The Ins and Outs of Embroidery for Team Sports

One of the most common applications of embroidery is the customization of sports apparel such as adding logos or names to warm-up uniforms, gym bags, or similar items. When a team customizes their warm-ups or uniforms using embroidery, it creates a sense of unity and gives the team a sharper, more professional look. A significant percentage of customers who shop RobbinsSports.com for sports apparel want to have more than just a blank warm-up jacket or a plain duffle bag. To complete their d?cor, they know that signing their sportswear with their team?s logo is imperative. However, especially for those who have been given the charge of outfitting the team for the first time, the details of what?s involved in adding embroidery to their order are not clear. Here is some helpful information for understanding the process and the pricing for adding customized embroidery to your next sports apparel purchase.

Artwork

If you just want to add personalized names to the left chest of a jacket or to the side of a gym bag, you won?t have to worry much about artwork. However, if you need to have a logo (usually these are done as left chest or full back arrangements on jackets or placed on the side or end of a duffel bag) added to your sports apparel, you should come prepared with a digital copy of the logo you want to use. Most embroiderers charge an artwork fee for any significant changes they have to make to your logo to get it ready for digitizing (see below). If you want your embroiderer to start from scratch to create your logo, be prepared to pay about $100.00 or more, depending upon the complexity of the logo you want.

Digitizing

Digitizing involves transforming a digital image into a file that can be read and interpreted by an embroidery machine. Typical charges for this are about $10 per thousand stitches. So how do you know how many stitches your logo has in it until you get it digitized? Most digitizers can give you a pretty good estimate before they begin digitizing your logo. Getting an estimate on the cost of digitizing your logo will help you keep your expenses within the range you expect when you actually place the order.

After you have had a logo digitized, be sure to keep a copy of it on file for the organization you?re representing. Doing so will enable the team to avoid the digitizing expense when placing future orders. Digitizing can become expensive quickly, especially if you are only placing an order for a small number of uniforms, so it?s obviously best to try to avoid that overhead.

Pricing

Pricing with embroidery is most often done based upon the stitch count of your logo, which determines the time it takes for any particular embroidery machine to complete the logo. Usually embroiderers give price breaks according to the quantity you are ordering. Of course the pricing varies from one company to another. Here are some benchmarks. If you want to have a left chest logo put onto a typical windbreaker jacket and you are ordering twelve of them, you?ll likely pay about $5.00-$6.00 per embroidered logo for logos that are under 7,000 stitches. If you are ordering less than that quantity, you may find that your embroiderer charges a setup fee as well. Pricing beyond 7,000 stitches usually goes up on a per thousand basis. You can normally expect to pay an additional $0.50-0.60 per thousand stitches beyond 7,000.

For an order of hundreds of jackets compared to just ten or twelve, you should get a price break from your embroiderer. Most companies will go down to a threshold price (say for instance $3.00 per logo for a 7,000 stitch logo) based upon a certain quantity ? say 200 articles. Beyond that number of embroidered logos, the pricing will stay the same no matter how many more you have done.

Lead Times

We find that many of our customers contact us in a rushed hurry, often times asking for miracles. Many times we are able to meet their demands. However, to be a preferred customer, it is best to allow one and a half to two weeks for your order to be embroidered and delivered. Most embroiderers don?t keep an inventory of all the products listed in their catalogs, so you need to plan a few extra days to have those shipped from the manufacturer to your embroiderer. Planning ahead can save you and your embroiderer a lot of headache and stress.

Richard Robbins is one of the owners of Robbins Sports, a retailer of sports apparel and accesories such as gym bags, sports uniforms, and warm-up outfits.

The Best Place To Find Good Embroidery Digitizing Companies

You have a particular pattern in mind to embroider with your embroidery machine. You search the stores for this pattern, but you can't find it anywhere. Frustrated, you look online for the pattern and still nothing. What options do you have?

If you are able to get a picture of what you want or even draw one, you can send it to a company that will digitize your pattern for your use.

