Tag: stabilizer

Choosing the Right Stabilizer

The correct stabilizer can have a huge impact on whether or not a job succeeds or fails. Of course, we all know that specific embroiderer who only uses one type of stabilizer for every job regardless of fabric or design, and does well. In most cases, however, a the right combination of stabilizer, fabric and design is necessary for embroidery to proceed smoothly and for the finished product to look its best. Choosing the correct stabilizer can make your production faster, your sew-out run more smoothly and your finished product look better. Because the decision of which stabilizer to use for a particular job can have such an impact, it seems only right to provide some tips on how to choose.

Let’s start with the types of stabilizer. At the most basic level, your choice will involve either cutaway or tearaway stabilizer. Even if you choose a specialty stabilizer for your project, it will most likely fit into one of those two categories. Because of this fact, knowing when and why you might want to use a particular type is crucial.

We’ll start with tearaway stabilizer. This type, as the name implies, tears away, so it is often easier and faster to remove. If you have a job with time constraints, where cutting away a stabilizer might take too much time, tearaway stabilizer may be a good option.

Cutaway stabilizer, as a general rule, has less stretch to it than tearaway, which makes it the preferred option for performance wear or other types of stretchy fabrics. Cutaway stabilizer may also be a good choice for delicate fabrics when pulling hard enough to tear a tearaway stabilizer away would perhaps cause damage to the fabric itself.

Your choice of stabilizer should take into account the following things:

  • The qualities of the fabric
  • Requirements of the design
  • Time available

The right stabilizer choice should improve both your sew-out and your production time, as well as reducing the amount of effort and time needed to make the final product look its best.

The second thing to consider is stabilizer weight. No one likes the look of a stitch-out that is extremely stiff or weighed down with a huge wad of backing. The general rule is that light weight fabrics should be stabilized by a light weight stabilizer, and heavier fabrics with a heavier stabilizer. The ultimate goal is to find a stabilizer that will stabilize the stitch-out without weighing down or distorting the fabric.

Don’t neglect the fact that the selection of a stabilizer can have a huge impact on how the design works. Specialty stabilizers are designed to work in particular situations and with particular types of fabric, so don’t pass over those options when selecting a stabilizer to use. A specialty stabilizer can have a great impact on how well a design runs and the appearance of the design when it is completed. Some specific specialty backings that should be considered in specific situations include:

  • Poly Mesh (Also called No Show Mesh) can be a useful option for polos and lightweight fabrics.
  • Fusible Poly Mesh (Also known as Cloud Cover) is useful for covering the back of an embroidered design to avoid scratching sensitive skin. It can also be useful for mitigating the stretching of performance wear.
  • R2000 (Also known as Action Back) (a polypropylene stabilizer) is designed to work with performance wear and to counter the problem of stretching.
  • Adhesive stabilizer (Also known as Sticky Back, Sticky or Peel N Stick) is useful for items that are too small to hoop on their own. It can also be used with performance wear to counter the stretching of the fabric.
  • Water soluble topping (Also knows as Solvy or cutaway/washaway) can be used as a topping or a backing. Water soluble can help monograms and other embroidery stand out on fleece or towels. Badgemaster is a useful option for patches. Cutaway/washaway is the perfect option if you want to make freestanding lace.

As has been noted previously, some embroiderers can go their entire careers and use only one type of stabilizer, and that may work for some people. The question is, why would you resist using all the options available? Specialty stabilizers have a variety of functions and qualities that may contribute to the smoother running of your jobs and faster production times. They can also offer the possibility of a higher quality finished design. It is true that the cost of some of the specialty stabilizers may be slightly higher, the end result will be well worth the slightly higher expense.

Stabilizer is the foundation on which everything else contained in an embroidery design is built. Just as you wouldn’t build your house on a quicksand or a volcano, don’t build your embroidery with a stabilizer that can’t stand up to the requirements of the job. Choose your stabilizer with care and after giving thought to the requirements of the fabric and the stitch-out. Taking the time to make an informed and educated decision will ensure that your final choice will be a stabilizer that can meet the requirements of your design and product schedule.

