Thick and Thin: So Many Fabrics...So Many Ways Embroidery Project

As embroiderers, we get customers of all kinds. Well, at least we do in our shop. In this very small town that I live in, we don’t turn anybody away. Whether the buyer is looking for one Grandma shirt or hundreds of items, we take the order. Consequently, we need to know how to handle all different types of fabrics, or perhaps I should call them substrates, because not all embroidery is on fabric!

For example, in a typical day, we may be required to embellish polo shirts, polar fleece blankets, leather jackets, denim shirts, caps, bags, sweatshirts, Ts…you name it. We even embroidered a wheel cover one time! Just today we had a request to put a name on a gun case.

In other words, substrates of varying weights, thicknesses and stability go under the needle all day long. Some are thick and some are thin!

For the purposes of this article, let’s assume that a restaurant owner has come in and requested twill chef’s coats, polos for waiters and waitresses, six panel caps, t-shirts and various items for the gift shop, including fleece blankets, CD cases and a sport bag, all decorated with the company logo.

A number of considerations are required to achieve the best embroidery on various articles using the same logo. Let’s take a look at digitizing for garment types, editing to make a design work, backing the embroidery and hooping techniques. Assuming that the embroidery machine is in good working order, with proper tensions set, those factors must be conquered to achieve quality embroidery.

Digitizing

As a digitizer, I know full well that the easiest person to blame for substandard embroidery is me. Therefore, I take my job very seriously in terms of creating a design specifically for the fabrics upon which it will be placed.

In this order, we have three distinct categories of substrates. The easiest and least likely to give us problems are the solid fabrics that are in the twill chef’s coat, the CD cases and the bags. My favorite theme here is efficiency. As any other good digitizer would do, I try to achieve the best results with the least amount of stitches. After all, that’s where the money is. A minimal amount of underlay is necessary to secure the fabric to the backing. Because these fabrics are solid, stitches do not sink into them as they would to less stable substrates. I would try to use each thread color only once, walking from one color block to the next, avoiding time-wasting trims whenever possible. The only time I would repeat a color would be if there were apparent layers in the design that couldn’t be achieved any other way.

The second category includes the knits. The stretchy properties of polos, T-shirts, sweatshirts and polar fleece make them unstable surfaces upon which to embroider. Couple that with the fact that many knit fabrics have a nap that is more difficult to cover when the threads sink into them, and you have what many would term a digitizing nightmare! The common misconceptions that adding more density to the design and the end result of having many more stitches can be laid to rest, though. Proper underlay is the key to great embroidery on knits. Because the stitches will certainly sink into the fabric, what we need here is a way to make them stand up above the material. A fill underlay, running the opposite direction of the stitches will prevent the sinking. In the case of polar fleece and other napped fabrics, it may even be necessary to use a secondary underlay in addition to the primary underlay, each running at forty-five degree angles from the stitch direction of the fill. Columns may need an edge walk underlay rather than a center walk, or maybe in addition to the center walk.

Of course, all that underlay will definitely add to the stitch count in the design, but it will never add as many stitches as increasing the density of the fill. Plus, the embroiderer will avoid the unsightly buckling of the fabric that can be caused by too many stitches.

The last category in our diverse order is the caps. Headwear is a different breed of cat when it comes to digitizing. I’ve devoted whole articles to this subject, but space does not permit that extensive a review here. Let me just say this, efficiency be hanged! Cap designs perform best when they are digitized from the center out and from the bottom to the top. Why? Though caps are usually constructed from stable fabrics, most are flimsy and hard to hoop. The most stable part of the cap is near the seam that secures the crown to the bill, followed by the area of the center seam. Working up and out from those two stable portions pushes the fabric the same distance with each pass of the embroidery machine, allowing for better registration in the design.

