How to Create Cutwork Embroidery

Those beautifully lacy edges with the open areas on your tablecloth may be cutwork embroidery. Cutwork embroidery is the art of using a combination of materials to create an intricate design. Most familiar is the use of stitchery and cutting to create open designs reminiscent of lace.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• Fabric
• Transfer pattern
• Embroidery hoop
• Embroidery floss
• Embroidery needles
• Sewing utility knife

Create the Cutwork

1. Use a transfer to create the design. Begin by pinning the transfer to the area that the stitch work will be created. Follow the directions on the transfer to make certain that it is successfully completed.
2. Place the area of the cloth that you're working on in an embroidery frame.
3. Begin the pattern using the stitches it recommends. The most commonly used are the buttonhole stitch and the backstitch. Make certain that when you are doing the buttonhole stitch, that the looped edge is next to the area that you will be cutting out. Let the edge line show to make it easier to follow. Make an "X" on the areas that are to be cut away.
4. Remove the hoop once all the stitching has been complete and carefully cut away the area that should be removed. Use an a small utility knife designed for sewing.
5. Begin another stitch by pushing the needle directly down through both the top and the bottom line, without bringing it all the way through, and looping the floss under the head of the needle. Continue on in this manner.

Learn the Buttonhole Stitch

6. Begin a buttonhole stitch by using a line transferred on your pattern as the bottom of the stitch. The width of the stitch toward the interior determines the top line.
7. Knot the end of the embroidery floss and bring through the bottom line.
8. Push the needle through the top line slightly to the left of the original stitch and bring it out through the bottom next to the first stitch. Remain with the needle piercing the material in two spots.
9. Pause before pulling the needle all the way through the material, so you can loop the floss coming from the previous stitch under the tip of the needle before continuing on. Pull the needle all the way through. This will pull the needle through a loop made in the floss.

Understand the Backstitch

10. Create the running backstitch on a single line.
11. Start by knotting the thread and bringing it up through the material one stitch away from the beginning mark.
12. Drive the needle back through the material where the beginning starts. Bring it up through the material ahead of the original stitch by one stitch length.
13. Push it down through the material right in front of the first point your needle pierced the material. Repeat.

Tips & Warnings

• Make certain that when you are doing the buttonhole stitch, that the looped edge is next to the area that you will be cutting out. Let the edge line show to make it easier to follow.
• The buttonhole stitch is also known as the blanket stitch.