Transfer Embroidery Designs Using Solvy Water Soluble Stabilizer

Super Solvy is a convenient option for transferring more complex embroidery designs to fabric. In this post, I’ll share how I use it and some helpful tips for successfully working with it.

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How To Use Super Solvy

I often use this for thread painting patterns, where fine lines and small details in the design are usually too tricky to trace onto the fabric.

Super Solvy is surprisingly durable and completely translucent. It comes in a few different-sized rolls and is available on Sulky’s website or on Amazon. While it’s a bit more expensive up front, it lasts a long time.

Stabilizer Weights

Super Solvy comes as a light, medium, or heavyweight stabilizer. I have tried all of them for hand embroidery and found that the light and medium-weight stabilizers are the easiest to use. The heavyweight is simply too thick to stitch through.

The lightweight is great for smaller projects that are relatively quick and don’t require a lot of handling.

With excessive handling and prolonged use, the lightweight stabilizer sometimes tears or stretches out, so naturally, the medium-weight stabilizer is ideal for larger projects that you’ll be stitching for a while.

How To Transfer Designs To Super Solvy

I prefer to use a larger piece of stabilizer about the same size as the fabric I plan to stitch on. This will make it easier to keep the stabilizer positioned in place with the embroidery hoop and to trace onto.

Removing The Stabilizer

Super Solvy is removable with water. To fully remove the stabilizer, soak the embroidery in cool water for a few minutes, then gently remove any excess bits under running water.

Another quick way to remove it is to tear it away, but removing all of the little pieces around the embroidery is a bit more tedious.

Extra Tips

• Avoid excessively humid environments or handling the stabilizer with damp hands, as this will degrade it.
• If you have a smaller piece of stabilizer that won’t completely fit around a hoop, you can baste or pin it to secure it to the fabric.
• Always test out the marker you plan to use with a small piece of stabilizer and fabric to check that it doesn’t bleed onto the fabric.
• If the fabric feels stiff after washing away the stabilizer, soak it again to remove any residue.
• Use a permanent, archival marker to trace the design.

Interested in learning about even more transfer methods? Check out my guide for using stick and stitch.