Thursday, September 29, 2011

Embroidery Transfers On Felt? Bah!

Iron on transfers pattern from FrenchKnot.com
 As mentioned about a month ago, I received a custom order from a 6 year old. In between working on less demanding projects I've been since thinking how best make what I had been ordered. The thing is, I need to embroider a butterfly. Bugger! Insects aren't my forté. But I found lovely embroidery transfers free online and bought an iron on transfer pencil (2,5€ at Lankamaailma Nordia) and was eager to give it a go. I thought instead of transferring the entire piece I'd test the pencil first with just the butterfly.

 And ta-da; here's a picture of how it turned out:









                                     Did absolutely nothing! :D




Embroidery - Day 1
I had a gut feeling it wouldn't work on felt, but surely it had to be tested. I had been avoiding starting this project in fear of messing up (I put WAY too much pressure on myself when it comes to custom orders) and was rather discouraged and disappointed even though I had predicted it wouldn't work. I tend to get like that, afraid of trying something in fear of failure. But nothing left to do but just face the music and start stitching away!

I was so cynical and so sure nothing would come out of me attempting to free hand a butterfly I was pleasantly surprised when with very little effort I managed to "sketch" out the insect last night!

Today I added a bit of color and will keep working on it before moving on embroidering flowers on the bag, just thought I'd share what I'm working on at present. I think this might just turn out decent enough :)



2 comments:

  1. I have also tried to transfer designs to felt with no luck. Tried dissapearing ink, iron on transfer pens and even chalk.

    Falls right off.

    Your butterfly is gorgeous! Freehand may be the way t go!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I haven't yet tried this but Alice Merlino offered a good tip in her blog for embroidery transfers on felt: http://www.futuregirl.com/craft_blog/2007/05/tutorial-embroider-on-felt.aspx

    ReplyDelete