“I Need Help Creating Outlines On Small Lettering!”
Here is a question that I received from one of my students. She needs some help creating outlines on Small Lettering! I thought that I would share it with my readers as this is a common problem.
Hi Joyce, hope you can give me some advice on lettering. Everybody wants OUTLINES. and I find them to be very problematic. I have seen them done with smaller lettering successfully, though so I don’t want to give up. I’m doing a 13mm lettering and every type of outline I use looks like a dotted line! I don’t want to do satin outline because I think it may be too heavy. Any advice?
Vicki, Creating an outline on a small letter can sometimes be very problematic; however it is doable! Creating a satin stitch around a letter that is only one half inch is very difficult. You will usually loose most of the inside area of your letter.
The run stitch outline looks good if you are using a dark colored thread. If you are using a light colored thread it looks terrible, at least that is my opinion. I have found that by digitizing a run stitch and going around the letter 2 times will make it look slightly better. Also use a small stitch length such as 1.6 or 1.8 millimeters. Do not use the 2 ply as it will start and stop in the same place and you do not always have the control over the start and stop point. It all depends on your software.
The best method is to digitize a single run stitch around your letter and then duplicate it. You can control the start and stop point if you have are using this method. Another tip is to create the inside part of 2 or 3 letters at a time if you are doing a line of lettering. Then go back and create the outside part of these same 2 or 3 letters. Make sure that you put a lock at the beginning and at the end of this run segment. I always use line locks for my run stitches and connect each one of these letters. Do not lock and trim each letter individually, you may have many thread breaks or the thread may come out of the needle when you are starting up the embroidery machine.
Vicki, I hope that helps you a bit!
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…
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
