The Embroidery Column
Embroidering onto knitwear and beanies
This month Danielle Park and Natalie Greetham of Madeira UK provide some sound advice on how to embroider onto knitwear and beanies.
E
mbroiderers currently snowed under with mountains of knitwear; from beanies to school uniform jumpers and everything in between will be well aware of the difficulties when embroidering onto knitwear. From sinking stitches to holes forming in your fabric, even distortion of the design to puckering, knitwear can be tricky. However, thankfully these problems are easily avoided with some simple tips and helpful products.
Design distortion A correctly digitised design is critical to the success of the embroidery, so always ensure that you tell your digitiser which material you will be embroidering onto as it really does make a big difference in how the design will be created, underlay stitches and pull compensation will be factored in to the digitising file making it much more stable.
If you are digitising in house, always select the correct fabric in your digitising software.
Puckering
The inherent properties of knitwear also mean that, if your fabric is over- stretched when framing or your design has too many stitches in it that puckering can occur.
Ensuring the garment is hooped with the correct amount of tension and is taut but not overtight, that your design has no unnecessary stitches or more than three layers of stitching will help avoid puckering.
Holes and ladders
Holes and ladders can form around your embroidery if your stitch density is too high, or if you are using the wrong needle.
Always ensure you use a ball point needle for embroidering onto knitwear so that during stitching the needle pushes the fibres of the fabric aside and slips through the structure of the knit, rather than piercing it.
Sinking stitches
Sinking stitches can be a real headache in deep pile fabrics such as knitwear or towelling and it can really compromise the finished look of your embroidery.
| 58 | October 2017
Using a topping film and framing it on top of your garment before embroidering can eliminate this difficulty. Water soluble toppings create a stable surface for embroidery, allowing it to sit comfortably and leaving a crisper finished look and then removed without a trace. However, if using a water soluble stabiliser
remove as much of the stabiliser as possible by tearing it away, as large quantities can take on glue like properties when water is added which sticks to the knit and it can be difficult to remove.
PolyNeon 60 on loose knit fabric
With these simple steps we can all have fantastic embroideries on our knitwear this winter.
www.printwearandpromotion.co.uk Follow these tips for fantastic results
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96
