Help with Embroidery

I?m making a dress with inspiration from the Blue Sleepless Knight Nightgown and this dress. I plan on using Simplicity pattern 5096 for the dress and McCall Pattern 3033 (little side note, those hunting for a pattern to figure out the collar for the brown sleeveless outfit view E and F?s collar is really close).

Thus basically it?s an empire cut dress with a happy shawl over it. The fabric for the shawl is the Crystal Blue Dull Satin Fabric from Hancock fabrics. For the dress I?m using a matching fabric that is satin-y on the right side, but fleece-y feeling on the back.

The dress isn?t going to get decked out like the inspiration dress is with the pearls and multiple spaghetti straps. I might make a broach and do the heirloom stitching, I haven?t quite decided on that, (though if I do it as an after thought, I?ll probably cross stitch thin little Celtic knot chains instead.)

The shawl is where the question arises. I want to embroider a thistle boarder along the edge. I?ve created a design a like, but can?t free hand it again. I have it now on tracing paper. How do I get the design on the fabric?

All my previous embroidery was on white fabric and I simply used a light box with the design I wanted on the bottom and a fabric on top and lightly traced a general outline. I can?t do that this time since the fabric is to thick to have the light shine through.

 

Could you transfer the design to overhead projector acetate? Then you could almost make a stencil, if you are good at using a cutting knife, and use that to draw it on with taylor's chalk or something. I don't know how intricate you are talking about, but I thought I might make a suggestion.

 

Have you ever tried using Sulky's water soluble stabilizer? Here's a link: Solvy
It's a transparent flexible stabilizer (a little thicker than paper) that you can draw your design onto (usually with a permanent marker) and then attach to your fabric. You actually can embroider right over top and through the Solvy. When you are finished you cut away the excess solvy around your embroidery and then submerge the whole thing into water so that the remaining can dissolve away.

I just used some on a large embroidery project and it worked like a charm. Here's an in progress close up shot where you can see my embroidery on top of the solvy: example

I've also transferred embroidery designs onto fabrics by using a graphite paper in a similar color. The graphite paper goes face down onto the fabric and then the design goes on top of that and you trace through them onto the fabric. The graphite tranfers your tracing onto the fabric, but it can smudge, so you have to be careful. Whenever I've used it I've only traced a bit at a time, embroider it, do another transfer and embroider that...etc.

Maybe something like one of these could help you?

 

These are good suggestions. You could also try tracing on the back of the paper you originally drew on with an iron-transfer pencil/pen. Then you could iron it onto the fabric as many times as you can retrace it.

 

electrakitty's suggestion is the way I always do it. Just be sure the lines are fine enough so the embroidery will cover.

Start here:


and go to #7 for a photo representation of how I've done it. This project wasn't for embroidery, but the technique is the same.

 

You could also try tracing on the back of the paper you originally drew on with an iron-transfer pencil/pen.

Would like to know where I can buy such pencil/pen online. Thanks!