How to add some silly embroidery to a pillow?
October 6, 2013 10:14 AM Subscribe
My husband needs a husband pillow. I would like to embroider, stencil, or otherwise embellish the pillow with the slogan "probably the best husband in the world" a la Carlsberg. I would prefer a font resembling the original, but it doesn't have to be. I have very basic sewing skills but I am open to paying someone to do this. Any ideas?
You can download the Carlsberg font for free. Then you could type in what you want it to say, fairly large size (at least 18pt) and use the site andreapandrea linked to in order to create a cross-stitch grid pattern. Or put a piece of graph paper over a print-out and trace it.
Cross stitch is really not hard. I was doing it when I was about 5 or 6. Admittedly, I made mistakes, but that's what unpicking is for!
I would recommend doing the cross stitch on a piece of cross-stitch fabric (like Aida or evenweave) and then attaching that to the pillow rather than attempting to stitch directly onto the pillow, which is likely to be harder to work with because curved, not flat.
posted by Athanassiel at 6:00 PM on October 6, 2013
Cross stitch is really not hard. I was doing it when I was about 5 or 6. Admittedly, I made mistakes, but that's what unpicking is for!
I would recommend doing the cross stitch on a piece of cross-stitch fabric (like Aida or evenweave) and then attaching that to the pillow rather than attempting to stitch directly onto the pillow, which is likely to be harder to work with because curved, not flat.
posted by Athanassiel at 6:00 PM on October 6, 2013
Decorative stitching on the front of a pillow is hard, and if you're not an experienced embroiderer or cross-stitcher, you'll probably hate it. You'd need to look for a pillow that has a removable cover, so you can just unzip the outer decorative cover and peel it off, embroider it (or have it embroidered) and put it back on.
Custom embroidery websites usually involve selecting the item from their blank inventory (a shirt, a bag, etc) and sending them a design file. Then it gets sewn on professional embroidery machines, and looks very sleek and professional, but not very crafty. See if there's a business like that which you can visit in person, and ask if they can embroider any item you give them, such as a pillow cover. Alternately, if you want the crafty look, check on Etsy for someone (a needlepoint or cross-stitch type person) who could do that for you.
posted by aimedwander at 7:47 AM on October 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
Custom embroidery websites usually involve selecting the item from their blank inventory (a shirt, a bag, etc) and sending them a design file. Then it gets sewn on professional embroidery machines, and looks very sleek and professional, but not very crafty. See if there's a business like that which you can visit in person, and ask if they can embroider any item you give them, such as a pillow cover. Alternately, if you want the crafty look, check on Etsy for someone (a needlepoint or cross-stitch type person) who could do that for you.
posted by aimedwander at 7:47 AM on October 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
after that, you can flip the design and print it on an iron-on transfer thing, or embroider it on your pillow.
some tips for getting a good design from someone at fiverr:
- check to make sure that they have a lot of good reviews
- look at some of their designs and the turnaround time for the job
- if they start out acting sketchy, cancel your order and start again.
you can create a cross-stitch pattern here.
depending on the fabric you are cross stitching into, it might be easy or hard to follow the lines, so take that into consideration.
posted by andreapandrea at 12:41 PM on October 6, 2013 [1 favorite]