Embroidery Process, Techniques & Examples

Embroidery is a creative, fun and expressive way to personalize apparel and accessory items, including tote bags, duffles, luggage or even caps, and its great when creating a one-of-a-kind, timeless masterpiece. The process can be very lengthy depending on the design and the amount of stitches. A production run can be anywhere from 10 minutes to 4 hours or more, again depending on the design that is being embroidered. There are several different embroidery stitch types that the machine can sew, like fill stitch or satin stitch. The fill stitch can add texture & a solid sturdy background to any design, giving it a cleaner and sleek look. It is definitely our favorite to embroider with its amazing professional presence that allows our imagination to be unlimited. The fill stitch does use quite a bit more stitches but the end result is worth the extra cost when it comes to representing and marketing your brand, event, business, school or team. The satin stitch is a very popular stitch and you will find it in every design. It allows depth to the design and uses less stitches in the design, therefore it is less expensive. The satin stitch is used for all standard text, numbers or anywhere we want a raised look for dimension.

Embroidery has definitely increased its popularity within the imprinted apparel and promotional market industry over the last 20 years. It has become the staple for polo golf shirts, sweatshirts, towels, caps, tote bags, team gear, jackets, dress shirts and so much more. We have been providing embroidered apparel & accessories to our clients for over 30 years, so you can be confident with the end result with our high quality, great customer service and amazing prices to fit your budge and project needs.

Digitizing A Design

Embroidery is not embroidery without a great person digitizing the design and preparing it for the embroidery machine. This is vital to making the design look the best and it is the initial & most important part of creating high quality custom embroidered apparel. Embroidery digitizing was originally referred to as "punching". It is the art of creating & placing the "stitches" for text, numbers or a logo/design. Digitizing creates instructions for the machine, allowing a logo to be stitched / sewn according to the graphic art file, text or numbers. We utilize state-of-the-art digitizing software which allows for fast, affordable and precision conversion of the art files to a digitized format that the machine can understand. Remember Embroidery is much different than screen-printing. If your logo or artwork includes drop shadows, color gradients or shading, we will have to discuss how to make the color scheme work for embroidery. Also, depending on the design, gradients or shadows can be very difficult to replicate for a design. With our years of experience, we have some techniques we use that can allow for some gradients an shadows, but there are limits on what can be achieved when working with threads and it will most likely increase the amount of thread colors needed as well as the pricing.

3-D or Puff Embroidery

Puff Embroidery is a unique technique using foam within the design which makes the design dramatically stand-up or puff. Not all designs are created for puff embroidery as the design needs dimension and thickness to it. Typically, the preferred width is 1/4 to 1/2" wide. Designs which are too small, large or too wide cannot be converted into puff, same applies to objects or letters which are too small or thin. You can call us and we can look at your design or we can create a new design to fit the needs for puff embroidery. Puff Embroidery is great for sports teams like baseball, football, soccer, basketball and more. Puff and 3 D embroidery can be done on caps, visors, team jerseys, jackets and more. This process is fun and colorful and catches everyone’s eye, so if you want to advertise then this process is for you.