How to Transfer an Embroidery Pattern (4 Easy Methods)

The first method prints your pattern straight onto fabric, and it starts with plastic-coated freezer paper. Iron your fabric flat, then lay the freezer paper shiny side down on top and press it with a hot iron for 15 to 20 seconds. The coating melts just enough to grip the cloth.

Run your finger around the edges to check the paper is stuck with no lifting corners. This backing stiffens the fabric so it can feed through a printer like an ordinary sheet of paper. Trim off any overhang with a rotary cutter.

Load the stiffened fabric into an inkjet printer with the fabric side facing up, and print your design onto the cloth. The lines come out crisp and sized exactly to your pattern, which is why this is the most accurate of the four methods.

Peel the fabric off the freezer paper once the ink has dried. If you would rather skip the cutting and ironing, a letter-size fabric sticker sheet does the same job. Stick it to the fabric, smooth out the bubbles, and print.

Sticky Fabri-Solvy is a printable, self-adhesive stabilizer that washes out with water. Print your design onto it, cut it to size, and set it aside. Put your fabric in the hoop first, then peel the backing off the stabilizer and smooth it down over the taut fabric.

Now you stitch right through both layers, following the printed outline. Reach for this method when your fabric will not take a print, such as dark cotton, linen or felt.

Once your design is stitched, hold the whole piece under running water. The Fabri-Solvy dissolves and rinses off, leaving your thread sitting on clean fabric with no residue. Rub it gently between your fingers to clear any last film.

Let the fabric dry flat before you put it back in the hoop or up on display. If you want to leave the work hooped while it dries, tie off the loose edges so they do not fray.

Carbon paper copies a drawing onto fabric with no printer at all. Lay a sheet of dressmaker's carbon on your fabric with the dark, waxy side facing down, then set your paper pattern on top of it.

Trace over every line with a stylus or an empty ballpoint pen. Press firmly, because the harder you push, the cleaner the transferred line comes out underneath. Lift the papers away and your outline sits on the fabric, ready to stitch.

The last method uses pattern tracing fabric, a thin see-through non-woven sheet that sewers keep for copying patterns. Set it over your printed design and trace the outline onto it with any pen you have to hand.

Because the material is sheer, the lines below show right through, so your copy comes out accurate. This gives you a portable version of the design that you lay onto your real fabric in the next step.

Lay the traced tracing fabric on top of your project fabric and go over the lines one more time. Use a heat-erasable pen or a water-soluble transfer pen so the marks vanish later with heat or a splash of water, leaving nothing on the finished piece.

The pen presses the mark down onto the fabric below. A heat pen has a firmer tip, so you can bear down and get a sharper line than the softer water pen leaves. Pick whichever method suited your fabric best and start stitching.