Ambroidering

It's a punch needle!

I restock them in my Etsy store as often as possible - which is usually about once a month. I sell all five sizes of punch needle with a threader together in one package. They're £7.50 plus shipping and I ship worldwide.

I use normal six strand embroidery thread, I then split this for smaller and more detailed stitching. Any brand of embroidery thread will work, dmc, anchor, etc.

There's no proper rules, everyone has different perferences.

Personally I've found that I like to use the following sizes and thread amounts together:

-Size 16 for 6 strands of thread.

-Size 14 for 5 strands of thread.

-Size 12 for 3 or 4 strands of thread.

-Size 10 for 1 or 2 strands of thread.

-Size 9 for 1 strand of thread.

I'm not very picky about fabrics so I use lots of different types. Most people swear that punch needles can only be used with monks cloth or linen. Calico is also a great option and I probably use this most frequently, but there's no limitations, use whatever fabrics you want to!

As I use my right hand to hold my punch needle and create stitches, the needle makes loops of thread wherever it is pushed into the fabric. These loops can easily be pulled free when creating longer stitches, so I hold onto the loops using my left hand, meaning they can't be pulled out and everything stays in place.

Most of the time the weave of your fabric will keep stitches in place well enough that you don't really need to do anything extra to secure them. In some cases when I want to be extra certain that the stitches won't be pulled free, I'll spread PVA glue, fabric glue or liquid latex onto the back of the work. I personally like liquid latex the most as it doesn't wash off as easily as other glues.

For me it's much faster, but that comes with practice. For beginners it can sometimes be a slow process, as all learning is!

It's definitely a bit trickier than it can appear to be. Some people pick it up very easily and some people really struggle. When I first tried it I was so frustrated that I put my needle down and didn't touch it again for a week.

I don't usually reccomend using a punch needle on clothing.

There's a number of reasons for this:

- Most clothing is made of stretch fabrics, which are much harder to work with than a stiffer woven fabric, you need that fabric weave to help keep the stitches in place.

- I'd be very concerned that the stitches would easily fall out when the clothing was washed.

- Securing the stitches with glue would make the clothing very bulky in that area.

- A lot of glues will wash off easily (liquid latex is a good way around this).

- The clothing wearer would likely have the glue pressing/rubbing against their skin which would be highly uncomfortable.

There are a few ways around all of these issues (stitching onto other fabric first, using the loops as the front of the work, using liquid latex, then appliquing the design onto the clothing afterwards), but that's a very different sort of look than a 'normal' embroidery clothing project has.