Studio Staples

I get asked ALL. THE. TIME. about my preferred embroidery supplies. So, when the opportunity came up to work with DMC and create a shop-able gallery via dmc.com, I thought it would be a great time to share some of my favorites.

To be clear, this is far from a definitive list and I am a huge believer in trial and error, experimentation, and following your own instincts when it comes to choosing your own making tools, materials, and supplies. I won’t get into every embroidery possibility here, but I will share some of my studio go-to’s. If you are just diving into the world of embroidery, perhaps this narrowed down list can help you get started! Or maybe you aren’t new to the game, but you’ll find something here that you haven’t used before and it might be worth checking out! Either way, I hope you enjoy this little insight into my thought process when it comes to materials.

Experimenting with supplies—whether it’s different types of thread or a new-to-me fabric—drives my work. While I don’t always publicly share each and every iteration and experiment (because let’s be real, a little creative privacy is crucial in this ‘share often and share everything’ digital era), know that behind the scenes there are many instances of trial and error, failed attempts at new directions, and a few gleaming glints of forward progress urged onward by the characteristics of the materials.

For the sake of transparency, I want to thank DMC for making this post possible and let you know that this post contains affiliate links—meaning I will receive a small commission on any purchases made through such links. Collaborations such as this help keep my studio afloat and allow me to offer meaningful content to you for free. I only recommend supplies that I truly believe in and think you will appreciate too!

On the left: MONACO 28 CT. 20" X 24" fabric from DMC. On the right: LINEN 28 CT 20" X 24" fabric from DMC.

I’ll start with my no. 1 most frequently asked question: What kind of fabric do you use?

The frustratingly simple answer is that I use a lot of different types of fabrics in my studio. Each kind of fabric has its own set of pros and cons, and ultimately only you can decide what material you like to use. So I recommend getting your hands on lots of different swatches and giving yourself permission to explore, create, and assess. That being said, a good place to start is with a quality natural fiber. Cotton and linen are great options for embroidery and have been popular choices for a very long time. (Like hundreds of years.)

So let’s get into some details:

I love to work with cotton as the base for my embroidery because it is soft and sturdy. It is easy on my hands and doesn’t offer up a ton of resistance for the needle, even when threaded with multiple strands of embroidery floss. Cotton can contain a little stretch, which can present challenges if you haven’t really tightened it in your hoop.

Linen, which is made from flax, is a very strong and durable fabric with very little stretch and offers up a more rigid and stable base for embroidery. I find that the weave is often a little looser when compared with cotton, meaning there is more space between the fibers. This characteristic will or won’t present challenges depending on the type of stitching you are doing. Sometimes I find it is a little more challenging to keep my satin stitch very close together along the edges for example—though some outlining solves that problem pretty quickly! Linen is a beautiful fabric and always makes me a feel a little luxurious when I am using it.

Next up, a pretty important embroidery tool: the needle.

There are countless types of needles out there in the world—straight, curved, sharp, dull, thick, thin, etc.—and each is designed to serve a specific purpose.

And while I do use a variety of needles when I need to do certain things—stitching with tapestry wool is a very different experience and requires different tools than stitching with a single strand of embroidery floss, for example—DMC Size 5 Embroidery needles are my standard. These are the needles I use to do most of my embroidery. And they are the needles I bring to workshops and recommend in my patterns.

They are a sharp and nice and sturdy…I have snapped more than one lesser needle when stitching through particularly dense areas of my work and it is an experience I would rather avoid. The eye of size 5 needles is also accommodating for multiple strands of embroidery floss, but isn’t a gaping hole so it works even when I am using fewer strands. Plus, with a pack of 16 needles, you are set for a lot of stitching. (You’ll know when it’s time for a new needle because the shiny outer coating will wear off and the needle will start to squeak when you pull it through your fabric.)

And now, the old standard with a modern twist: the embroidery hoop.

Traditionally, embroidery hoops were purely functional tools to hold your fabric taut while you stitched. You would then remove the hoop and stretch your piece around another support for framing if you had stitched something decorative or you simply used whatever functional textile you had embellished.

Nowadays, hoops are popular final framing devices for a lot of contemporary embroidery work. And that makes sense. They are relatively inexpensive and convenient. Personally, I like the connection between functional tool/display method as a concept.

