Common machine embroidery mistakes and fixes
Puckers, distorted designs, sinking stitches and resizing problems.
- Puckering: not enough stabiliser, or stretchy fabric hooped too tight. Use cut-away and hoop firm but not stretched.
- Design distorted after unhooping: fabric was pulled in the hoop.
- Stitches sinking into towels: add water-soluble topping.
- Messy after resizing: more than about 10 to 20% size change rarely works, because density was set for the original size.
- Wrong colours: file colours aren't always real thread. Keep a thread chart.
- Always stitch a test first.
Watch
Quick Tip: How to Avoid Thread Nesting (2:50)
By Embroidery Library · Open on YouTube
Chosen from its title and channel: a 2-minute video from Embroidery Library on the same topic as this guide. Embedded from YouTube with credit; we don't host it. It only loads when you press play.
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Sources
All checked 1 November 2026. We read these; we did not test the products ourselves.