the fabric.

Counted-thread Embroidery
The style of embroidery, as its name suggests, involves the counting of the fabric thread before the needle is made to run through the fabric. Counted-thread embroidery is normally done on even-weave fabric, which facilitates counting of the threads. Popular among the counted-thread embroidery are Assisi embroidery, blackwork embroidery, cross stitch, drawn thread work and needle point among others.

Cross-stitch
Cross-stitch is part of the counted-thread embroidery, wherein X-shaped stitches are used to create an embroidered pattern. Stitches that are used in cross-stitch also include ¾, ½, and ¼ stitches. Countable even-weave fabrics are most suited to cross-stitches as they facilitate the application of the stitches. Designs are drawn on graph paper charts and followed from there, as embroiders use the cross-stitch on the fabric.

Cut Work
It is a needle-work method where certain affixed portions of the fabrics are cut to form a pattern with holes. These holes correspond with the holes in a lace pattern that is fixed on the fabric. Popular cut work styles include Broderie Anglaise, Carricmacross lace, reticilla, and whitework.

Darning
It is sewing technique applied to repair worn out areas on a fabric. Darning can be done with hands or using the sewing machine. In hand darning, the needle is run to create a weave across the rows of the fabric. If there is a hole in the fabric, first rows are created by anchoring both the ends on opposite sides of the hole, say, along the warp threads. Then the weave is created, going along the weft threads, to fill the hole.

Drawn Thread Work
Drawn thread work is based on the counted-thread embroidery. It includes removal of a portion of the weft or warp from the fabric. Normally, even-weave fabric is used to facilitate drawn thread work. It also forms part of the white-work embroidery, as earlier it was done using white thread on white even-weave fabric. Currently, Hardanger style is a popular drawn thread work.

Free Embroidery
Free embroidery is free style embroidery which is not bound by the weave of a fabric. It is just the opposite of counted-thread embroidery where wefts and warps are counted. Popular free embroidery styles are appliqué, art needlework, cut-work, stump-work, and white-work among others.

Hardanger Embroidery
Hardanger embroidery comprises the use of white thread on white even-weave fabric. The techniques used include counted-thread and drawn thread works. It is also known as whitework embroidery for the reason that white thread is used on white fabric. The designs used are normally geometrical including squares, rectangles, triangles and diamonds among others.

Half Cross Tent Stitch
Contrary to the continental tent stitch, half cross stitches are worked from the left to right on the canvas. But, like the continental tent stitch, it is used to stitch a single row, or work on small areas. Half cross tent stitch can also be worked vertically. It is used sparingly for its tendency to distort the fabric, though it uses less yarn in comparison to other stitches.

Holbein Stitch
Holbein stitch is a unique form of embroidery where the embroidery pattern is reversible. The pattern is visible on both sides of the fabric, and as such, both sides of the cloth can be used. It is normally used on even-weave fabrics to facilitate the counting of threads and form an even design. The name Holbein came from Hans Holbein, a 16th century painter. This stitch is also known as line stitch, double running stitch, two-sided line stitch, and Spanish stitch.

Persian Embroidery
The traditional Persian embroidery consists of very rich patterns that employ typically floral, animals, hunting scenes and Persian figures. Persian embroidery is popular since ancient times. The earlier embroidery designs consisted of patterns that filled the entire fabric. Darning stitch was mostly used on loosely-woven linen or cotton.

Phulkari
Phulkari is a rich embroidery style from the state of Punjab in India. Phulkari designs are typically floral, and the word phulkari literally means flower work.  Phulkari is worked on fabrics ranging from bed sheets to napkins, and from ‘salwar kameez’ to ‘chunis’. Sparse embroidered designs are known as phulkari, while embroidery covering the entire fabric is known as ‘bagh’ (garden). Since phulkari is used in formal occasions like marriages, red is the most popular color. Beautiful hues of silken threads are used to ornate the fabric with phulkari patterns.

Running Stitch
A running stitch, like other stitches, is the alternate insertion of the needle to the back and its pulling out of the fabric in the front. The upper stitches on the front of the fabric are of equal size, while the stitches at the back are half the length. The double running stitch is a combination of running stitch and back stitch.

Stump-work
Stump-work is an embroidery style that gives a 3-D effect to the work. Pieces of wire are used to do the basic structure, and stitches are done around the structure to form the pattern such as leaves and flowers. The work is then added to the main body of the fabric by piercing the wires through and affixing it. Stump-work done with embroidery machines is known as Puff embroidery. This work involves the use of foam pieces laid on the fabric, and stitches done on and over it covering the foam. The stitches pierce the foam closer to its periphery, leaving the periphery exposed. The uncovered periphery is separated (pulled out) from the rest of the foam and the area cleared to give the embroidery a puffed-up appearance.

Surface Embroidery
Surface embroidery involves stitches that are worked over the surface of the fabric; and not through the canvas. Free embroidery and counted-thread embroidery are fine examples of surface embroidery. Popular forms of surface embroidery are appliqué, art needlework, cross stitch, stump-work among others.

Tent Stitch
Tent stitch comprises stitches that run diagonally over the juncture of the weft and warp threads. It works well on even-weave fabrics. Tent stitch is also known as needlepoint and petit point stitch. The stitch as 3 variants – basket weave, continental weave, and half cross weave.

Triangle-point
It is an embroidery style that uses a number of equilateral triangles (triangles with all three sides equal) to create patterns. The triangles can be of different colors. Sherlee Lantz is credited with creating the style. A variation of the basic satin stitch, the triangle-point is also used to create other geometrical designs such as diamonds, hexagons, and parallelograms. Basically, all these shapes originate from the triangle, which are conjoined to form the patterns.

White-work Embroidey
White-work embroidery, as the name suggests, is done with white thread on white or off-white fabric. It may have originated in Egypt and then traveled to Europe. France was known for its white-work embroidery during the 1700s. Popular white-work styles are Broderie Anglaise, drawn thread work, Hardanger embroidery and Reticella.

Zardozi
Zardozi embroidery, although practiced in India, is said to have originated in Persia. In Persian, Zar means gold and Dozi means embroidery. Zardozi was at its zenith during Emperor Akbar’s reign, who was a great patron of the arts. After several setbacks, Zardozi has found permanent home in Lucknow, India. Very fine gold, or gold and copper mixed thread is used to do the embroidery with the help of a crochet like tool. The hand above the fabric handles the needle, while the hand below ties the knots.