I first iron on polymesh, then I hoop tear away and spray with adhesive and stick the shirt to that, no hooping. I will float a couple pieces of soft tearaway also underneath the hoop after I've attached the hoop to the machine if the design is dense. I use solvy or Vilene Sol u Web on top. I've not had a tshirt to turn out bad. Works perfect everytime. If you don't have polymesh, try Totally Stable. Keeps the shirt from stretching.
Heres a link to an embroidery album, you can see a butterfly shirt I did that was dense.
http://community.webshots.com/user/jlfribley59

Thanks for the advice. I'll try that.
By the way, the butterfly shirt is beautiful!
Thanks for the help
Penny

I use the polyester iron on knit interfacing on the shirt. Make sure you put the stretch of it opposite the stretch of the shirt.The rest I do like joly. I never hoop anything with stretch.

I use an iron on tearaway on the shirt then hoop it with a layer of lightweight stabilizer. If you hoop the shirt you have to make sure you don't stretch it - just have it taut in the hoop.

Joly

I just looked at your slideshow on WebShots! You do REALLY REALLY GREAT WORK! I especially like the Lorelei gals. I'll hafta Google them or do you have a link to where I can purchase them? Another question...when I take digital pics of my stuff, they don't turn out clear like yours do, especially after making them smaller so this web site will accept them (Thanks for any tips you might give.

You can find the Loralie designs at www.loraliedesigns.com
I love them. First I saw of them was at the vendor hall in Las Vegas at the Creative Embroidery Conference which happened to be going on when I was there. I've been hooked ever since! The details are just gorgeous on the designs but they take 2-3 hours to stitch out but oh so worth it! I'll be doing 2 purses for 86 year old twins here pretty soon. I'm putting 2 designs of a Loralie on them and changing the hair to gray and outfit to purple (they love purple) and mirror imaging so they are slanted towards each other and their names under each and on the back the name of the one the purse belongs too. I can't wait to see them finished.
Anyway, you can get a free webshots album at www.webshots.com All you do is add pictures and the album does the rest...slideshow etc and you can have different albums. Its really easy. I have an Olympus C740 camera, 3.2megapixel. I try to take my pictures outside where the light is nice and bright. Sometimes the stripes on the purses are blurry but all in all I don't do much to the pic, take it on "auto" settings. If I need to crop, I just have a basic program for that. Hope this helps and would love to see your work! Let me know when you have an album set up or if I can help in anyway! Thank you for such nice compliments! I enjoy looking at everything everyone makes too!

Thanks, joly. I ordered a single design from Loralie called Serious Shopper. It was really tough to decide which one to get!! Unfortunately, the ole' budget doesn't allow for a whole design package right now (this hobby does get expensive). I am really anxious to receive it (funny that they don't arrange to have downloaded versions, especially for single designs). Hopefully it will get here soon. Another designer that I like and have had good results with is robertascreations.com. They are really cute and reasonably priced as well.

Will hafta try the Webshots album feature. I download my daily 5 freebies but haven't explored their other features.

Thanks!
Mary L

You will love Serious Shopper. I have her too and she is really cool to stitch out. I'll have to check out robertascreations! I have alot of designs but the Loralie's are my most precious designs!
Looking forward to when you get an album set up.