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Embroidery perfection! What a lofty goal. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had an “easy button” when it came to generating stupendous stitching on every job we did? Too bad that such a device doesn’t exist except in television commercial fantasies. But that doesn’t mean you can’t pursue and even achieve superb embroidery on most of your jobs. It’s simply a matter of understanding all the variables and how they interact, such that you are able to properly prepare each job and effectively troubleshoot problems that crop up along the way.
There are three areas of the embroidery process that must be addressed on every job in order to achieve Embroidery Perfection. I refer to these as the 3 P’s.
Proper Punching
Garment Preparation
Machine Performance
Sewing quality issues can easily be caused by any one of the three, as well as a combination of the three. Sometimes it is the Digitizing, but not always. You have to do some troubleshooting to determine the real cause or causes. So, let’s take a look at each of these three areas to see how they affect embroidery quality.
The first area of influence for achieving embroidery perfection is, of course, digitizing. It should be noted that for purposes of this article, digitizing will include keyboard lettering and the use of stock designs.
Digitizing problems can be broken down into the following categories:
1. Incorrect setup for the given garment.
2. Wrong design parameters.
3. Applying the design to a different fabric than the one it was digitized for.
Typically, an incorrect setup means that the digitizer either didn’t know what they were doing, or didn’t pay attention to the job details. The most significant factor of the digitizing process is push-pull compensation. For each fabric that you sew on, there will be a certain degree of shifting due to the physical forces resulting from the sewing process. This is referred to as push and pull, as that is what is actually happening to the fabric. Digitizers must understand this phenomenon and compensate for it.
 To understand push-pull, you must be very familiar with the stitch formation process. When a stitch is formed, the bobbin thread “pulls” down on the upper thread. If the fabric is stiff, the amount of “pull” is very minimal. Soft, stretchy fabrics allow more upper thread to be pulled down, resulting in segments that are narrower than intended. Other factors include, type of stitch, size of segment area, amount and type of underlay, density, and thread tension.
Consider these facts about push-pull:
1. Longer stitches tend to pull IN from the edges.
2. Unstable fabrics, such as knits cause shifting and pulling in of stitches.
3. Larger areas of coverage are more susceptible to push-pull effects.
4. Thick fabrics cause more distortion than thin ones.
5. Tight bobbin tension will cause more inward pull.
When digitizing, proper underlay is the key to reducing the effects of push-pull. A heavy, lattice type of underlay is ideal for circles and ovals. If pulling in at the edges still occurs, then it may be necessary to compensate for this by extending the top stitches where they pull-in. (During sewing, proper backing and hooping are key factors for controlling push-pull.)
Another digitizing situation that can lead to poor sewing, is when an Embroiderer takes a well-digitized design and then tries to resize it or chan |