Santa Embroidery on Velvet

by Jane Dempsey

I saw this Santa Design on Facebook and fell in love.  I have never embroidered on velvet, and it has 83,000 stitches.  But the design went on sale, so I bought it.

Prep Work

1. As with all Embroidery Library designs, it is very dense, so I used my embroidery software to reduce the density.  Now I only have 80,000 stitches!
2. I wasn’t sure of how successful my embroidery would be, so I bought the only green velvet from Joanne’s, and it is stretch velvet.  I fused black SF101 to the back to increase the stability.
3. I cut the front and back of the pillow topper, leaving about 2 inches excess from the size of my pillow. I labeled the top of both the front and back panels with a “top” sticker, so the nap would be in the same direction on both sides.
4. I cleaned my machine and put in a new needle.
5. I hooped heavy cut-away stabilizer in my hoop.  Velvet might show the hoop marks, so I floated the velvet. 
6. I placed the front fabric centered on the hoop.
7. I covered the top of the velvet with see thru Water Soluble Stabilizer.   Then I basted my stabilizer sandwich together using the baste function on my machine.

Actual Embroidery

1. Actually, this may be part of preparation.  I decided my colors for the first 12 thread changes and placed them in my numbered egg carton using the color sheet provided by Embroidery Library.  When I had used the first 12 colors, I refilled the egg carton again, so I would have a double check on what color to use next.  Just a note, the thread colors do not download correctly to my embroidery software – so I always print the color sheet.  In addition to that, Santa’s wreath was dark green in the pattern, but I had to make a light green wreath, so it would show against the background.
2. Time to start embroidering.  It took me all day.  Of course, I did some other stuff – watched TV, fixed lunch and dinner, talked on the phone.  But with 32 thread changes, I didn’t leave dear Santa alone very much.  Halfway through the stitchout my thread started breaking.  I cleaned my machine again and replaced the needle.
3. After about 40,000 stitches, I floated another piece of heavy cutaway stabilizer under the hoop.
4. I would never put this Santa on clothing that would touch my skin directly.  He is way too dense and hard.  I might put him on the back of a jacket . . .
5. I finally finished Santa, made a zippered back for the pillow cover.  I love it!  I made it to be a gift . . .  But it may stay at my house.

by Jane Dempsey