Embroidery Tips for Tiling Scenes

If you are into embroidery or love making fabrics that display a scene, you should know about tiling scenes. Tiling scenes are embroidery intensive squares joined together to display a scene. While many tiling projects can be year-round themes, like birds or landscapes, there is a large portion that is focused on the winter holidays. So now is the perfect time to start up a tiling scene project and here are our four top tips.

Embroidery

These small rectangles of fabric will often contain over 25,000 stitches. So you need to make sure that your machine is in tip-top shape. If your sewing machine shreds thread, needs a bobbin adjustment, or has other issues, be sure and have the items fixed before you start on this intensive project.

Organization

• Do not let a tiling scene overwhelm you. The key is to get things organized BEFORE you start up. Many tiling projects come with a pre-selected thread kit, that you can buy as an accessory. Of course, you can always pick your thread colors, and often the changes can be striking. But make sure that you have enough thread in all the colors you will be using. You don't want to try and match a thread color at your local quilt shop when you run out of thread mid-project.
• Use a thread stand to hold your thread in the order needed for each tile. Be sure and label the spools clearly if two colors are similar.
• Many designs use applique as part of the process so have those fabric pieces ready in the correct sizes.

Time

Recognize that these pieces take a lot of time. Even if you trust your embroidery machine and will bravely walk away from the machine while it hums away, you will often be called upon to swap out the colors. Many designs will contain 24 or more squares so if you are wanting to make one for a specific holiday or as a gift, plan accordingly. Plan on at least one or two of the square pieces will end up with a flaw that requires you to re-do the whole piece, adding to the workload.

Piecing

The individual fabric pieces need to be carefully cut out with a quarter-inch seam and then the seams matched up and sewn together. Since the scene will flow from one piece to another, you must take your time aligning the pieces before you sew the pieces together. Plan on using lots of straight pins to temporarily hold them together when you start to sew.

Consider using invisible thread when sewing the pieces together. That way if the alignment of the pieces is slightly off your thread may not be obviously showing on the sewn pieces. Expect to have some pieces slightly out of alignment. Depending on how severe the alignment issue is, don’t be surprised if you end up pulling out the stitches and re-sewing the pieces together. A seam ripper may end up being your best new friend.

Tiling scenes are eye-catching designs that show off your embroidery skills. You will end up with an impressive subject that will testify to your skills and abilities. Follow these tips and you may catch the "bug" and continue doing more and more tiling scenes.

Many tiling scenes are focused on the winter holidays.

Plenty of tiling scenes could be displayed year round.

Adding colorful threads makes the difference to many tiling scenes.

Many vendors offers a collection of per-selected threads for the tiling scene.

A collection of threads will have the right colors and enough spools to compete the scene.

A thread stand can help keep the wide variety of threads in a tiling scene organized.