I plan to add hand embroidered baby things to my website shop soon. (At the moment most of my inventory is ornaments I made from hollowed out chicken eggs, some of which are embroidered!) I wanted to get some samples stitched up on white fabric. All I had on hand was thin birdseye cotton, which is great for making diapers, but not so great for embroidery. It's such a loose weave that I get gaps between my stitches or the design goes all wonky. I have some samples done on bibs and onesies that belong to my toddler, but I just stitched up her last plain white onesie, and I can't afford to buy a new blank item for every design I have ready to be stitched right now! Buying some fabric by the yard or repurposing a sheet or something in a similar fabric would be a lot easier on my budget. I was thinking muslin, because it stitches up nicely and it's inexpensive, but it's a very different fabric from most bibs and baby clothes. Should I look for a sample fabric similar to what the final product will be? I'm on a pretty small budget and don't want to break the bank over samples, but I also don't want the customer to end up with something that looks completely different from the picture on the website because the onesie fabric doesn't behave the same way as the sample fabric. Any ideas? Help please?

If you are preparing embroidery samples that are to go on a specific fabric, then you should always do your samples on a fabric that is as similar to that of the final object as possible. That will show you, and your customers, what it will look like on the finished product.

Sometimes, if the fabric you are testing on is too different, you find that it stitches up completely differently and looks completely different - and that difference is not always good.

Have a look in the dressmaking fabric area rather than the craft area for the sample fabric. You will probably find the right stuff there, and a lot cheaper than craft fabrics.

Thank you, Megan. I'm sure my local fabric shops have similar materials. I'll take a lok ok there. Thanks again!