If you have an embroidery machine and you’re making a wedding dress, you have to – I would say it’s mandatory   – embroider a ribbon and sew it into the dress with the bride and groom’s names, date and location. Just imagine years down the road when the next generation is looking at the dress, they’ll know the history of the garment.  Wouldn’t you have loved looking at that information on your mother’s dress? I know I would have.  So here’s how to do it.

Create the text in an embroidery lettering program such as Inspiration’s Perfect Embroidery Pro and split it into several hoopings.  (Check back here on Saturday for the how-do). Print templates of each hooping. Cut the ribbon the length of the combined text and add about five extra inches to the ribbon length to make hooping easier.  Place the hoop’s outer ring on a cutting mat aligning the hoop’s straight edges with the mat’s grid. Lay a piece of water soluble stabilizer over the ring. Place the ribbon in the hoop laying the end over the ring and centering the ribbon within the hoop’s sewing field. Use the mat’s grid to place the ribbon straight.  Insert the inner ring. Forgive me, these photos do not show a cutting mat but trust me, they should! 

Center the first template on the ribbon. Use a centering ruler to find the center of the ribbon and align the template’s crosshair with the ruler’s center.  The edges of the ribbon should hit the ruler at equal increments.

Remove the template and embroider the first design.  Remove the hoop from the machine and the ribbon from the hoop. Tape the second template on the ribbon, checking the spacing between the hoopings.  Ascenders and descenders, such as lower case j’s and p’s and all upper case letters, can throw off the centering. If a line of text has both ascenders and descenders, the center of the design will probably be on the text baseline. If it has one or none, the center of the design will not be on the baseline, it will be the center of the actual text.  Keep the text aligned on the same baseline from hooping to hooping.  Use a centering ruler to help with placement.

If you use a soft blue thread, you’ll have the ‘something blue’ covered and most likely the delicate color will not bleed through the dress. 

I sewed the ribbon to the outside of the lining at the center back. Her dress was mermaid style and the back hem had quite a curve. In retrospect, if I had to do it again, I would sew it to a straighter portion of the lining hem or even up a seam from the lining towards the waist. 

 Thanks for reading!

Reprinted with permission from Eileen's Blog.