"...an elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit. These are their onesies."

[urka]

CHUNG CHUNG!

So, my best friend just up and had a baby. She and I are big fans of Law & Order, particularly SVU. For her baby shower, I made her a onesie with an embroidered Lennie Briscoe face (which, unfortunately, I don't have a picture of) and it inspired me to make a whole set of the beloved cast of SVU:



CLOSE-UPS! CHUNG CHUNG!

Stabler


Benson


Munch, with token dark glasses


And, my personal favorite, Finn

AND NOW SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT! CHUNG CHUNG!

So, I have been doing a large amount of embroidery lately and I've come up with a technique that I found helpful and I thought I would share it with all of you! If you're like me, you never have transfer paper or washable pens or any of that good stuff, and I'm also not the best free hand artist, especially with complicated things like, say, the faces of the cast of SVU. That's when, while looking around my house for something to solve this problem, I found this:


If you've never used this stuff before, it's kind of like plastic wrap that is mildly adhesive on one side. It's pretty awesome stuff, quite honestly. Here is how I use it with embroidery...


You can either draw directly on to it or place it over whatever you would like to trace...


And then you stick it onto whatever it is you're embroidering on! It's sticky enough so it stays in place but yet can easily be peeled off and repositioned until you're happy with it. Then you just slap on your hoop and stabilizer and get to stitching! It sort of adds a little bit of extra stability while you're sewing, which is nice. And when you're done you can peel it off! Viola!

I hope that comes in handy for someone!

CHUNG CHUNG!

[misspotatoalauren]

Those are friggen awesome! I'm going to marry Elliott Stabler!!!!

[crafty gurll]

Very cute stitching!  And I'm totally running out to go buy cling wrap, fab idea!

[hipmama1970]

These onesies are made of AWESOME!!!!!!

And that's a great tip!

[kymj]

OMG....so awesome!!!

[jukebox]

oh lol. I love them.
question about the press n' seal - when you rip it off, do you find it slides out from beneath the stitches easily? I'd be afraid to use it on anything requiring a satin stitch because I worry about it's visibilty.

[urka]

oh lol. I love them.
question about the press n' seal - when you rip it off, do you find it slides out from beneath the stitches easily? I'd be afraid to use it on anything requiring a satin stitch because I worry about it's visibilty.

I've found it comes out pretty easily... sometimes little pieces will get stuck and you have to use a pair of tweezers or something to pull it out. However, I guess I should have mentioned that I pretty much only embroider with backstitch because I am a very half-assed stitcher, so I am not sure if it would work out well with all kinds of stitches.

[AbbyRose]

Absolutely genius!

[OnionGrrl]

I had to chime in and say thank you for the technique you posted. I always want to embroider on black fabric, and don't have any of that color transfer stuff. All my transfers are black ink. I can NOT do freehand, lol.

This is brilliant!

I've used that t-shirt stabilizer (that you iron on) to embroider. Honestly, if I could pull that off without ruining any stitches, this should be even easier. The stabilizer I used was VERY difficult to get off, and I really had to yank. I was worried about my stitches, but nothing happened. This looks like it would be a lot easier than my stabilizer.

Anyway, though I don't watch L&O and have no idea who these people are ... the faces look great. I always have problems embroidering faces. But, these look great.

[dinahbrand]

wow!  those look really good.  thanks for the plastic wrap tip, i'm very new to embroidering but have been looking around for an easyish way to make cool designs without a pattern.  i'll definitely try this!  you just pull it off when you're done right?