Blue tape in your sewing room?

If you were to take a peek in my sewing room, you would find some unusual items inside. One of them is blue painter's tape! Why would I have this blue tape which is used in conjunction with painting? Good question!

Blue painter's tape is great for taping templates to the fabric with machine embroidery. Why? If you are needing your design to be in a peticular place on the fabric or if you are doing continuous embroidery designs where one design must follow another to complete a pattern, you will be using a template to place the designs on the fabric.

You can use straight pins to hold the paper or vellum template in place, but it will still tend to shift a little as you put the fabric in the hoop. But if you use a couple pieces of blue tape, it will securely hold the template in place. When you are ready to embroider, just gently peel your template from the fabric and start stitching.

I usually put a piece of tape on each side of the template to hold it. And usually the tape can be used several times on the same template before it has lost its stickiness. The great thing is that the blue tape does not leave a residue on the fabric or previously stitched designs like masking tape can do.

Not only can you use this tape to tape the template to the fabric, but you can also tape the hoop grid over the template to your fabric. You know the challenge of getting the hoop grid lines straight with your template lines, but this tape is a great help for that!

Tape your template to the fabric, where it needs to be. Then place your hoop grid on top of the template, matching your grid lines with the template lines. Tape the grid to the fabric. Pick up the fabric with the tempalte and hooped taped to it and insert it in your hoop. Match the grooves in your hoop with the gooves in your grid and your fabric will be straight in the hoop on the first try!

Not only is blue painter's tape great for taping templates and grids to fabric for machine embroidery, but it also works great to pick up loose threads and lint that sticks to your fabric. After I have broken a needle, I will tear off a piece of tape and put the needle ends in it before throwing it in the trash. This keeps needle points and the jagged edges of the needle confined to the tape and not lost in the trash can.

Note: There are several brands of blue painter's tape available, but I have found that the regular (not delicate) Scotch brand works the best!

Watch a video clip showing you how to tape your template and grid to your fabric and then insert it into the hoop! See below!