How to print an embroidery pattern on stick and stitch

Which printer works

A home inkjet printer is what most stitchers use, and it's what our print files are made for. Some guides say a laser printer works too. Wandering Threads, for one, says either kind will do. Sheets vary by brand, so read the instructions on your pack before you put one through a laser printer. How to choose stick and stitch paper lists what to check.

Sulky sells its printable sheets in US letter size, 8 1/2 by 11 inches, and says most people feed them through the bypass tray, the single-sheet slot some printers call manual feed. Our pattern files are letter size too. If your sheets are A4, print at 100% all the same and check the 1-inch bar.

Find the soft side, and the side your printer prints on

Every sheet has two sides. One is soft and feels a little like fabric: that's the side you print on. The other is a smooth, shiny paper backing that peels off before you stick the sheet down. Ink on the backing goes in the bin with it.

Printers don't all print on the same side of the page, so find out with plain paper before you use a sheet. Draw a small pencil X on one side of a plain sheet, put it in the tray with the X facing up, and print anything. If the print lands on the X, your printer prints on the side that faces up in that tray. Load your stick and stitch sheet with the soft side the same way.

Note which way the top of the page goes in, too. A pattern printed upside down is fine; a pattern half on the backing is not.

Printing a pattern, step by step

1. Turn off any scaling. Open the print dialog and choose 100% or Actual size. Turn off Fit to page, Shrink to fit and Scale to fit, wherever your printer hides them.
2. Choose plain paper and light ink. Set the paper type to plain paper, not photo paper, and the quality to draft or the lightest option. Photo and best-quality settings put down more ink than a pattern needs.
3. Test on plain paper. Print one copy on ordinary paper and lay a ruler on the 1-inch bar. If it measures short or long, fix the settings now. The sheet is the expensive part.
4. Check the fit in your hoop. Hold the paper copy inside your hoop. Every line should sit at least half an inch inside the ring.
5. Load one sheet. One sheet at a time, soft side facing the way your pencil test showed, through the bypass or manual feed if your printer has one.
6. Print once. Same settings as the paper test. Don't change anything between the two.
7. Let it dry. Give the ink five minutes before you touch the printed side, then cut the design out with a small margin.

Will the ink bleed into the fabric?

Normally it rinses away with the sheet. The trouble comes from too much ink. A photo or best-quality setting lays it on thick, and heavy ink is more likely to leave a grey tint in pale linen after the soak. Light ink still shows you every dot.

• Print light. Draft or the lightest setting, plain paper mode.
• Let it dry. Damp ink can smudge onto your hands, then onto the linen.
• Rinse properly at the end. Soak in lukewarm water for 5 to 10 minutes and finish under the running tap, so dissolved ink can't settle back on the fabric. How to remove stick and stitch has the details.

If a grey line stays after the rinse, see pattern lines showing after stitching.

Storing sheets, and what to do without a printer

Stick and stitch is made to dissolve in water, so keep unused sheets flat and dry, in their packet, away from a steamy kitchen or bathroom. Don't stick a printed sheet onto fabric until you're ready to hoop it.

No printer? When you join the Stitch Your Dog course, you can add pre-printed sheets of your own dog's pattern at checkout, and they're mailed to you. Or print the pattern on plain paper anywhere you can, and trace it onto your fabric instead.

Printing problems and fixes

The 1-inch bar measures short.

Something is scaling the page. Choose 100% or Actual size and turn off every fit or shrink option, then test on plain paper again.

It printed on the shiny backing.

The sheet went in the wrong way up. Do the pencil-X test on plain paper and load the next sheet the other way.

The edge of the design is cut off.

The paper size in the dialog doesn't match the sheet. Pick your sheet's size, keep the scale at 100%, and test again.

The ink smudged.

It was touched before it dried, or the ink setting was heavy. Switch to draft and wait five minutes.

The sheet jammed.

Feed one sheet at a time through the bypass or manual slot, flat and square, rather than from a stack in the main tray.

Questions people ask

Keep going

• How-to guideHow to use stick and stitch, step by stepPrint, stick, hoop, stitch through and rinse: a pet portrait from sheet to finished hoop, plus how the other transfer methods compare.
• How-to guideHow to remove stick and stitch (no residue)Trim, soak, rinse and dry: the calm, exact way to wash stick and stitch out of finished embroidery, and what to do if it stays sticky.
• How-to guideHow to transfer an embroidery pattern to fabric: every method comparedNine ways to put a pattern on fabric, side by side: how each one comes off, which work on dark fabric, and which suit a detailed portrait.
• How-to guideNeedle getting sticky with stick and stitch? Here's the fixWhy stick and stitch makes the needle gummy, how to clean it in seconds, and the other small problems that turn up mid-stitch.
• How-to guidePattern lines still showing after you stitch? What to doLeftover pattern lines, sorted by where they came from: stick and stitch ink, pens, carbon and iron-on transfers, and what removes each.
• ComparisonStick and stitch vs water-soluble stabilizer: what's the difference?Stick and stitch is a printable, self-adhesive water-soluble stabilizer. How it compares to the plain kind, and which is easier for a beginner.
• How-to guideHow to turn a photo into an embroidery pattern (hand embroidery)Trace a photo into hand-embroidery line art yourself, or let a pattern maker draw it with every stitch marked.