Is It Important To Use Underlay Stitching In My Embroidery Designs?
The question, Is it important to use Underlay Stitching in my Embroidery Designs? is a question that is asked very frequently!
If you are new to embroidery or new to creating embroidery designs, learning the basic fundamentals of what makes a good quality finished design is extremely important. One of those basic fundamentals is Underlay. Many embroiderers do not use Underlay stitching because they have no idea how to use it or what type of Underlay to use for their particular design, stitch type or fabric style. Instead they use a heavy density thinking that this will work but this can cause a multitude of problems.
Underlay stitching is the most important and most under rated element of creating your design. Like anything else that is built, you need a good foundation and Underlay is the foundation of your embroidery. Many embroiderers are very confused and want to know:
- how can I tell if there is any Underlay stitching in my design?
- what does it look like?
Underlay stitches are the stitches that are sewn into your fabric first before the actual top stitching is sewn. If you are working with a design file, the .dst file extension, it is very hard for you to distinguish between the underlay and the top stitching.
Sometimes it will follow the same line as your embroidery and sometimes it will look very strange to you if you are new to embroidery and are not familiar with Underlay. It depends on what type of Underlay stitching the digitizer has chosen.
Underlay has many basic functions.
- It attaches the garment to the backing creating a stable surface and smooth platform for the top stitching.
- It helps to reduce the amount of give in the fabric.
- It hides the color of the fabric that will be covered with stitching.
- It helps to reduce the density of the top stitching.
- It stops the fabric from puckering.
- It keeps the stitches from sinking into the fabric.
What are the different types of underlay?
There are 3 different stitch types that are used in creating underlay in your embroidery design.
- Run stitches
- Zig Zag stitches
- Fill or Tatami Stitches
These 3 different stitch types make up the 5 basic types of underlay stitches. These can be applied manually if you are digitizing your own design or they can be applied automatically if you have this capability within your software. Sometimes you cannot get the same effect using the auto functions in your software so you need to know how to apply the different types by hand so that you get the exact effect that you are looking for.
The Basic Underlay Stitching Types Are As Follows:
Embroidering Small Lettering-The Challenging Factors!
Many embroiderers find that working with Small Lettering is very challenging, but once you learn how to cope with many of the issues, it is easier. In order to control these challenges, there are some key elements that must be considered.
- Fabric
- Needles
- Thread
- Style of Lettering
- Underlay
The small lettering in the design, ONTARIO COUNTY, NEW YORK is only 3.6mm in height. This would not work well if it was upper and lower case. It is best to keep lettering that small in all upper case letters. It also helps to use a plain block letter rather than one with serifs when you are embroidering lettering that small.
Making small lettering work to your satisfaction often means making adjustments to allow for your fabric type and the size and style of the lettering that the customer is requesting. Many times what they are requesting is not acceptable for embroidery. They are used to seeing their logos in type set usually in ink or screen printing ink and this does not always work with needles and thread. It is not uncommon for a customer to request an unreasonable amount of letters all to be placed on one line.
With Small Lettering you have to create a balance between the fabric, needles, thread and the size and style of your lettering. You cannot have letters so small that you are creating stitches that will be stitching on top of each other. This causes holes in the fabric and thread breaks. Your stitch length must be a minimum of 1 millimeter in order for it to sew and not create holes. Read More Here…
How To Work With Knit Shirts That Shrink!
What Golf, Polo Or Knit Shirts Can I Order For My Embroidery That Do Not Shrink?
This is a question that I get a lot. What type of shirt is best? Who is the best supplier to order from for the shirts that do not shrink? All knit shirts are going to shrink; some more than others. Even the most expensive knit shirts will shrink a small amount. This is something that is totally unavoidable.
It does not matter who your supplier is, there are many good suppliers, but you must pay attention to brands and fabric content more than suppliers. The solution that I found to this problem was to order 3 different shirts, 3 different qualities, all well-known brands and do my own shrinkage test.
How Do You Test For Knit Shirt Shrinkage?
Lay the shirt out on a large piece of paper or embroidery backing or stabilizer, I mean from a large roll of embroidery backing and trace around it. Wash and dry the shirt and lay it back on your drawing again and compare the size. Repeat this for each quality shirt. You will be able to tell at that point which shirt shrinks the most or the least. This is how I test all of my shirts.
