Cutwork Lace Olives

These are instructions on how to embroider the Cutwork Lace Olives design. We also show how we used the stitch-outs to decorate a towel.
The design is available in 2 sizes for the 5" x 7" and 6" x 10" hoops.

You will need fabric, water soluble mesh and embroidery polyester threads.

Large Hoop: Size: 97 x 179 mm Stitches: 29632 Colors: 1

Mega Hoop: Size: 140 x 259 mm Stitches: 42232 Colors: 1

Stabilizers: We recommend to use water-soluble mesh, such as Vilene. Vilene D0102 is a non woven dissolvable stabilizer which is imported into the US, is sold in large rolls and is sometimes repackaged under different brand names. Some of these brand names are Fabri-Solvy by Sulky, Wash-Away, and Aqua Magic.
Film-like water soluble stabilizers, such as Solvy by Sulky or Avalon by Madeira, are not good for the cutwork projects.

Please note, we DO NOT recommend to use rayon embroidery threads with water soluble mesh because its chemicals ruin the thread.

Embroidery

Step One: Hoop 2 layers of water soluble mesh.
Start the machine. It will embroider the outline and stop.

Step Two: Place a piece of fabric over the mesh to cover the outline. You can pin this piece to the mesh outside the embroidery area.
Start the machine. It will embroider the same outline again and the outline of the olives and stop.

Step Three: Take the hoop from the machine. With a pair of sharp scissors cut away the fabric in the areas shown on the picture - outside the design and inside around the leaves and olives. Take care not to cut through the stabilizer and stitches.

Step Four: Return the hoop to the machine and finish embroidering.

Step Five: Wash away the stabilizer and neatly spread the design on a flat surface, leave it to air dry. Press.

We used the stitch-outs to decorate a towel edge. For the project we used Derwent Inktense watercolor pencils, however any other fabric pencils or markers will work.

Color the stitch-outs with fabric pencils.

With an art brush apply a small amount of water to make the colors brighter and more vivid. Leave to air dry for a day. Then press with hot iron. This will fix the paint in place so it will not run if wet.
As a shortcut, you can also use a textile medium (we used Marabu Textile Medium) for this step. Textile mediums of other companies are available both in craft shops and on the Internet.

Prepare 3 stitch-outs. Lay them out in the shape you want them on the towel. Handstitch together the points at which the stitch-outs touch each other.

Position the lace on the towel. Pin or baste in place.

Using the running stitch of your sewing machine, topstitch along the upper edge of the lace.

With a pair of sharp scissors, cut away the towel under the lace close to the running stitch.

Using dense zig-zag, stitch along the cut edge of the towel.

The towel is ready. Enjoy!

Happy embroidering!

Back to Cutwork Lace Olives