 

Zig-zag is the term that seamstresses are familiar with, and is comparable to a light density column. When this underlay is combined with a center walk or edge walk on satin columns, it serves the purpose of laying down the “pile” on fabrics such as terrycloth or polar fleece. While the underlay adds stitches to the design, it saves cleanup time when the embroiderer can eliminate the use of a topping.

 

 

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 A great way to tame pile that tends to poke its way through fill patterns is to add a secondary underlay running the opposite direction of the primary underlay. When this is done, both should run at 45 degree angles to the fill. Since the design has many fill patterns, I chose to digitize a separate underlay that would encompass the entire design, duplicate that pattern and change the fill direction of the second to run the opposite direction of the first. In this case, the underlay in the design is additional, and should take care of any unruly threads that would still try to rear their way through the both the fill patterns and the columns. 

 

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Military precision! That’s the term that comes to mind when I think about hooping. Sloppy hooping presents more problems in embroidery than any other oversight, in my opinion.

When a garment is properly hooped, the tension of the fabric will present a firm structure on which to place the design. In the case of knits, this must be done without stretching the fabric at all.

Achieving an even tension in the hoop is easy enough. Just place the bottom portion of the hoop on the inside of the garment, centering it where the embroidery is going to be placed. The backing of choice should be between the hoop and the garment. On the outside of the garment, insert the top portion of the hoop. This placement is easy if you have a hooping aid. If not, the eye works well, too. Once the hoop is in place, a gentle tug on the fabric outside the hoop will increase the tension of the fabric. It is at this point that one must be careful not to pull the knits too much! When the hooping is complete, check to make sure that the lines created by the weave, commonly called the grain of the fabric, are straight in both directions, vertically and horizontally.

Backing and Topping

There are many backings available and experienced embroiderers will easily tell you about their favorites. They are divided into two categories, cutaway and tearaway. Our backing of choice is most often a medium cutaway. Cutaway backings provide more stability than tearaway, simply because they do not pull apart in the embroidery process. Tearaway backings weaken, especially around the edges of the design, with each needle penetration. The nice part of using a tearaway, though, is that removal is easy and the inside of the garment looks nicer and is more comfortable against the skin when there is no unsightly backing left around the edges of a design.

Because of the properties of the different types of fabrics in our order, we will choose different types of backing. Medium tearaway backings will be sufficient for the stable fabrics in the twill coats, the bags, and the caps. The CD cases would present a different problem in that they cannot be hooped with ordinary methods. They could either be embroidered with a specialty frame or by placing them on sticky backing using a standard frame.

Knit fabrics need a stronger foundation to prevent movement during the embroidery. In general, a good rule to follow is that the less stable a fabric is, the more stable the backing must be. The fear when embroidering polo shirts or lightweight T-shirts is that the backing will show through the garment. Another concern is that, in most cases, the embroidery will lie against the skin when the garment is worn, and very heavy backings are often uncomfortable. Mesh backings are great when the embroiderer needs the stability of a cutaway backing, but is also concerned that the backing will show through the garment. The mesh is translucent, and is lightweight, allowing for better draping of the garment than traditional heavier backings.

There are many choices and it takes a bit of research and experimenting to find what works best for you.      

Finishing

When my mom was teaching me to sew as a young child, she would always tell me that the inside of the garment should look as good as the outside. I also remember, when entering the 4-H competitions at the local county fairs, the agonizing moments when the judge would turn that garment inside out and inspect the stitches of every seam, making sure that the construction techniques were done correctly, that the stitches were even, that the upper and lower tension of the machine were set correctly and that all ends of the thread were clipped.

This is the same care that should be taken in the finishing of a garment that comes off the embroidery machine. Backing should be removed. With tearaway, that is simple. It is usually already cut away by the stitches, and a little tug will remove the excess from the edges of the design. Cutaway requires more care in that you need to cut close to the design without actually clipping any of the stitches. As for the rest of the design, the machines should have been properly set before embroidery, but clipping any unsightly threads will also make the design picture perfect.

…And isn’t that what we are trying to achieve? Picture perfect embroidery on every piece!