I have always offered 3 different shirt qualities to my customers and I told them in advance about the shrinkage. If they were more interested in price, that was their issue, not mine, they were told. Sometimes they just order the next size larger to compensate for the shrinkage. Not only does this work, but it also takes the responsibility off of your shoulders. Read More Here…
Embroidery Industry Trends And Challenges In 2011
Recently I was interviewed by a writer, Chris Ruvo from Stitches Magazine about the Embroidery Industry Trends and the challenges that embroiderers are facing in 2011. This interview in on the Research tab page of the Stitches Magazine website.
In this Podcast I spoke about how embroiderers can diversify their product offerings to bring in more dollars to their business. One of the big trends is the combining of embroidery with digital printing. When you are combining the two medians you can create a low stitch count design but yet it can look like a high dollar product.
Another trend this year is the Rhinestone transfers. This can be offered alone or in combination with the embroidery to add even greater value to your product offerings.
The embroiderers need to be able to diversify and add more services to their product line. In today’s market the average embroiderer cannot survive on embroidery alone. They must be willing to add other products and services to attract more clients and be able to offer their current clients more choices.
Click on the link The Embroidery Industry Trends And Challenges podcast and listen to the entire interview. This may help you plan for your future growth within your embroidery business.
Joyce Jagger
The Embroidery Coach
How To Create Time Saving Embroidery Design Templates
The Embroidery Webinar of the Month will show to “How To Create Time Saving Embroidery Design Templates”!
If you spend a lot of time on design setups, then you need to attend the webinar
- Do you spend hours on a single embroidery design?
- Do you continuously have to create embroidery design sew outs?
- Does you spend more time on design set up than you do on your actual embroidery?
- Do your designs sew out the same on all types of fabrics?
- Do your standard embroidery lettering designs take more than a couple of minutes to set up?
- Do you waste a lot of time with customers helping them to decide which lettering style to use for their design?
- Do you have specific embroidery design layouts for your customers to choose from?
- Do you know how to make adjustments to your recipes to create timesaving templates?
All of these questions and many more will be answered on our up and coming on-line Webinar April 26th at 8PM Eastern Time. You will discover why you need to learn how to create Templates and how they will help you to create designs that will sew better, look better, save you a huge block of time and make your whole life embroidery life easier!!!
Go to Embroidery Webinar of the Month to sign up for this very informative, time saving webinar!
Continuing Your Embroidery Education Is Vital To Your Embroidery Business Success!
Continuing your Embroidery Education is very important and is vital to your overall Embroidery Business Success!
Do you get the feeling sometimes that you just do not have the time to sit down and learn something new? Are you just so busy doing the day to day stuff that keeps the customers happy and coming back that you feel trapped?
I know that very same feeling and I have found that if I take out just a few minutes each day for learning something new or refreshing my memory, that it actually rejuvenates me and gives me a huge lift!
Continuing your embroidery education is something that is vital to your Embroidery Business Success. Do you feel like you just cannot keep up on all of the new processes, applications and products that are changing so quickly?
There are some things that never change! They are the basics! The basics of creating designs and embroidery application do not change. Its those basics that we sometimes forget, and we need to refresh our memory with from time to time.
Do not let your embroidery video training programs, articles, and other embroidery information that you have saved, gather dust on your shelf. Take them out and review them from time to time so that you can remember those basics. They are the foundation of great embroidery and those basics will never change!
Joyce Jagger
The Embroidery Coach
Howard Potter – A Very Successful Student Of The Embroidery Coach!
I want to congratulate Howard Potter! He is a very successful student of mine! Howard started with me about 3 or 4 years ago when he purchased his first embroidery machine. I worked with him when he was working out of his home with a single head Tajima and the Tajima by Pulse Embroidery software! He has since gone on to purchasing 2 more machines, digital equipment, screen printing equipment and much more. Howard now has a beautiful showroom and very well organized workrooms for each of the different types of applications that he offers.
He is very young man with a wife and 2 small children. He and his wife Amanda have worked very hard in this business, turn out top quality work and have taken their business from zero to almost a half a million dollars in this short period of time.
