Fabrics

The material you use to embroider on is very important and here Joan explores the various types. It is worth spending the extra money on good quality fabrics, as you are likely to spend so many hours working on it, and it should last for years. A poor quality material may not, in fact, be suitable for embroidery and it can also detract from your work – as well as not standing up to the wear and tear of use or display.

Wool Blanketing

If you are going to embroider a blanket for a baby – or an adult – use only 100 per cent pure wool fabric. Some brands are whiter and thinner and some are not 100 per cent wool. And, if you use cheap blanketing with polyester in it, you’ll find the finished item ‘pills’.

Blanketing varies in width from 160cm to 180cm (about 63in to 71in) and you should certainly choose only the best quality wool blanketing to make an embroidered blanket for a baby. It’s completely washable by hand in a good wool-wash product with a wool conditioner in the final rinse. Joan prefers to wash it by hand, then let it drip-dry – never spin it! It takes longer this way but of course they dry quicker in the summer months. Joan cradles the blankets over the clothes line so that the water doesn’t weigh them down, and pegs them in several places close to the edge. Once dry, there is very little ironing to be done due to the drip-drying process, so just press it lightly on the wrong side with an iron on a wool setting. Joan doesn’t have blankets dry-cleaned as wool is a natural fibre and hand-washable if treated with care – never in a washing machine, even on a gentle cycle.

Wool blanketing is available in several shades, but she prefers cream as then she’s not restricted with the colours for the embroidery. Some of the hues it comes in include champagne, pale yellow, pale purple, mid-blue and pink, and if you’ve opted for coloured wool fabric, the embroidery threads should match it. Tone-on-tone threads sometimes work, but if you haven’t guessed by now, Joan definitely isn’t a fan of coloured blanketing!

Cashmere Wool

Joan adores this fabric, it’s very soft and much finer than wool blanketing – and guess what? She prefers it only in a soft cream colour!