The Embroidery Process Made Simple

Embroidery is one of the most popular ways of imprinting a design or logo onto garments. It provides a long lasting and professional looking finish. Typically an embroiderer will use a needle and colored thread to stitch the design or lettering onto the chosen garment. These days the majority of embroidery work will be done using a machine and a digitized file.

Digitized files

The embroidery process begins with the digitizing of the desired image into a special computer file. The embroidery machine reads this file and stitches the actual embroidery. The final embroidery quality is only as good as the quality of the digitized file – so make sure you start with a high quality digitized file. This is definitely something you’ll want to speak to your embroiderer about. If the image to be digitized is first touched-up, using such graphics programs as Corel Draw and Adobe Photoshop, the actual digitized image obtained will be better quality.

Editing Designs

Once your design has been converted to a compatible digitized file, it can then be edited if necessary, using other software programs. These types of software enable the embroidery design to be rotated, cropped or duplicated to produce different designs. You will also be able to add text and change any color on the design. It will also be possible for certain effects to be added to give it more depth, since embroidery is a 3 dimensional design. The more advanced software packages will allow the embroiderer to edit, add or remove certain stitches to create a better finished product.

Loading Your Design

Now the perfected digitized file will be loaded onto the embroidery machine. Various embroidery machines have different ways to loading the file, but the more common ones are via cables, CD, USB, or even special memory cards.

Stabilize the Fabric

Stabilization is required to avoid wrinkling and other stitching problems. Each machine will have it’s own way of stabilizing the fabric. This often involves placing additional material underneath and around the garment to secure it. Also, the garment can be tied-down during the stitching, through hooping around the edges

Embroidering the design

The threads are loaded after stabilization. The embroidery machine will proceed to stitch at a programmed rate and color sequencing. The embroidery stitching is carefully watched as it is being done by the embroiderer.

Wrapping Up

When the stitching is completed, the garment will be examined to ensure satisfactory quality and to cut off any excess threads.