Today, sweatshirt fabrics are being used for a variety of other products, including sweatshirt blankets and tote bags. Below, you’ll find some tips from Jerilee Auclair, owner of Black Eagle Designs and Busyheadcreations.com, for working with sweatshirt material to make your designs look amazing. Try to switch up placements, adding a small logo on the back of a tote, or embroidering in corners. 

• On sweatshirt material, increase density (which sits at 74.7 stitches per inch or 3.5 points) and increase pull compensation because sweatshirt material is thick and can really make a satin stitch look skinny.

• Try using Burmilana thread (a Madeira product) at regular density or a slightly lesser density (but with the extra pull comp). Made in part from wool, it’s great for giving an old-fashioned or vintage look to designs. Use a larger needle – a 100/16 size makes a larger hole, but decreases the chance the thread will get caught in the eye of the needle.

• Opting for a regular thread, use a polyester thread to avoid fading or bleeding out, which can ruin a bag when it’s washed or bleached. “Totes get set down on floors, thrown into cars and more, so they can be expected to get dirty, which is why I think they’d be bleached at some point,” Auclair says. Also, hot water (even without bleach) can make rayon thread run/fade/bleed so poly would be the way to go.

• Use a regular needle when doing work with regular thread (meaning, use a 75/11 or 80/12 needle with 40-weight thread). The larger the needle number, the larger the shaft/eye, and thus the larger the hole, but sweatshirt material will close around the hole quickly anyway. 

• Use a tearaway stabilizer. “I usually prescribe a cutaway type of backing, but in a tote, you don’t want some big mass of white or black ‘stuff’ on the inside of the bag and ‘things’ can get caught on it, so tearaway is the way to go on this type of project,” Auclair says.