Mochi minky is becoming increasingly popular in plush making these days! It's a form of minky that is extremely stretchy - the same material used to make Squishmallows, which many people are familiar with. It has a shorter pile compared to the normal 3mm smooth minky from Shannon, so it may be a better option for sewing something like humans to avoid the fur-like texture while keeping softness. It's also considerably thicker than normal smooth minky. Because of this, it can be a little tricky to sew & embroider and I would not recommend that beginners use it. I personally loved working with it, though! Read some sewing & embroidery tips from my experience working with it below! Where to buy mochi minkyPatterning a mochi minky plushMochi minky stretches on both the horizontal and vertical. It stretches more on the horizontal than the vertical. It's important to keep this in mind when developing a pattern. Because of the extreme amount of stretch, you may need to make your pattern pieces thinner than usual because they will come out wider in the end than normal minky would. I suggest using at least a 1/4" seam allowance on your pattern. Part of the appeal of mochi minky is that it has extreme stretch, so you can push and pull on the plush you make. If the seam allowance is too narrow the seam can rip when the fabric is stretched. If you need to trim your seam allowance in bulky areas or on curves, try leaving 1/8" to avoid this from happening. Tracing your pattern onto mochi minkyUse a water or air soluble fabric marker to trace your pattern pieces onto the fabric. Because of the amount of stretch in the fabric, if you trace your sewing line instead of your seam allowance the marker will show through the right side of the fabric. So you should wash off your marks when you're done if you must do this. The difficulty here comes with dark fabrics, which typically don't show these types of markers. Try using chalk or white pencil, and if that doesn't work, use a silver sharpie, but make sure you're tracing your seam allowance and not your sewing line in this situation. Make sure to pin your fabric together if cutting two pieces out at once, and use a nice sharp pair of scissors. Sewing mochi minkyBecause the fabric is so stretchy, you should use LOTS OF PINS! I found that even something like a small, simple dart that I sometimes wouldn't use pins on normal minky would require at least one pin otherwise it would shift too much. Make sure you are using a needle made for stretchy fabrics when sewing mochi minky, just like normal minky. I tried using a jersey knit needle at one point and did not find a difference. Due to the stretch and thickness of the mochi minky, I lengthened my straight stitch length to 3.5mm. This helps avoid the fabric from bunching up while you sew it. I did not find it necessary to adjust the tension, but your machine may be different. You may need to loosen the tension a bit. The other crazy thing I found was - it's better to sew without a walking foot. I found that no matter what length stitch, tension, or type of needle I used, the fabric would continuously bunch up beneath my walking foot right behind the needle. Even if I lowered the pressure of my foot using the machine's setting it would still happen. I switched to a normal foot and kept the longer stitch length, and it worked just fine! Because of the amount of stretch, it's important to keep your item pinned as you sew and remove your pins at the very last moment before you're about to sew over it. If you're feeling naughty - you can sew over your pins to avoid any potential shifting from removing them (or if you're too lazy to remove them, like I am). If you're going to do this it's better to use silk pins which are thinner and have less chance of breaking. I've still had my needle hit these before, but the worst that has happened (so far) is that the pin just bends. But I hit them much less frequently than sewing over normal pins. Please be very careful if you choose to sew over pins! Try to be careful with sewing your seams correctly the first time. I've found that Hopen mochi tends to easily tear if you try to remove a shorter length stitch. Stuffing mochi plushiesPlushies made from mochi minky are typically stuffed with a unique mochi stuffing. It is MUCH softer, more whispy, and does not clump as much as typical polyfill. You can stuff mochi plushies with normal polyfill but you will not get the same feel as the mochi stuffing. Hopen Textiles carries the stuffing here. Daiso also sells the stuffing here, but it frequently sells out. I absolutely LOVE the mochi stuffing. It is incredibly soft and feels like cotton candy! I find that you can continually reuse it, too. When I stuff my test plushies with polyfill I often have to throw away that stuffing because it becomes too compressed and hard. But the mochi stuffing stayed nice and soft and whispy! Because mochi minky stretches so much it's easy for the plush to become distorted and lumpy with careless stuffing. Take the time to stuff your plush well! Embroidering mochi minkyFor the most part, embroidering mochi minky was very similar to normal minky. But the extra thickness and stretch of the mochi resulted in a few differences. I highly recommend using cut-away stabilizer when embroidering mochi minky. The extra strength of cut-away will help your embroidery come out cleaner on the mochi fabric. Spray your stabilizer with extra basting spray. I found that my usual amount, which is a quick spray, wasn't enough to keep the fabric in place and resulted in the fabric shifting even with basting stitches run first. As usual, DO NOT SPRAY THE FABRIC. As always, you need to use water soluble stabilizer on top of your mochi minky to avoid the stitches from sinking into the fabric too much. If you've designed your embroidery file or have the ability to, run your basting stitches or outline of your pattern piece first to avoid the fabric from shifting while embroidering. I always like to trace the outline of my pattern piece if I can when designing embroidery since it makes it easier to align the embroidery. I usually run it last because I do a lot of applique and I need to trim excess fabric, but I find it better to run it first on mochi minky. Make sure that you create an underlay object that encompasses the entire object you're going to stitch out to further avoid the object distorting. This is a fill object without "cover stitches" where it only stitches out the zig zag pattern underneath to keep the fabric from shifting. In Embird, I trace the overall shape of the object with the fill tool, right click and hit parameters, and uncheck "make cover stitches". This should be stitched out first before doing any other stitches. You may need to widen standalone column stitches as the thickness of the mochi minky will swallow it up. I had "eyelids" on Ichiban's face which were a column stitch but became a tiny line when embroidered by themselves. You can consider doubling up on water soluble stabilizer for these parts, but it's probably not necessary for the rest of the embroidery. I am not a fan of heavy-weight water soluble stabilizer as it's difficult to remove and I found that it even changes the texture and finish of the stitches once it's washed out. I also lower the density of satin stitches since the pile is low on mochi and you don't need to worry about the fibers poking through the stitches. It also tends to "gather" the mochi more if they are denser (wrinkling it). I also have a video tutorial of my tips here. You might find the visuals helpful!
I hope you enjoy working with mochi minky as much as I do! Good luck everyone :)
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