What is Embroidery?

Some of the following information may seem rather basic, however I think, even for the most experienced digitizers and embroiderers, it is worth going back to basics to understand why we do certain things.

Embroidery is like drawing/painting with needles and threads. It has been used for thousands of years to embellish garments and goods to enhance their looks and value. Each “line” of thread is tied to the fabric by way of a stitch. Unlike drawing or painting which sits on top of or is absorbed into the base material, stitching penetrates “our canvas” and pulls tight. Both the penetration and pulling exerts pressure or stress to our garments. It is understandable that the more stitches that are made the more stress is applied to the fabric. Each type of fabric will be influenced differently with the same stitch pattern.

Traditionally, embroidery was done by hand in a frame on a piece of woven fabric.

Although the work was usually hooped, the need to hold firmly was not as great as it is in machine embroidery today. Stitches were placed individually by hand.

Of course the hand embroiderer would apply varying amounts of “tension/pressure/tightness” depending on stitch, length, fabric etc.

Hand embroidery ... Speed – Slow!   And each piece is slightly different.

Today, machine embroidery operates at high speed and is very accurate, so each design is near enough to identical. Obvious advantages of machine embroidery over hand embroidery are:

The list goes on and all present their own challenges.

Knit is unstable, caps are difficult to hold steady in the hoop and will do a little “rock and roll number” while you are trying to stick a needle in them at 600 spm or more. Towelling needs topping, saddle blankets are bulky, martial arts belts can be tricky to hoop – and so it goes. Our customers have little idea of the constraints we often deal with and it all starts to sound far too difficult and complicated - but there is an answer.

Let’s look at the variables we have to deal with.

Woven fabrics such as Chambray, Drill, and Poly Cotton etc are usually stable and have an even and regular structure so the needle can penetrate cleanly and result in clean, crisp embroidery.

Knit such as Pique, Jersey, Interlock etc come in a wide range of patterns, thicknesses and handles and it can be difficult to get good, clean embroidery on these items. Because it stretches easily knit is less stable than our woven fabrics and therefore requires more consideration when hooping and selecting stabilizers and toppings.

Garment

The garments we embroider are usually selected by our customers and therefore we are stuck with their choice. If we have any opportunity to help customers select a garment then we can make the road smoother. For example, if they are having shirts manufactured and require the logo to be placed on the pocket…request the pockets be delivered to you for embroidery prior to adding to the shirt. (Always request a few more for sampling if possible). Coarse knits will not give the same clean look as finer knits so advice in this direction may save disappointment later.

If the shirts chosen are a very coarse knit with small lettering in the logo, you may do well to advise your customer that you will need to “fill” the logo with a block of stitches (the same colour as the garment) before stitching the logo. This will add a considerable number of stitches to the design and therefore your time and will cost more but you will get a much better looking design - or you may simply be able to use a topping to make the design sit up on the garment.

Always run a sample of your design on exactly the same fabric as your garment.

Some garments you will simply prefer not to touch and you should advise your customer. It may be worth losing a job rather than have to replace a run of shirts at perhaps $90 or more each and have an unhappy client.

CAPS – can give you grief if they are not hooped correctly. Make sure there is no “flagging” inside the frame – the less movement there is, the better the result. Use strong, sharp needles, 80’s and a raised needle plate if your machine has one.

The message here is to check the garment, think about how you are going to do the job and decide on the best approach.

Thread

There are two basic types of thread used in commercial embroidery: - Polyester and Rayon.

Rayon has traditionally been accepted as a superior choice. It is softer and has better lustre and sheen, giving a richer look to your finished product.

Polyester is a much stronger and harder yarn and is colourfast. Polyester has never been able to match the lustre and sheen of Rayon until recently. I am always amazed how much research and development goes into seemingly simple things like thread. Companies like Coats have developed Trilobar fibre (triangular) which when twisted to make the thread, reflects the light better than earlier threads and very closely resembles the sheen of rayon.

Considering we do much of our work for the corporate world and much of that is laundered commercially there is a strong argument for using Polyester threads in the modern embroidery shop.

