FAQs: Everything About Tufting Problems

February 3, 2022

How To

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Tufting requires several different tools and materials with fine-tuning details. During the process, things can easily go wrong. It is always good to be patient, all problems have a solution.

In this post, I gathered some common questions and the questions that I asked myself during my learning process.

Table Of Contents

How To Strech Tufting Cloth To Frame?
How To Trace Your Design On The Tufting Cloth?
How To Thread Yarn To Your Tufting Gun?
Why My Tufting Cloth Is Ripping?

How To Strech Tufting Cloth To Frame?

Tufting is a hobby that becoming popular these days. It might be difficult to start a new hobby since you are using materials that you have never seen or don’t know how to use! Here is a brief explanation of how to stretch your cloth to your tufting frame;

Start with the corners;
Choose a corner, I prefer the left top, and hang your cloth on the frame!
Go to another corner;
Now, go to the other corner, right top, stretch the cloth really hard and hang the cloth!
Stretch the downside
After you fixed the top side of the cloth now you can fix the downside easier. Just stretch the cloth as much as you can and hang the cloth on all sides.
Stretch again from every side
Since you need a really tented cloth, it needs to stretch well. That’s why after you are done with fixing all the sides you should better go stretch it again.

It is one of the most important things to have well-stretched cloth! Cause it will affect the working environment and performance of both the person and the machine dramatically.

Watch to see the steps of stretching the cloth to the frame;

Rug Tufting Quick guide: Stretching your cloth by Tuft the World

How To Trace Your Design On The Tufting Cloth?

This is the first step after the design phase, to be able to start tufting. There are various methods that you can use depending on your toolset. Because if you have a projector that would be the easiest solution. In the case of digital designs or the designs on a piece of paper, it is easily possible to project the design onto the tufting cloth and you can simply trace over the lines. I assume if you are asking this question to yourself you are looking for solutions that do not require a projector.

It is completely possible to start tufting without a projector, you can check Projector For Tufting, Do I Need One? for more detailed information. For more minimalistic rug designs, drawing directly onto the tufting cloth freehand would be the easiest solution for most people.

However, if the design contains a lot of tinier details and you do not feel very comfortable with freehand drawing you can try printing your design according to the actual rug size and trace it from there to the cloth.

There is another alternative image transferring technique known as the Grid Method. This method helps you to transfer smaller pieces of the design piece by piece to create an easier workflow. All you need to do is create a grid system on your design with equal square shapes and afterward the same grid system for your tufting cloth. Once both grids are ready, you can start copying each little square from your design to the cloth and the design will slowly appear on the cloth.

You can find a detailed step-by-step guide here.

How To Thread Yarn To Your Tufting Gun?

It can be challenging to deal with yarns and needles. Since the tufting gun has to the eye to put the yarn on it, it is hard to hook up the yarn.

As I mentioned both types of tufting gun has two eyes; one on the top and one on the front in the needle. We need to hook the yarn starting from the top eye then the front one.

There are some materials to help thread the yarn; needle threader. But even if you don’t have them you can do your own. If you have some iron wire material or even a paper clip then giving a hook shape to it it will be easier to thread.

How to thread the rug tufting machine by Tuft the World

Why My Tufting Cloth Is Ripping?

If your cloth is ripping while you are tufting these can be the reasons;

Using wrong cloth
Some of the cloth are not really suitable for tufting so make sure that you are using the right one. One of the most popular option as the tufting cloth is Primary Tufting Cloth. If you want to read more about which type of cloth you can use, you can find more information here.
Make sure that the tufting cloth is stretched properly to the frame
You can find step by step explanation of how to stretch your cloth in the FAQ- 1st question
Check if the yarn is moving smoothly
If the yarn is not smoothly coming and it is stuck somewhere than you have the possibility to stab the cloth by tufting with empty needle.
Make sure that you are working with a suitable yarn
For the tufting gun it is recommended to use between 3-5mm thick yarn. Thinner or thicker than that can cause damage in the cloth. If your yarn is thinner, you can thread double piece of yarn to your gun and double the thickness.
Do not overwork in a specific area
Focusing to a small area and create multiple lines top of each other can make the cloth weaker. Most of the cloths can handle until 2-3 lines overlapping but there is a high chance that more than 3 will cause some damage on the cloth.

*_{Disclosure: I only recommend products I would use myself and all opinions expressed here are our own. This post may contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission.}