Punchneedle Embroidery – Other Fabrics

I earlier wrote about the fabric best used for punchneedle embroidery: weaver’s cloth.  It is a woven poly-cotton blend fabric.  Being woven the needle slips between the threads of the cloth to form the punchneedle loop and since it is a poly-cotton blend when the fabric is taken out of the hoop, it closes in around the stitch loops and holds them in place.

Weaver’s cloth is the best fabric but it is not the only fabric that can be used.  Just about any fabric can be used for punch needle.  Cotton as well as a 100% polyester fabric has been used but since the needles are so sharp, they can tear the threads of the fabric. 

One of the other secrets about weaver’s cloth is that if you ever have to take out some loops you can easily iron (or rub with your finger nail) the holes where the stitches were and it will look like no stitches were ever there.   With cotton if you have to take out the stitch loops, you might have a hole that can’t be repaired.  And cotton or polyester fabric doesn’t have a stretch to it like a poly cotton blend, so when you take it out of the hoop it won’t close around the stitch loops and hold them in place.

But there is a way to fix that.  All you have to do is use a woven interfacing.  Iron it to the back of the fabric and it will help hold those stitches in place just like the weaver’s cloth does.  Remember the design in punch needle is drawn on the back of the fabric and you stitch from the back.  So when using woven interfacing draw the design on the interfacing and then iron it on to the fabric.  You could use other types of interfacing but like cotton or 100% polyester fabric, it will tear when the needle goes through it.

Cotton with woven interfacing

Front of cotton

Cotton and polyester are not the only fabric to use the woven interfacing with.  You can use it on knit or jersey if you want to punchneedle a design on a baby outfit or a t-shirt. I even tried it on a velveteen fabric without using the interfacing.  It looked OK but I wouldn’t do it again. 

velveteen back

velveteen front

I read somewhere about other fabrics like tulle, denim, aida cloth (used for cross stitch) needle point canvas and even perforated paper.  I found it had good results. Perforated paper is a light weight cardstock with holes punched it in at regular intervals so you can add stitching to cards or scrapbooks. After you have punched a design, just cut the design out of the paper around the punching (leaving one hole of the paper past the design to hold the edge stitch loops in place) and then glue it to the cardstock.  The fact that it is glued to another paper will prevent the stitches from coming out.

Aida back

Aida front



Needlepoint canvas - back

Needlepoint canvas - front

Perforated paper - back

Perforated paper - front

The one thing about the fabrics I listed above is that you have to be aware of the size needle you use with it.  You wouldn’t want to use a 6 strand or large needle on tulle which is likely to tear the tulle and a small or 1 or 2 thread needle would have a hard time going through denim.

The best advice with using other fabrics for punchneedle is to try it.  Take some fabric, use it with or without woven interfacing and see if you like the results.  I would try it with what ever thread you use the most often (for me that would be embroidery floss).   Since you know how that thread looks on weavers cloth, it will give you a good comparison to how it would look on other fabrics, canvas or even perforated paper

©2018  Cheryl Fillion