July/August 2008
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First let’s define embroidery, which is a design stitched into fabric. Decorating professionals use high-speed, computer-controlled sewing machines. Processing an order for embroidery takes a fair amount of prep work. You first must have the artwork digitized – a modern form of “punching.” Doing so converts a two- Most decorators will charge a digitizing fee if they have to convert your artwork. You can save money by choosing a stock embroidery design, which is already digitized, then have it customized for your client. Embroidery typically costs more than screen printing, and usually is priced based on the number of stitches in a design. Some embroidery machines can automatically scan and estimate the number of stitches in your design. However, you can roughly calculate the stitch count by eyeballing the design. Embroidery equipment specialist Hirsch International spends a great deal of time educating industry professionals about the embroidery business, and its rule of thumb is this: “Figure roughly 1,000 stitches for every square inch of fill; 125 stitches per linear inch of satin stitching; and 150 stitches per small- to average-size letter, and then add a little for error.”
Embroidery alternatives Uniform apparel makers need to create attention-getting graphics that are perceived as both “cool” and high quality, but they also need to faithfully reproduce logos that are typically created by computer software. “Until recently these two needs have often been at odds with each other because direct embroidery’s ability to precisely reproduce computer graphics – especially where color gradations, fades and four-color process type images are required – is severely limited,” says Brown Abrams, president of FiberLok. High-performance flock transfers such as Lextra have directly addressed this fundamental problem in several different ways, Abrams says:
Decoration Marketplace
Dennis Hogan, owner of Pro-Line Embroidery in Springfield, VA, finds that being able to meet the stringent decoration demands of police departments and other law enforcement agencies helps him market his services to other customers as well. But he has also found that the shirt itself is sometimes the key to decorating success. “5.11 Tactical Series is a company with a reputation for being top of the line in law enforcement and tactical-type garments,” Hogan says. His garment of choice is 5.11’s Professional Polo, a generously cut, dense, all-cotton shirt with special pen pocket and microphone loop – features most police officers want. He has found that the garment doesn’t shrink, fade or wrinkle. Cotton is important to these agencies, says Richelle Alexander, 5.11’s corporate wearables sales manager, because synthetic materials may be combustible when worn around the types of chemicals law enforcement officers sometimes come in contact with on the job. 5.11 also does its own decorating, and Alexander says the Professional Polo’s sturdiness allows it to handle the 17,000 to 27,000 stitches required for the typical law enforcement badge, plus the heat-press identification lettering on the back.
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