Free Standing Lace

What is Free Standing Lace (also known as ‘FSL’) I’m here to help .

Free standing lace might be used to make things like ornaments, bookmarks, snowflakes ❄️ dream catchers, what makes them special is they are completely embroidered “in the hoop” (also known as ‘ITH’) using your machine and at the end, when you wash away the stabilizer which sits between the top thread and bobbin thread, you are left with a design which stands alone held together by top and bottom threads.   

To get started, use two pieces of (fabric mesh style) wash away stabilizer, hooped, lay first piece down on hoop and second piece slightly offset say 45 degrees.  There are two types of wash away stabilizer out there, one that is a fabric mesh style - this is the one you want to use for your FSL. The other is a film style wash away, that is not the one for this.    I use one complete sheet and the second which I sit on top I often use my large scrap pieces of wash away stabilizer saved from my other embroidered projects.   As long as the bottom piece is tight between the hoop - drum like tight, the other pieces can be placed on top of it and if you need to make an edge stick down, just lick your finger and use the moisture to hold the piece down to the bottom sheet.  Use this tactic sparingly as this is wash away stabilizer but I find it can help to keep pieces from moving about or alternatively, use a little piece of masking tape and attach it at the edge. 

Use the same colour bobbin thread to that chosen for the top thread 🧵.  Make sure you wind yourself several bobbins of the same colour being used some of these designs get through quite a bit of thread.

If using metallic thread, use a similar colour cotton thread for the bobbin, rather than metallic, your sewing machine will prefer that as metallic can be quite tricky to work with.  Make sure you have a new top stitch needle inserted.

Below are some Christmas ornaments that I stitched out, I did use metallic thread for these.  Tip : use good quality metallic thread when doing FSL projects and slow your embroidery machine down to its lowest setting, this will help prevent thread breakage.  

Load your design on to your machine, make sure your hoop is big enough for the design chosen.  Most designs will tell you what hoop size they are meant for but of course the bigger the hoop you have, you can also duplicate designs and do more than one at the same time if your hoop and the design allows.  Food for thought 💭 

Here I have loaded my hoop and now I will load my design, choosing size and where I want it to stitch out  within my hooped stabilizer.

Choose the camera 📷 option and the machine takes a photo of the hoop and show on the screen where the design will stitch out. 

Using the left, right, top and bottom arrows move the design to make the most of the remaining stabilizer.  If you only have a hoop big enough for one design, that’s fine too.  

If you want to make a duplicate of the design, click this button and tap the one which duplicates image to the right of the design.

 

Pop a little space between the designs so this allows you to cut around the designs at the end to get rid of excess stabilizer 

Click ‘Ok’ and then follow through to embroidery.  Change the speed setting down to the lowest speed your machine is capable of.  Mine is 400.

Make sure the thread is loaded and if using a 10 needle machine, tell your machine which spool the thread is on so it pulls from the correct one.  When ready press the lock button which then unlocks the machine ready to go.  The green button should be lit at this point.  Press Start.

Here is the design printing out.

And then I went on to add a second and then a FSL bookmark.

At this point, I trim away any excess stabilizer and then your free standing lace designs are ready to be soaked in some water.  Run designs under a tap and then set aside to dry.  Try to keep designs as flat as possible during the drying process.  Then they are ready to hang.  Add some coordinating thread or ribbon to create a string hoop to hang your new ornament on a Christmas tree 🎄 

Here are some other Christmas ornaments I did…

Ta dah 👌😊 

Good luck with your free standing lace designs, I hope the above helps you.  If you got this far and enjoyed this tutorial, comment below, say hi and where you are from.