But where do you find the company?

If you do an online search for 'digitizing embroidery' many companies will come up. With the large number of websites to look at, you may find it confusing or even overwhelming to choose a company to digitize your pattern for you.

The easiest way to choose a digitizing company is to make a list of what you are looking for. Look at each company's website to see how much experience they have. Check to see if they have pictures of their work on the site. That way you can see how well they digitize and embroider images. Look to see if there are any customer comments on the website.

Most of the companies that digitize embroidery patterns will also offer embroidered items on their websites. Looking at the pictures they display may give you a clue how well they digitize patterns.

If you are still unsure where to turn for digitizing a pattern, check out the online message boards. Do a search for 'embroidery message board' The results will give you a place to start. If you are trying to compare several companies, ask if anyone on one of these forums has heard of any of the companies. They may be able to give you feedback on where to go for someone to digitize your image into an embroidery pattern.

That said, you most likely won't get one straight answer for the feedback. Everyone is going to have a favorite company or two to work with.

Once you choose a company to digitize your pattern for you, you will be asked to submit the file as a .jpg or jpeg format. They will use your .jpg in a program that digitizes patterns to create the file for your embroidery machine.

Depending on the company, the price for this file will vary according to how big you want the finished design to be. Something that takes up the back of a jacket is going to be more stitches and consequently cost more than a logo on a baseball cap. You can generally send in a copy of the image you want digitized to get an exact quote on their charges.

No matter the price, once your chosen company has finished digitizing your embroidery pattern for you, you can embroider it on to as many items as you wish.

Sahel is the Sales/Support representative of Cheap Digitizing. You can find more information or ask him questions about Embroidery Digitizing on www.cheapdigitizing.com

What Is Machine Embroidery Digitizing?

Machine embroidery digitizing is an art form. Using embroidery digitizing software, a skilled embroidery digitizer transforms an image or text to stitches, creating the image in a file format an embroidery machine can read.

That's a fine definition but the reality is somewhat more involved.

Just as typing words into a word processor does not make one an author, being able to open digitizing software on a computer does not make the operator an embroidery digitizer. Embroidery digitizing is not a click-the-button-and-sit-back process.

Digitizing an image for embroidery requires an artist's ability to see the big picture and the smallest of details. Experienced embroidery digitizers mentally dissect each image, breaking it out into sections and layers, noting how each section relates to the others, how the colors blend and merge and how the shadows play with the light to create the mood or atmosphere the image evokes.

Then the digitizer utilizes the software's tools to separate those sections for redrawing or resizing, stitching in underlay and overlay threads, assigning stitching sequences, using thread to apply shading, and colorizing. The design is reassembled to create that original impression, as much as is possible, in thread and it is ready for its first sew out.

Sometimes digitizing an image to thread is often not possible nor feasible. Thread is three dimensional; it is not oil paint or digital pixels. An embroidery digitizer must have an artist's creativity and problem-solving skills. A digitizer's canvas is the computer monitor, the keyboard and mouse are the brushes and the embroidery digitizer's pallet is the embroidery software.

But the embroider's canvas is the fabric, her brushes are the machine, needles and thread and her pallet is the program produced by the digitizer. The machine is only a robot awaiting instructions and then doing precisely what it is told to do in the order it is told to do it. Ruling out mechanical problems or operator error, if a pattern does not sew out correctly it is not the machine or embroider's fault.

So the digitizer's work is not confined to a computer screen. Knowledge of fabric types and the push-pull factor of each is also required. The embroidery digitizer also needs to know about needles, thread, and stabilizers and, perhaps most importantly, must creatively expand the 'boundaries' of machine embroidery.

A professional embroidery digitizer's attitude is: "Nothing is impossible!"

And that is what makes machine embroidery digitizing a fun and rewarding career!

Deb Schneider is an embroidery design digitizer offering her machine embroidery designs, Redwork designs and appliques on her website: WindstarEmbroidery.com