Embroidery is actually a very fun little thing; it can add small details and decorations to your knitted items. This article will explain what materials you need to prepare before adding embroidery, and how to add embroidery to knitted fabrics.
Preparing the Required Materials
Before embroidering, a water-soluble pen, pencil, needle, yarn, a suitable stabilizer, and a piece of knitted fabric for practice are essential. To make the embroidery outline clearer, embroidery on sportswear is generally done on a water-soluble stabilizer. This allows the needle and thread to follow easily without being disturbed by the underlying knit texture, and it’s also easy to remove after completion. Below, we will explain the specific use of the materials:
Choosing an Embroidery Pattern
Embroidery patterns come in many types and sizes, so you may need to first determine which pattern will be more suitable for your knitted fabric. To do this, you can first trace the design onto thin paper, cut out the outline, and then place it on the knitted fabric to see if it matches your expectations. However, having advanced equipment is even better. For example, the embroidery on our sportswear is usually customized based on the client’s design, and then the overall effect is displayed using 3D modeling to see if it meets the requirements.
Stabilizers
There are two types of stabilizers: one with adhesive backing and the other without. Generally, ordinary stabilizers are sufficient and more economical; you can directly trace the design onto the stabilizer. However, there are some drawbacks to its use. For example, you need to bast-stitch it in place, and it may wrinkle slightly during the embroidery process when embroidering larger designs.
Self-adhesive stabilizers can solve this problem. They keep the embroidery smooth and flat, but you’ll need a light table or window to see the design clearly, or you can print it out. The first three photos below show our commonly used self-adhesive stabilizers, and the fourth photo shows ordinary water-soluble stabilizers, which can be purchased by the yard or meter.
Needles
There are many types of embroidery needles, such as knitting needles and chenille needles, which vary in thickness and are therefore used on different materials. For example, when embroidering on knitted fabrics, ordinary embroidery needles are not thick enough, making knitting needles a better choice. If you want something even finer, chenille needles are the most suitable. They are similar to knitting needles, but with a sharper tip, making it easier to pass through stabilizers. For medium-weight yarns, size 18 to 22 needles are more suitable. They follow a rule: the smaller the needle tip, the larger the eye; therefore, the eye of an 18 needle is larger than that of a 22 needle. If the pattern contains many French knots, then a hat needle (also called a straw needle) is very convenient. It is the same thickness from tip to eye, so it can easily pass through the wrapped parts of French knots.
Pens
Tracing pens and pencils can also be employed to achieve the desired embroidery effects. However, when working with different colors of knitted fabrics, one should exercise caution while choosing a pen. On dark or reddish-brown knit, one might use a common pencil, but for light-colored knit, this might leave some ink marks that could impact the final product. In fact, any pen suitable for working on a patchwork could do, for example, a Pilot Frixion pen.
Yarn
The choice of yarn is a matter of personal choice. Very fine yarn is not usually selected because it may seep into the fabric, thus decreasing the visibility of embroidery, although the same effect can also be obtained by splitting the yarn. The average choice is yarn of a similar thickness that is used in knitting.
How to Embroider on Knitted Fabric
Firstly, the design elements need to be drawn on a piece of cloth. The design elements are then positioned on the fabric, and finally, the stitching is done using the thread meant for the embroidery. Then the final stage is to start the embroidery work. There are several techniques for doing the embroidery on knitted cloth. This article will expose the reader to two distinct techniques to embroider the top part of the mushroom.
Two-Color Overlock Stitch
The two-color overlock stitch is produced by adding another color of thread that locks a line of parallel stitches, hence forming a decorative stitch pattern that is raised and unique.
How to do the two-color overlock stitch:
How to do a two-color overlock stitch:
First, by means of the first-colored thread, stitch a row of parallel stitches.
Now, take the opposite colored thread and sew the end to the back of the fabric.
Moving from the right side of the parallel stitches on top, insert the needle into the right side.
Bring the needle through the parallel stitches and draw up with the thread from left to right.
Repeat the process to achieve a vertical chain stitch design between the parallel stitches.
Next, continue to sew down to finish one row of chain stitches on the right side of parallel stitches. Later, go back to the wrong side to secure the thread with the needle.
If you wish to do the chain stitch on the left side, you have to change threads and work your way from the top.
Move the needle to the right side, starting from the left side of the parallel stitches on the top.
Start bringing the needle under the parallel stitches from the bottom going upwards. Bring it from the right to the left.
Proceed in this way until a row of chain stitches has been made on the left side of the parallel stitches.
Finally, shift the thread to the wrong side and fasten the thread.
Parallel Stitch
The parallel stitch results in numerous lines parallel to the surface of the fabric and is mainly applied in highlighting zones that are vertical and are usually one to two stitches wide.
How to embroider a Parallel Stitch:
Take a proper length of embroidery thread and insert the thread into the needle.
Hold the ending part on the reverse side of the fabric.
Starting to sew on the right side of the fabric, to the left of where you want the stitch.
Draw the needle out on the other side of the vertical line, and move it to the right side, inserting it diagonally a row or two below where you initially inserted it.
These steps should be continued until the desired number of stitches has been reached. In order to bring some variation to this design, you can also increase the distance between each stitch and then fill up that distance with a different colored thread, creating a two-toned effect.
Finally, after the embroidery is done, some final steps need to be carried out, like the removal of the basting material for positioning, cutting the stabilizer to avoid any excess material left on the attire, and immersing the finished garment in cold water to eliminate the stabilizer.
Final Thought
If you are attempting to embroider designs on your knitwear, you can just follow the steps listed above. But it is necessary to prepare all materials before working on them to prevent any situation where the design will not fit, or where one can see that the designs are written by hand, or even where the eye of a needle will appear to be too big to allow threading. But, of course, there are a lot of techniques and designs for embroidering designs on knitwear. If interested, you can browse online or download free knitting patterns through our site.
English 
Spanish 
Portuguese 
Japanese 
French 
German 
Russian 
Korean