I played with these water-soluble stabilizers back when they first came out - sewing with a regular sewing machine, not an embroidery machine. We did have a problem locally - in our humid climate once you opened the package the stabilizer tended to get sticky and start to dissolve all on its own. So you kept the package unopened while you planned your design and then once you opened the package you had to make your embroidery right away. I don’t know if they’ve improved the formula over the years, but I suppose if something dissolves in water, having it dissolve in ambient humidity is always going to be a problem.
The technique is fast, and you can change colours whenever/wherever you want, you don’t have to worry about the ends because they get caught up in the sewing. So it takes less technique and worry and your artistic side is easier to express than with bobbin lace where you have to worry where the bobbins will go so you have threads where and when you want them. Just my 2 cents. Adele West Vancouver, BC (west coast of Canada) > On Jun 13, 2017, at 3:23 PM, Devon Thein <devonth...@gmail.com> wrote: > > <<Lorelei writes: . If this is machine embroidery, I can only think "chemical > lace", but if it is do-it-yourself the Chemical part can't be at issue. > Interesting.>> > In fact, I think it is “chemical lace”. The further instructions say that > you have to use something called Vilene Water Soluble Stabilizer. According to > a google search Water soluble embroidery stabilizers (WSS) will dissolve > completely when immersed in water leaving no backing at all. They are prefect > when you need an embroidery stabilizer to disappear leaving nothing behind. > They are most widely used in free standing embroidery applications such as > free standing lace (FSL). We offer two types of water soluble stabilizer - > Vilene and Badgemaster > In Chemical Lace they do the embroidery on a surface, like a fabric or paper, > that can then be dissolved away. Originally I think that there was some kind > of cotton thread/protein based surface contrast allowing the protein based > surface to be dissolved without harming the cotton thread. Now, I think the > surface is synthetic. > So, it is a do-it-yourself chemical lace. I don’t think that this is > particularly new. I seem to recall people in the EGA experimenting with it > years ago. Admittedly, it is border line frightening that anyone with an > embroidery machine can make something like the FSL Crochet Easter Egg set, > which actually duplicates the look of bobbin lace, not crochet, and it is > really hard to tell the difference without super close-ups as Lorelei says. > https://www.advanced-embroidery-designs.com/html/24163.html > The site that I linked to was one where they seem to make the lace on more of > a Levers machine, which seemed like a new thing to me. > Devon > > - > To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: > unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to > arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/ - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/