Whatever your choice of thread type make sure the quality is good. The cost of thread breakage due to poor quality thread is more than compensated for by spending a little extra on quality.

Needles

Again, an enormous amount of research has gone into needles - there are hundreds of shapes, points, eye positions and sizes.

The DBxK5 needle has been developed for high speed embroidery and comes in a range of sizes 60/8, 65/9, 70/1075/11, 80/12 and points. The 60 is the finest and 80 the thickest. Generally we use 75/11 which seems to be an industry standard.

To simplify the point selection, we limit our choices – sharps or ball-point and material to chromium/steel or titanium.

As a rule, sharp needles for caps and woven fabrics and ball-point needles for knits.

The theory here is sharps will cut knit and ball points will “spread” the fibres. Like many rules, they are usually broken and I would say most embroiderers use a semi ball- point as a universal solution. My advice would be not to use sharps on knit, if you are having trouble with caps change to sharps.

On a larger machine i.e. with 12 needles or more and if you are regularly changing from flat or tubular to caps, you may wish to reserve some needles for caps and keep sharps on them. If you do, be sure to mark which ones they are. You are asking for trouble to use sharps on knit. Your customers will not be happy with holes appearing in their garments after a couple of washes. The Gold Titanium needle is a much stronger needle and creates less friction.

Speed

The quicker we get the garments through production, the more money we make, however that does not necessarily equate to the speed of the machine. In my opinion, the flow of production is much more important than having the machine run at maximum speed. There is no use in having the machine idle while the operator is catching up with hooping, trimming etc.

The flow of work is most important - so prepare as much as you can in quiet times.

Cut the backing for the whole job and have garments unpacked, sorted and prepared. Then run the machine at a speed that keeps the work coming out of production at an even and continuous rate. An operator who is stressed by struggling to keep up with the machine is more likely to make costly mistakes. Higher speeds are more likely to cause thread breaks and decrease quality.

It sounds as if I am advocating running your machine under capacity - not at all.

From experience, we have found it is better to start the machine slower at say 600 to 700 SPM and gradually increase the speed till the operator was working consistently. Make it a personal challenge to see how fast you can make the machine run and stay efficient. Of course, the stitch count will have a great bearing on this.

On a multi head machine, with a stitch count of less than 3000 stitches, only the best operators will be able to keep the machine going constantly at 1000 s.p.m. or more. On the other hand a 15000 stitch design would be able to run at the machines capacity. It is generally accepted that, while a machine may be rated at 1200 stitches per minute or more, the most efficient running speed may be less, perhaps 900 to 1000 s.p.m. You will hear the “sweet” speed for the machine. One more word on speed - caps always seem to come out better at slower speeds.

Backing - used for stabilizing fabric

It can be of a woven or non woven nature and cut away or tear away.

The principal reason for using backing is to give stability to the work and in lighter fabrics, “body” to stitch to. In 6 panel caps it can also give the cap a smoother path when travelling over the needle plate.

Which Backing & When?

Woven

Do not use natural fibre as backing eg cotton. It is prone to shrink and will distort the embroidery when laundered. Man-made fibre, polyester fabric is more suitable … Poly Sheen comes to mind, which is a fine, light fabric much like shower curtain. Use it on light garments such as ladies blouses, lingerie, micro fibre etc. where you don’t want bulky backing making your design look heavy.

Non Woven

The most common form of backing is the non woven which comes in two versions.

Tear Away

Is generally used on see through fabric or on the likes of towels where “the back side” needs to be “clean”. As an aside, try using your top thread in the bobbin to give a better look to the back side of a towel.

Tear-away is often fragile and does not give as much stability as cutaway and therefore two layers is usually necessary. You will notice most tear-away has a defined grain and will tear in one direction more easily than the other. It is advisable to use two layers opposing each other for best results.

Cut Away

It is, in my opinion, preferable to use cutaway in as many situations as possible as it provides more stability than tear-away. In all cases it is not sufficient to cut a small piece of backing just the size of the embroidery. When hoping ensure ALL of the backing is gripped by the hoop. If not, the design will be inclined to pull in.