I have trained his main graphic artist, Sal Battaglia to digitize their designs and he has worked very hard at producing high quality embroidery designs.
Howard sublimation process is featured on the front of Stitches Magazine in the March issue. It is available to read on line. I am so very proud of Howard and his employees.
You can visit his website MasterYourImage .
Congratulations Howard, keep up the great work!!
Joyce Jagger,|
The Embroidery Coach
What To Expect To Pay For Digitizing Charges
In our last post we talked about how to find a good digitizer and the qualities that you should look for in a good digitizer. Today we are going to expand on that and talk about what you can expect to pay for digitizing charges.
There is a huge range when it comes to pricing for digitizing and different approaches to the way that they price their digitizing. Some digitizers charge my the stitch count only. The range for most good digitizers is from $7.00 to $20.00 per thousand stitches. You may even find a good one that will charge less than the $7.00 per thousand. Sometimes they charge by how long it takes and sometimes it is by the complexity of the design .
There are even good digitizers that will give you a choice and will create designs based on a scale. If you want a lot of detail it will cost you more than if you want less detail. If you want color blending this is an additional charge on top of the stitch count. If you find someone that is charging less, then you had better try them out on a design that is for a customer that would not complain if it is not the kind of quality that you envision. If the price is low, I would truly beware.
This brings me to the subject of going overseas for your designs. Yes, their designs are very inexpensive; but can you communicate with this person or is it a company that employs a lot of digitizers? You have no control over who you are going to get. Sometimes the designs are OK and sometimes they are horrible and you cannot specify who you want to digitize your design. This can also be true in this country if you are dealing with a large company. They will send your design to the next person that is available. Sometimes they even contract them out to other companies and maybe overseas. This is even worse.
Digitizer Must Sew Out Designs
Make sure that your digitizer sews out the designs before sending them to you. Many digitizers with such a low fee do not sew out the designs before sending them to you. Many of this type do not even own an embroidery machine. If you have a design that you have purchased for a low price and it has a lot of issues in it, it will cost you money in the end. It will drive up your production time so far that it will cost you money to do the job.
You want to make sure that you are working with someone that will give you a trouble free design and you can make money on their work. This is truly one area that you do not want to skimp on in your embroidery business! This is one area where you get what you pay for. Don’t forget you are going to charge the customer for the digitizing fee. This is not a charge that you absorb in any way shape or form!
Joyce Jagger
The Embroidery Coach
How To Find A Good Digitizer For My Embroidery Designs?
Requirements For A Good Digitizer
How do I find a good digitizer for my embroidery designs?
First of all, what is a good digitizer? A good digitizer is someone that will work with you and help to make you look good to your customer. A good digitizer will know the embroidery process and know what it takes to make your design look the best that it can on your particular type of fabric. A good digitizer will ask the following questions:
- What fabric is this design going to be sewn on?
- Will you be using this design for any other type of application?
- What format do you want the design to be finished in?
- Will you want to increase or decrease the size of the design from the original size?
- Can I make some modifications to the design to make it sew better such as increase the letter size or choose a different font style?
There can be many other questions, depending on the design and the information that you have given them. When you are looking for a good digitizer, look for one that uses the same software that you do and request that you have a copy of the outline file. This will allow you to make changes such as resizing or removing lettering from the digitized file. You may have to pay a little more for this privilege, but it is well worth it.
Digitizer must know embroidery production
Make sure that your digitizer knows production so that you have as few trims and color changes as possible. Make sure that he or she sews out the designs before sending them to you. This is a problem with a lot of digitizers, especially with Graphic Artists.. They get their software and think that since they can create any type of graphic art, they can digitize. This is far from the truth. They don’t usually know anything about the sewing process and have no idea about push and pull comps, underlay or density.
The best place to find a good digitizer is through the sales rep in your area that sold you your embroidery design software. He or she should be able to direct you to someone that will be the type of digitizer that you are looking for.
If you can find a digitizer that digitizes their designs using the same type of embroidery software that you are using, this is the best of both worlds. This makes it easier for you if there is need for a size change or some fabric setting changes.
In out next post, I will talk about what to expect for digitizing charges.
Joyce Jagger
The Embroidery Coach
