I was reading an old needlework book the other day, published in 1907, when I came across a section on design transfer for embroidery. It began thus:

The transferring of designs on to the material is at no time a very easy occupation, and is certainly one which most people prefer to have done for them.

Some things haven’t changed much since 1907, methinks! Most of us who embroider for relaxation, for enjoyment, as a creative outlet, and even for a living are faced at one point or another with having to get a design onto fabric. For some, it can be a monumental deal-breaker. “If I have to transfer that, forget it.”

And while there are folks today who (hilariously – it always makes me chuckle!) will spurn iron-on transferring as if it is some kind of innovative, unworthy, inaccurate, or even harmful method of transfer (despite the massive leaps and bounds of ink science in recent decades), iron-on transfers have been the friend of the embroiderer for a long, long time.

Way back decades and decades – we can almost say centuries ago, and certainly longer than a century ago – methods of transferring embroidery designs were revolutionized by the iron-on transfer. And we continue to enjoy the benefits of the iron-on transfer today, thanks to those early pioneers in the process.

One of those pioneers was Briggs & Co.

In 1880 – that’s 141 years ago! – Briggs & Co published their catalog for patented iron-on embroidery transfers here in the US.