You would think something as straight forward as an embroidery hoop would be pretty uniform across the board in terms of quality and function…but you would be wrong. There are many different kinds of embroidery hoops—wood, plastic, bamboo—and hoops manufactured by different companies vary wildly in terms of quality.

I particularly like these bamboo hoops. They are sturdy, don’t splinter the way that lesser quality wooden hoops do, and have a tightly coiled screw at the top that keeps fabric nice and taut while you stitch. Plus, the bamboo is a little more sustainable and renewable than wood, which is a great bonus. (Bamboo grows extremely quickly and a patch of bamboo absorbs more carbon dioxide and releases more oxygen than a similar patch of trees, while requiring little water and no pesticides to thrive!)

Here’s another very frequently asked question: What is that paper stuff you are using?

Lately, I have been working a lot with water soluble stabilizer as a way to transfer my drawings very precisely onto my fabric. It is a great alternative to the ‘Light Box Method’ of transferring patterns, which is great because, while I do love the immediacy of the Light Box Method, it can be a pain!

Magic Paper makes it so much easier to get your design from paper or screen to your hoop…or shirt, or tote bag, or whatever! And when you are finished stitching, the extra paper washes away with water.

DMC Magic Paper water soluble stabilizer.

This material is great for free-hand drawing your own design or tracing an existing pattern—that you ethically bought from a working artist who produces such content, of course!—without the hassle of dealing with the difficulty of drawing directly onto fabric. The Magic Paper also makes it a lot easier to embroider onto thicker or darker fabrics that don’t work very well with the Light Box Method.

We are finally getting to the fun part: Embroidery Floss!

As the name suggests, this material is made for embroidery. It consists of six strands of cotton thread wound together. The floss is colorfast (meaning it won’t bleed if you wash it), fade resistant, and has a lovely sheen.

The six strands can be separated and you can thread your needle with however many threads that you want. I typically use 3-6 strands at a time to fill in areas of color (more threads = faster stitch time) and 1-2 strands of thread to add surface details, but there are no rules!

DMC makes 489 different colors of embroidery floss, so you are sure to find the shade you need! This is the material I use in all of my PDF patterns (where I always include a specific color guide!) and full embroidery kits. The quality is just unrivaled.

More thread: Pearl Cotton!

Another type of thread I frequently use in my work is pearl cotton. This thread doesn’t split and separate the way stranded embroidery floss does. It is more like string, and I use it most often to create black outlines on my embroideries, but have recently been experimenting with using different colors to create linear motifs on thrifted items of clothing.

DMC Pearl Cotton comes in four different sizes: 3, 5, 8, and 12. Size 3 is the thickest and size 12 is the thinnest. I most frequently use size 8 and 12 because they are great for creating delicate line work, though sizes 3 and 5 could be good options for working larger.

Just like the selection of embroidery floss, DMC makes hundreds of colors of pearl cotton.

And lastly, Tapestry Wool!

Though I have only just recently introduced myself to the world of wool, it has been a marvelous change of pace and texture—allowing me to work larger and a little faster while creating incredibly soft and inviting surfaces.

Like DMC’s cotton threads, these tapestry wools are colorfast (and, importantly, moth resistant). Unlike most of the cotton threads, the wool has a matte finish and unlike other wool threads I have tried, this stuff doesn’t seem to shred and thin as I am using it. Just like pearl cotton, this material doesn’t separate into strands, you just thread a big needle and go!

Though I have only used a few colors so far, there are hundreds of dreamy shades available. To keep things organized for yourself, DMC also makes really convenient color cards with samples of each color option.

Experimenting with new materials and colors is one of the most fun and rewarding parts of my practice, but it is also a really important and necessary part of my growth as an artist. I totally advocate making time for experimentation in your own work whether you have a full blown studio or are squeezing in hobby stitch time. You never know what ideas will form when trying a new material or color combo and only through trial and error will you start to develop and hone your own visual vocabulary and aesthetic.

So, as I said, this isn’t an exhaustive list—neither of DMC’s range of products or embroidery supplies at large, but these are the studio staples I have come to use, trust, and rely on. Hopefully you find it a useful jumping off point, and I hope you will take a moment to peruse my gallery and stock up on supplies at dmc.com!

Sarah BenningOctober 23, 20192 Comments