Tips & Tricks

Machine embroidery works on fine nylon screen mesh when it's hooped with wash-away stabilizer. Sandra stitched a design on mesh on 3 Things Live, then displayed it in a hoop with a light behind it. Metal wire screening never belongs in an embroidery machine.

A one-color, sketch-style Halloween embroidery design can double as a coloring page once it's stitched. Permanent markers, acrylic paint markers, and watercolor pencils each give a different look, and a few simple precautions keep the color where you want it.

Traditional English paper piecing means hours of hand basting and whip-stitching, but fusible iron-on hexagon templates and a machine zigzag stitch let you get the same look without ever threading a hand-sewing needle.

How Do You Sew a Shell Tuck Edge? A shell tuck edge is sewn using your machine's built-in shell tuck or scallop stitch, positioning the needle just off the folded...

Designer Minki Kim shared a handful of useful bag-construction tricks on 3 Things Live, the kind of details that make the difference between a bag that looks handmade and one that looks store-bought.

Floating means hooping the stabilizer alone and attaching your fabric on top of the hoop instead of inside it, a technique that protects delicate materials like velvet and knits from hoop marks while still letting your machine stitch a stable design.

Puckering almost always comes down to one habit: stretching fabric while it's hooped instead of simply pulling it taut. Here's how to tell the difference.

A hoop's labeled size and its actual stitching area are two different numbers, and mixing them up is one of the most common reasons a design won't load.

Five small habits separate a smooth embroidery download from a frustrating one. Here's what trips up most beginners, and how to avoid it.

Every embroidery machine brand reads a different file format, and using the wrong one is the number one reason a design won't open. Here's a quick reference by brand.

Correct hooping comes down to a few repeatable steps — notch alignment, taut (not tight) tension, and a quick check on the underside before you stitch a single thread.

Auto appliqué turns any embroidery design — built-in or loaded from a file — into a finished patch using two hoopings, two stabilizers, and one very handy button.