Embroidery Basics Articles

10/28/2016 Thick and Thin: So Many Fabrics...So Many ays W Embroidery Article
The last category in our diverse order is the caps. Headwear is a dif ferent 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, ef ficiency 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. W orking 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.
Other than the digitizing for caps, which is usually something that needs to be done separately , editing a design can usually
provide the changes necessary to move from one fabric type to another . In today’s world of sophisticated digitizing and editing
software, a click of the mouse is all it takes to add underlay when needed.
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This design, a chef outline, has a center walk underlay , which is suf ficient in making the columns
stand up from the garment in most cases. However , soft knits might need an edge walk to prevent
the stitches from sinking.
Zig­zag 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.
The stitched version, or sewout, of the chef outline.
A filled design generally has underlay stitches that run the opposite direction of the fill patterns.
For most fabrics, this is enough underlay to serve the purposes of tacking the backing to the
garment and making the fill stand up from the garment. This particular design has a satin stitch
that cleans up the edges, as well.
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.
The stitched version of a chef design that combines fill patterns, walk stitches and columns.
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Hooping
https://www.embroiderydesigns.com/emb_learning/article/559/thick­and­thin­so­many­fabricsso­many­ways.aspx
Military precision! That’s the term that comes to mind when I think about hooping. Sloppy hooping presents more problems in
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