How to Print an Embroidery Pattern on Fabric

It's a common problem among people who enjoy embroidery: You find a perfect line pattern on the Internet but you don't know how to get that perfect pattern onto your fabric. Even if you already have a hard copy of the pattern, perhaps you still don't know how to transfer it to your fabric. There is a little-known trick, however. Once you learn this trick you will be able to transfer a line-drawn embroidery pattern that you have printed out on your home printer simply by ironing it onto your fabric. Learn how to print an embroidery pattern on fabric and go on to create lovely works of embroidered art.

Things You'll Need

• Embroidery pattern
• Printer/scanner
• Iron
• Picture editing program
• Fabric pen (optional)

Instructions

1. Open up the image of the embroidery pattern that you want to transfer to fabric in your picture editing program. If the image is not on your computer already, scan it in and then open it.

2. Edit the image by mirroring it. This simply means you are flipping the image to become a mirror image of what it originally was. Most graphics and picture editing programs call this "mirroring" an image.

3. Save the image to your hard drive and print it out on regular white paper. It doesn't matter if you have a laser printer or an ink jet printer.

4. Place the printed embroidery pattern onto your fabric in the position you want to embroider the pattern.

5. Empty all water from your iron. Turn the steam setting to off.

6. Begin to iron the embroidery pattern to your fabric. Press down very firmly on the iron with more of an up and down motion instead of a side to side motion. Continue to press the embroidery pattern firmly and completely. Be careful not to shift the paper pattern as you press.

7. Lift up carefully on one corner to survey the progress of the transfer. If you can see faint lines from the embroidery pattern then the transfer is probably sufficient. If you cannot see lines, place the corner back down and continue pressing until you can see faint lines from the embroidery pattern.

8. Remove the embroidery pattern paper. At this point you can trace over the transferred lines with a fabric pen so that you will be able to see them even better. The transferred lines will be faint, but they should be dark enough to be seen and followed.

9. Continue with your embroidery project.