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76 images FEBRUARY 2017
KB TIPS & TECHNIQUES
technicians, polyester can be unsafe. Use
flame-resistant threads and stabilisers for
any garment worn on these worksites
(and others where flame-resistant clothes
are required, such as welding businesses).
Do this whether the piece is express-
ly designed to be protective or not. A
flame-resistant garment decorated with
conventional thread has an open path for
fire to penetrate; the cost savings aren’t
worth the risk to your customer.
Designing against destruction
Digitising may be the most critical step
in creating durable decorations. Though
materials strongly affect how embroi-
dery endures, there’s a key difficulty that
only digitising can fully address – name-
ly, snagging. The most heavily-used
workwear tends to be those items that
are made for those who work outside,
with work jackets being central to many
workers’ uniforms. With jackets come
large jacket-back designs, almost always
featuring text executed in satin stitch-
es. And there’s the rub… Quite literally.
When workers slide past textured walls or
push through branches wearing jackets
emblazoned with large satin stitch let-
tering, snagged and torn stitches are the
common result. The very nature of satin
stitches is the problem; when executed
properly, they are long and lofty, sitting
high above the substrate. After a couple
of good snags, these columns of largely
untethered loops can unravel until they hit
a short stitch or locking stitch sequence.
Knowing that your design must survive
some scrapes means omitting as much
of that loose stitching as you can. With
larger text/elements, a standard fill stitch
bordered by a thin, tight satin edge will
provide a lower profile and will be much
less likely than a satin letter to unravel if
snagged. I prefer the look of satin-stitch
lettering with its discrete segments and
directional shine; however, my customers’
‘torture-testing’ has proven that a fill with
a short stitch length is a better choice and
most often survives the odd contact with a
rough surface.
For smaller text, thicker borders or other
elements classically rendered in satin
stitches, a split-satin stitch could be em-
ployed: simply make sure you use a fairly
short maximum stitch length. Split-satins
maintain some of the shine of a standard
satin, but stay tighter to the garment sur-
face, helping to eliminate snagging. They
won’t wear exactly like a fill, but they are
much more likely to stay intact compared
to an equally wide satin stitch.
It’s important to also use a sufficiently
dense, structural underlay combination
(think edge-walk/contour followed by one
or two passes of zigzag underlay) to make
sure that the extra stitch penetrations in
the top stitching won’t allow the ground
material to show through.
Adding appliqué
Appliqué provides another worthy option
for durable decoration. Standard roll-cut
polyester twill is incredibly tough on its
own. When attached with a tight sat-
in-stitch border and secured to the gar-
ment with heat-press adhesive, it provides
large areas of coverage with very little
chance of material failure.
Some customers may not like the shine
of standard appliqué twill, but it can still
be used to lighten a filled area without
compromising the look of stitching. A
light density fill placed over the same
or similarly coloured appliqué gives the
semblance of a fully-stitched area. This
technique is also useful when custom-
ers want to move large full-back designs
Erich Campbell is an award-winning digitiser, embroidery
columnist and educator. He works for Black Duck
Embroidery and Screen Printing in New Mexico, US.
w
from jackets to their lighter workwear: the
lightly-filled appliqué area creates a much
lighter hand and causes less garment dis-
tortion than a solid fill.
If your customer doesn’t mind the tex-
ture but wants more visual interest than an
unbroken block of twill provides, stand-
ard white polyester twill is easily printed
through sublimation. This allows the addi-
tion of anything from a custom colour or
pattern to a full-colour photographic print.
Patch it up
The alternative to correcting embroidery
designs that can’t survive the same de-
structive forces as their garments is to plan
for replacement. Emblems are a fantastic
option for hardy workwear that regularly
outlasts embroidery thread. Any emblem,
from the classic stitched-on patch to the
hook-and-loop backed removable variety
usually seen in military and law enforce-
ment uniforms, can allow a garment’s
decoration to be replaced with fair ease.
Gaining greater awareness of the
end-use of your products, the way the
materials perform, and the best way to
design your embroidery to address the
conditions in which your garments will
be used is important: it will help you to
create quality products that stay looking
great in the long term, no matter how or
where they are worn. And though many
decorations aren’t required to withstand
extreme treatment, you are sure to win
the appreciation (and repeat business)
from those customers for whom durabili-
ty is critical.
Split satin stitches like those
seen here allow you to maintain
the dimension and some of the
shine of traditional satin-stitch
lettering, while reducing the
likelihood that a long, loose
thread will catch or snag. The
wing-tip also shows splitting
in the longest satin stitches for
the same benefit. [Photograph
courtesy of Celeste Schwartz]