puckered embroidery
 

I have a wonderful Janome 15000 and embroidered an apron for g/daughter and it puckered pretty badly. I am so disappointed with it and I know it is my fault. Not sure what I did wrong. I was unable to hoop it so I used tearaway stabilizer and sprayed with basting spray and then stuck my apron to it. I pinned and taped apron to hoop as best I could and floated another tear away stab. Design had a little over 35000 stitches. The name stitched out beautifully, but the cupcake design puckered. The apron is so cute; came from Hobby Lobby and is black with ruffles with pink ties. What should I do to prevent this? Would it have been better to use cutaway? I have about 5 more to do so want to do it right? Thanks for suggestions.

I don't know anything about machine embroidery but I'm like all non embroiderers, I see the puckers and stiffness of a design and think that looks bad. I'm sure someone will have an answer for you.

use a good cut away stabilizer and hoop if you can. I think I know the cupcake you're talking about. if possible, use 2 layers of cutaway and hoop as tightly as you can. this should help a lot. good luck

Lynnie has some great advice she offered. I had the same problem awhile back. And the issue with mine was the wrong fabric and stabilizer.

I agree...you need to use a cutaway stabilizer, 2 layers if the design is dense. I'd also lossen the pull comp so the stitches don't pull too tight. If your machine is set for the pull comp say at 2-2.5, raise it to 4.0. As far as hooping...I hardly hoop anything anymore. I would hoop the cutaway (both layers if using 2), spray it with basting spray, lay your apron on top & use the machines basting stitch for the hoop. If your machine has no "hoop basting stitch", then carefully stitch around the inside of the hoop, sort of like free-motion quilting, to hold the apron in place. This should allow the design to stitch out without puckering. You do not want to hoop any fabric tight as a drum because the stitches will cause it to pucker once out of the hoop. When done you will need to rip out the basting stitch before taking the hoop off. Then trim the cutaway.

thanks for your input. great information. thanks again.

The other thing I will add is when you have 2 layers of stabilizer (definitely needed in this case - and cut away to boot) - turn one piece 90 degrees from the other one. This makes the fiber strength in the stabilizer work in both directions, not just in one (i.e. up and down, and left to right)

You need to find out if the puckering is coming from the hoop not holding it tight enough or from not having a heavy enough stabilizer.
Take a hoop and load it with the stabilizer of your choice and some scrap fabric. Draw a pencil line around the inside of the hoop..then stitch the design out.
When you're done..if your pencil lines have shifted to the inside of the hoop, then you have a hoop tightness problem..there are many fixes for this on the internet..just google it
If your lines stay put and your design puckers, then you need a heavier stabilizer.

Reading through the answers...why wouldn't a tear away be as good as a cut away? When I bought my machine, they taught using tear away...now I'm curious that I could use something else with a better outcome...

Tear away stabilizer is built to be easily torn away after stitching. By it's very nature, it's not going to be particularly sturdy. With a heavier stitching design, the repeated "assault" from the stitches tends to basically disintegrate a tear away stabilizer. Urban Threads has a good post on this: http://www.urbanthreads.com/tutorial...ing+Stabilizer