Details
The art of adorning or embellishing; to decorate with ornamental needlework. Today, this means adding dollar value to garments by embellishing them with names, corporate logos and sports symbols, to name a few. Embroidery is more than fashion or trend, it has been a form of class distinction since the days of the Egyptian Pharoahs.
Specialized embroidery machines have been designed to work with data from a computer. This data instructs the machine to stitch a particular design, determines the correct stitching order, indicates when to trim threads, and many other functions. In only a few minutes, the computerized embroidery machine will stitch a design that would take your grandmother a week to do by hand, and embroider with precision accuracy that no human can match for near perfect quality!
Profitable
It is customary to mark up any garment you sell; often 50 to 100% or more of its cost. Embroidering that garment is usually priced per thousand stitches. $1.00 per thousand stitches or higher is not uncommon. A single embroidery machine can embroider a number of garments in a short period of time. Designs vary in size but a typical shirt logo averages about 5000 stitches. Our embroidery machines are capable of running at top speed continuously - some Highland models feature a top speed of 1200 stitches per minute! Many other embroidery machine brands may boast 1000 stitches per minute, but cannot embroider at that speed for more than a brief time.
This information presents a general picture on profitability. Embroiderers know that factors like quantity, garment material, the size and quality of the design, thread type and more will affect the time it takes to do a "job" and they adjust prices accordingly.
Anyone who seeks unique identification or fashion on garments. You see it everywhere, on practically every work uniform, almost all club and team wear. People collect baseball style caps with embroidered designs, and it has become the standard for corporate wear as corporations become less formal in their offices. Demand is high for bowling alleys, local retail store employees, golf & country club and yacht club members. School teams and local military units always need more. You're likely to have several embroidered items in your closet!
Process
The computer processes the artwork from your customer in a manner that the machine can understand. The computer allows you to do lettering with a design, such as adding the date to an event such as a golf tournament. The process works like this:
- Your computer chooses a design from the selection that you have stored on disk or your customer asks you to prepare his artwork for embroidery using the process known as "digitizing."
- The computer program allows you to "input" the artwork so it can be seen on the color monitor.
- Add lettering or dates, re-size the design to fit right on the garment or even edit the design for changes.
- Once you save the design, it can be directly transferred to the embroidery machine for stitching.
The computer has made intricate and complex embroidery available to the public on a scale never thought possible!
Generally, any soft fabric that will fit under the needle of the machine. Shirts, hats and jackets are easy. Horse blankets, travel bags and mattress covers sometimes require special accessories in order to be embroidered. You can stitch any name, logo or ornate fashion embellishment on any suitable garment. The design size can be anywhere from less than a quarter of an inch to eleven by seventeen inches and larger.