Stabilizer for machine embroidered quilt blocks?
 

I am planning a quilt with pretty heavily embroidered floral quilt blocks, I am doing the sitich outs and have found that I need to use a heavy stabilizer to make them stitch out without "puckers". I haven't done this type of quilt before and am wondering if there is a different stabilizer that might work and not be quite so stiff. I think that the design is such that it will be pretty stiff anyway. I plan to use the quilt as a bedspread "for show" and not as a cuddly comfort quilt, so maybe the stiffness won't matter anyway. I am using Pellon iron on medium stabilizer and I have tried wash away and a soft stabilizer that lost its wrapper but they didn't work very well, I got lots of wrinkles around the edge of the design. Any advice from those more experienced is greatly appreciated!

I double up on my stabilizer and don't have a problem. Two sheets of med. Tearaway and I don't use the iron on, you can pick the other out tht is left showing.

I also use this method seems to work pretty well.

Isn't there a heavy leave-in stabilizer that softens after it's washed? I think Ricky Tims had some for sale on his site at one time - I tried it and it softened up really nicely, but I can't remember how heavy it was to begin with...but then two layers would work. After washing, it had the feel and softness of a used dryer sheet.

Go to http://www.rnkdistributing.com/pdf-f...Stabilizer.pdf for a workbook by floriani on all types of stablizer. If you have software you can reduce the density so that it's not so stiff. I would also think the leave in stablizer from Floriani that is made for tshirts, etc that is soft would work; it's a fiber instead of a film, that makes a difference.

I think a lot of this depends on just exactly how dense your stitching is, how well your machine is working and what you will be satisfied with, and how are you going to quilt the top. I do only extremely dense embroider work and won't keep any that has a single pucker. I throw a lot away also! LOL. I have to sometime use wash away on the top of the fabric, sometimes several layers and very heavy tear away under, and ALWAYS extend my stablilzers well beyond the hoops and stay stitch them before starting. My patterns are always 40,000 and up on stitches, never anything less and usually 20 and more colors. When it is that dense it is extremely hard for the fabric not to be drawn up to a smaller size. Try a looser tension and be sure you have the smaller embroider thread on your bobbin even if you are using something else for effect on top. If you can embroider some on each side of the design, top, bottom, left, right and not just follow the way it is programed it may help by equalizing the tension put on the fabric.

If you are going to quilting close to your embroidery and quilting closely it will even out the puckers. Otherwise puckers that are there will show.

Has the heavy tear away caused any problems? the designs I am using have a similiar stictch count 35-38 thousand stitches and since the quilt is "just for looks", I'm hoping the stiffness won't be such a big deal. I love the way it looks and plan to try it. Hopefully it won't be a big experiment gone wrong!

I haven't had any problem. Make a test doll quilt or a pillow.