Hooping Technique

It is important to hoop your work firmly to eliminate as much movement as possible - not so tight as to mark the garment, although this will happen in some of your softer knits and is difficult to avoid. A light spray of water or steam and a quick brush will make the hooping marks disappear.

As a rough rule of thumb, the garment should be hooped firmly enough so that when you run a finger across the material, it will not “tent up” or “creep”. This simple step will also reveal any unwanted fabric under the hoop. (Have you ever stitched a collar or sleeve to a chest design?)

Round hoops will give an even, firmer grip on your work - more so than rectangular hoops.

Digitizing

What is it a digitizer can do to give good embroidery?

Correct use of underlay, stitch placement, pull compensation, minimum number of thread trims and correct density will make your designs run beautifully, saving you time, money - and stress.

Underlay

The primary purposes of underlay stitching is to complete the stability process by stitching the backing to the fabric. The secondary purpose is to provide coverage and give better coverage. Thirdly to provide body or loft.

Typical underlays are run stitch, edge run, zig zag and Tatami. These can all be created automatically within your software. Often overlooked, hand digitized running stitches can provide a better finish in some application e.g. a wide column of stitching which narrows to very fine.

The wider section may require three or four runs while the narrower part of the column requires one or even none. Hand digitized underlay should not be forgotten. Generally speaking, areas of Tatami fill require Tatami underlay running at a different angle to the top stitching.

Centre run is primarily used in lettering and columns of satin stitching up to say 1.5- 2.0mm wide. Edge run is used in column stitches 2mm and over.

Zig zag is commonly used in 4mm and over wide satin columns. I am cautious in the use of zig zag underlay particularly on soft fabrics such as jersey knit.

The double pull created by zig zag stitching and the top satin stitch tends to give a loose, puckered-up look. I prefer to use edge run when I can, perhaps in conjunction with some well placed hand digitized stitches.

On caps, I do not recommend running underlay, particularly if it is close to the edge or in a narrow column of stitching. Zig Zag or none at all is preferable in this situation. If you choose no underlay - increase the density slightly.

With the Wilcom system you are able to auto generate two levels of underlay.

You might for example; use two edge runs the first .6mm inside the edge and the second perhaps .2mm inside depending on the width of the column -- or two Tatami underlays, the first at 45degrees to the top stitching and the second 135 degrees, making them 90 degrees to each other and still opposing the top stitches.

You could use a combination of edge run and Tatami - the edge run giving the top stitching an edge to work to. In this case the edge run should be done second so that any distortion caused by the Tatami will not affect the straight line of the following run which the top stitching is going to work to. A manual run underlay is often quite effective…. say an outward spiral or run stitching under a circle of Tatami fill should be considered.

Experimenting with your options on sample fabric will give you the effect that you desire.

Pull Compensation

Our machines are running at very high speeds compared to hand embroidery, so there is a lot of pulling, pushing and other movement that happens even though we have taken precautions to prevent it by using the correct backing. Have you noticed narrow columns of stitching that end up longer than planned or “O’s” smaller than expected?

These are the effects of ‘push’ and ‘pull’.

In pre-digitized lettering you will notice the bottoms of O’s will be higher than the leg of an adjoining T. This is called “Push “as the column of stitching is working along its length and the garment is “Pushed” much like toothpaste coming out of a tube, while the width of the column is narrower than expected. This scenario is more pronounced on soft fabrics - again the knits. When digitizing, always make the length of a column of stitching a little shorter than the length of the finished line.

Pull compensation can be handled automatically by the Digitizing program. Say for example, we require a column of stitching to be 4mm wide; the effects of pull will make it less than 4mm unless we apply pull compensation. The amount of compensation will depend on the fabric and the width of the column of stitching.

With the Wilcom system I find .2mm is a good place to begin on knit fabric.

Underlay, pull compensation, stitch type and connectors are all PROPERTIES of an object. With ES 2006 and Embroidery Studio these are easily viewed in the “live” property box to the right of the work area.