TOP 12 EMBROIDERY ACCESSORIES THAT DON’T COME WITH YOUR EMBROIDERY MACHINE

While embroidery machine is the first thing that comes to your mind when you wish to do an embroidery project, there are several other accessories that don’t come with machine but are very important to complete your task all the while making your life much easier.  Below is a list of accessories that you will need.

1. EMBROIDERY STABILIZER

A stabilizer is the most essential item for any embroidery project. You will have to use several types of stabilizers too for some tricky embroidery designs. If you want to read details on stabilizer, click Stabilizer and Backing Guide for Machine Embroidery. I will still give a quick review on stabilizers and when to use which.

 

• Tear-away stabilizers work best with sturdy fabrics like woven and canvas fabrics made out of cotton. Once you are done, you can tear away the excess stabilizer gently and base fabric will not be affected.

• Cut-away stabilizers are excellent for knits as the knits have stretch and cut-away stabilizers have less stretch hence they provide a better support for stretchy fabrics.

• Sticky stabilizers are adhesive stabilizers as they will stick to fabric without any temporary adhesive. Temporary adhesive cause little mess hence sticky stabilizers save you from the trouble of cleaning everything.

• Water soluble stabilizers are used when you don’t want the stabilizer to be visible from any side. As the name suggests, these stabilizers can be removed by simply washing away. They are very effective for using as topping on nappy or fabric with fluff. Water soluble stabilizers can also be used for stand-alone laces where you need support for embroidery without stabilizer being visible.

2. NIPPERS

Have you seen a very polished piece that is finished very professionally?

You must have noticed that there are no threads hanging from any embroidery place. The connecting threads on those projects are cut by nippers. Nippers do the best job of cutting the connecting threads very closely; even scissors can’t do it that perfectly. They are basically small tools that resemble scissors a lot with only addition of smaller blades and a spring that ease the processing of finishing.

3. STITCH ERASER

Embroidery Removal Tool also known as a stitch eraser is an essential tool that can make your life very easy in case you make a mistake and being a beginner or not, we all make such mistakes. However, you have to be sure that the fabric from which you have to remove stitches is durable enough to tolerate the stitch eraser. If the fabric is delicate then it can destroy your base fabric. If the base fabric is sturdy and durable then you have a chance of shaving off the unwanted stitches without destroying the base fabric.

4. THREAD STAND/ THREAD STAND HOLDER

If you want to save money by buying bigger spools then you might want to invest in a thread stand holder. It will resolve two problems; one by providing support for managing multi color threads for an embroidery project. Secondly, it will help in reducing the tension that is required to pull the thread from the spool as bigger spools have higher resistance due to bigger size.

5. DISAPPEARING INK PEN / MARKING PEN

                                                           

A marking pen is the kind of accessory that you will use so many times, without even realizing. It’s an essential because you need to use something to mark the center of the design on the stabilizer or you often have to mark where the design will start. However, it is absolutely necessary that the mark you make with pen disappears either on its own or after washing the fabric. For this particular reason I use a disappearing ink pen for lighter fabrics and for dark fabrics I use chalk as it is also very easy to remove.

6. RULER

Even though a ruler might seem an ordinary thing to own but you will be surprised at how often you will be using it for your embroidery projects. I use a ruler in every project to mark the center to ensure the design is at the right place.

7. MAKEUP BRUSH

I am sure that reading makeup brush as the essential accessory for embroidery must be very surprising for you because it was the same for me. However, when I read on the internet about its usefulness, I was impressed enough and bought my own makeup brush for the same purpose. A makeup brush does an excellent job of cleaning your machine, thread spools, bobbin cage, and all the tough to reach areas of the embroidery machine.  It is very gentle and removes all the fuzzy fibers sticking to the machine.

8. QUILTING PINS

Quilting pins are undoubtedly the most useful item as they help in keeping the garment pinned to stabilizer when it hopped already. They can also help in keeping excess fabric away. They are cheap and their long length gives them the advantage of pinning any heavy fabric.

9. BINDER CLIPS

When it comes to keeping excessive fabric out of the embroidery machine’s way, you need to get as many accessories as possible. If you don’t use enough tools and excess fabric gets sucked in during the embroidery, you have no option but to remove all the embroidery and redo it. In case of delicate fabrics, redo won’t be even an optionThis is where binder clips come in, they help immensely in keeping excess fabric away from the embroidery needle. There are also additional tools that you can use to keep extra fabric tucked away. Click How to keep fabric out of the way when embroidering. In this article you will find several tools like clothes pegs, barrel style hair clips, spool holders and duck tape which are very budget friendly and does the job perfectly.

10. TEMPORARY ADHESIVE

Temporary adhesives are difficult to clean from machine and needles but they have their own benefits to offer. They can help you fix the stabilizer with fabric incase you have to float your fabric. I will suggest you to buy one if you have such embroidery projects to complete.

11. EMBROIDERY NEEDLES

There are different types of needles used for different type of fabrics. There are ball points, sharp or universal needles used for different fabrics. It is always useful to keep extra needles of each type in hand in case you have to switch between needles due to fabric type. Keeping extra needles can also help you in case there is incidence of needle breakage. You can read more by clicking Machine Embroidery Needle

12. USB DRIVE

Some of the machines don’t use wifi as connectivity method, in such case you will need to purchase a USB drive to transfer your embroidery design to your machine from your laptop.

Embroidery Supplies That Can Help

Here are two accessories that are not essential but can make your life very easy.

Extra hoops

Extra hoops of different sizes can help you with time management while your machine is embroidering one project, you can setup the other hoop with another project. However, this supply is only worth investing in when you have a lot of embroidery projects lined up with limited time.

Spool Huggers and Bobbin Clamps

In the beginning spool huggers might sound a fancy item to invest in but once you put them to use in several areas, you will find them worth investing in. Firstly, they do their core job perfectly by keeping the loose threads tied to the spool hence giving your thread stand holder a tidy look. When the thread stand holder is tidy you will not have to waste your time in detangling the different color threads. Spool huggers also keep your threads from unraveling when they are not in use.

Secondly, you can use them to keep excess fabric away from the embroidery needle.

Hope this comprehensive list will help you to align essential accessories before starting any project.