Water Soluble Topping is a very important element for creating quality embroidery designs and can be used to remedy designs that do not have the quality look that you are expecting.
Using a water soluble topping when you are embroidering on any type of fabric that has a raised or rough texture will make your embroidery look smoother and help to climb over those rough spots. Topping will help to keep the thread on top of the garment instead of letting it sink into the fabric.
I always use topping on my knit fabrics, especially the pique knits. If you want to produce quality embroidery on textured knit goods, using soluble film will always give you the best look. If you do an experiment and embroider 2 samples using the same design on the same fabric, one with a topping and one without the topping, I am sure that you will see a noticeable difference.
Some digitizers know how to create a design to eliminate or reduce the need for soluble film but many do not. The best way to get around it is to use a topping. Some people claim that if you use the topping and wash your garment, the topping is removed and so are the benefits of using it. I have never found this to be true. Sometimes it is necessary to use two layers instead of one if a design is badly digitized, but for the most part, one layer works just fine.
Use Topping To Help Small Text Embroider Smoothly On Top Of Fill Stitches
When you have a design that has small text on top of rough textured fill stitches, the letters can often sink and disappear into the fill stitches. Laying down a piece of topping over the fill area before you embroider the text will solve this issue and give you a smooth edge on your text. The problem can sometimes be fixed by shortening the fill stitch length allowing the letters to stay on the surface, but if you are not a digitizer this may out of your realm. This topping trick will take care of it for you without having to do anything else.
I had a design that was digitized for a light denim woven fabric and my customer wanted me to use the same design on a heavy canvas bag. It was a stitch file he had provided and did not want it edited in any way. I embroidered a sample of it on canvas and it looked horrible. I did not want an item going out of my shop looking terrible, so I laid the topping on the bag before I embroidered it and it looked great! My customer was very excited when he saw the finished product.
Topping Protects Your Fabric On Dress Shirts!
I always use topping on dress shirts also. I do this not because of the fabric, I do this to protect the fabric. If I have a monogram to embroider on a white shirt, you can be sure that dirt or oil from the machine will magically get on the white shirt! With the topping on it, it protects it and the oil cannot penetrate the topping!
Topping can also be used as a backing when you are embroidering on delicate light weight fabrics that you do not want to see a backing on after it is finished. I have embroidered the bottom of wedding gowns using topping as the backing and they came out great! I was able to remove the topping and the white embroidered design on these white chiffon skirts was beautiful!
I also use the topping as a backing when I embroider blankets. I do not want to see backing after the job is finished on the back of my blankets, throws, shawls or scarfs. It is also good for lubricating the needle when you have a fabric that wants to skip stitches.
If you do not or have not used topping very much, get acquainted with it. It took me a long time to decide to use it as a first resort rather than a last resort, but I am glad I did. I think that you will discover, just like I did, using it will give you the highest quality embroidery possible!