Stabilizer Basics

As a singing nun in Austria once advised, the best place to start is at the very beginning, so the first thing we’ll discuss is the basic categories of stabilizer. As with most things, the basics can quickly get a little complicated, as each basic category can split into subcategories that contain stabilizers with more specific uses. In order to make this as easy to understand as possible, think of it like building blocks. You learn the basic categories, which are your foundation, and then move on the the more specific options, often called specialty stabilizers or backings, which might have a less broad application or may even be applied only to one specific type of job.

At the most basic level, there are essentially two categories of stabilizer, cutaway and tearaway. As the names imply, tearaway stabilizer can be torn, while cutaway requires removal with scissors. Pretty much every type of stabilizer falls into one of these two categories. The exception to this rule would be water soluble, which requires water to be removed. Water solubles are a popular option for patches or free standing lace and also tend to be toppings. A topping is a stabilizer that is used to keep stitches from sinking into pile fabrics. It is a useful option for those embroidering towels or fleece.

For many embroiderers, tearaway seems like the optimal stabilizer solution, mostly because removal can often happen fairly quickly, since the excess stabilizer can easily be torn away. A quality tearaway, one that is well made, will tear quickly and cleanly. A tearaway stabilizer that is of lesser quality or less well made, won’t tear cleanly and often will leave fuzzy edges that can fray or make the embroidery look untidy. A quality tearaway will also stabilize effectively and hold stitches firmly, but only require a minimum amount of force to tear. A tearaway that requires yanking hard to remove excess stabilizer runs the risk of pulling stitches and distortion of the finished product.

Tearaway stabilizers generally come in three options: light weight (1.5 or 1.8 ounce), medium weight (2.0 or 2.5 ounce) and heavy weight (3.0 ounce). In some cases, the medium and heavy weight options may also be called “hat” or “cap” backing. The name comes from the fact that these weights will most often be used when embroidering a hat. The stabilizers known as cap backings are heavier weight, usually stiffer and more paper-like, which means they can stabilize heavy fabrics and tear sharply and quickly.

Cutaway stabilizers, as the name implies, will require a little more work to remove. All cutaway stabilizers will require cutting away the excess stabilizer as the method of removal. Some embroiderers prefer to cut close to the stitches while others will cut as far away as possible from the stitched design. A common trick is to cut the stabilizer to slightly larger than the design, which lessens the need for cutting after the embroidery is completed.

Cutaway stabilizer is a popular option for use with lighter or stretchy fabrics as it provides the fabric with increased stability. Embroidery on heavy weight fabrics like sweatshirt material, or jackets, can also work well with a cutaway stabilizer. While there are light weight cutaways available, a 2.5 ounce cutaway is considered by some to be the universal stabilizer option. A 3.0 cutaway may be the weight used when embroidering heavier fabrics, but 2.5 ounce cutaway is, for some, the only stabilizer they ever use.

The third category of stabilizer is the water soluble options, which are stabilizer, but aren’t generally designed to remain with the fabric for the long term. As the name implies, a water soluble stabilizer dissolves when water is applied to it. Only the parts that have been actually embroidered remain to do their job. Water soluble stabilizer can be a cutaway/washaway, which looks somewhat like a standard stabilizer but which dissolves in water, or it can look more like plastic. The versions that appear to be more like plastic will either be Vilene or Badgemaster, which are heavier water soluble stabilizers that are often used for badges and sometimes used for free standing lace. The other water soluble option, which has the appearance of a thin plastic, is a water soluble topping, which is used to keep stitches from sinking into towels or fleece. You may often here water soluble toppings referred to as Solvy, but that is an inaccurate description. Solvy is a trademarked name for water soluble toppings from Sulky, but has, over the years, become a more generic term, like Kleenex when used for tissue regardless of actual brand name.

Author’s note: This is the first chapter of a book about stabilizer that is in process currently. We hope to have it available for sale soon.