Embroidery 101

Embroidery 101

Step 1-Artwork Stage

During this stage of the embroidery process, our artists go to work creating innovative custom designs to fit each client's needs. They size the artwork to fit the desired garment, and then the client is contacted to finalize the design size, colors, and overall appearance. Once finalized, the design is sent to the embroidery department.

Step 2-Digitizing

The embroidery process begins with an idea or a piece of artwork. That artwork then has to be "digitized" which is the specialized process of converting 2 dimensional artwork into stitches or thread. Contrary to popular opinion, you cannot take a particular format of art such as a jpeg, tif, eps, bmp, and convert it to an embroidery tape. The digitizer has to actually recreate the artwork using stitches, meaning, the digitizer is programming the sewing machine to sew a specific design, in a specific color, with a specific type of stitch. This is the process known as digitizing. Also, because embroidery is 3 dimensional, some exciting effects can be included to "spruce up" a normally flat piece of artwork.

Step 3-Production

Once the artwork has been digitized, it is then ready to be put into production. Production embroidery is a very hands on process. Before the sewing can begin, specific thread colors must be loaded by hand into the machines. A spool of thread for each color for each sewing head must be loaded. The machine itself is programmed by the operator to sew the design in a particular color sequence and a particular sewing speed. The garments must then be "hooped" individually, again by hand, and then loaded into the machine. Once the design has completed sewing, the garment is taken off the machine, un-hooped, and then sent to the next step in the production process.

Step 4-Finishing

After the garments have been sewn, they go through a finishing process. During this step, the garments are inspected for quality, individually trimmed of excess backing material and excess threads, then folded and packaged ready for shipping to the end user.

Custom Golf Shirts

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