Let’s talk about wrinkles.
When you get your embroidery kit, you might notice that your fabric has a few wrinkles in it from being folded and shipped. A lot of these wrinkles are going to come out while you’re sewing just from the tension of the hoop, but I always recommend getting rid of the wrinkles before you start.
Over the years, I’ve tried lots of different methods but this one has proven to be the best. Honestly, it's my #1 tip for removing stubborn wrinkles from embroidery fabric.
The first thing you’re going to do is wet your fabric. So with a spray bottle, you’re going to dampen the fabric. It doesn't need to get dripping wet, just damp.
Then comes the hard part: you have to wait.
If you were to put the iron down on the fabric now (without waiting) and start to iron, all you’d be doing is wiping the water off the fabric because it hasn’t had a chance to sink in. Instead, you want to wait at least five minutes. This gives the fabric time to soak up the water and ease the tension in its fibers. While you wait, you can run your hands over the fabric for about thirty seconds, pulling it in all directions to smooth out the wrinkles.
After five minutes of patiently (or impatiently) waiting, set your iron to the COTTON setting. Since the fabric is wet, you don’t need the steam setting.
Using that same pulling motion from before, you’re going to set your iron down on the fabric and pull the fabric away from the iron as you move the iron towards you. Essentially you’re pulling as you go. This way you’re already flattening the fabric before the iron gets there, so that the heat of the iron keeps the fabric flat. Think of a crease as a little mountain. If you don’t flatten the mountain before you iron, all the iron does is smoosh it back into place. By pulling before you go, you get rid of the wrinkly mountain right away.
This technique can also be used once you’re done stitching, but you’ll want to put a tea towel down on top of your embroidery to protect it.
If your wrinkle is very stubborn, you may need to do this several times. Don’t forget to let the water soak in for at least 5 minutes.
If you want to see this tip in action, I have a video showing all of these steps below.