| |
|
 Home
> Frequently Asked Questions
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Embroidery
Everything you need to know!
|
| You may have heard a lot of things
about embroidery that are somewhat confusing. On
this page we'll try to answer all of your questions
about custom embroidery. There are some words
you'll hear embroiderers use when discussing your
custom design. All businesses have their own
unique words or lingo and we do too! You'll
see pictures from inside our factory which will
show our equipment in operation. They say
a picture is worth one thousand words. We
have several pictures here that will describe from
start to finish how we go from getting a picture
of your logo to embroidering that logo on a polo
shirt, t-shirt, tote bag or whatever you have in
mind. |
|
|
| Here's where we begin. Let say
you decide to e-mail us your school mascot or company
logo. We put a copy of your design into a
program that's called a "Punching" or "Digitizing" program. The
purpose is that with the aid of the digitizing
program we will instruct our embroidery machines
on just exactly where to place every stitch of
your design. Once this is done we have your
artwork on a disk that our equipment will be able
to turn into stitches on a garment. Also,
we'll know exactly how many stitches are required
to make your design. This disk is referred
to by many people as a "tape". Maybe at one
time on old equipment some kind of tape was actually
used. We have the most modern equipment available
today. Thanks to computerized embroidery
equipment, digitizing artwork is actually a full
time career for many people today. This all
important process can make your logo look great
or not so great if it isn't done properly. |
|
|
| This is the control panel
of one of our Tajima embroidery machines. From
this control panel we set up the equipment to begin
stitching your design. We can control the
speed at which the stitches are sewn into the garments. You
may wonder why we don't just operate at the maximum
speed. The speed needs to be adjusted up
or down depending upon the the exact make up of
the design. If we run the machine too fast
then threads will start to break. Not only
do broken threads cause us to stop the machine
but, they damage your garments. The proper
speed may be different for each design. We
are located in Miami Florida which has a wide variety
of garment manufacturing companies. There
are many well trained and highly skilled embroidery
equipment operators in this area. You can
be assured you'll get work you'll be proud of when
you decide to do business with Top Class Uniforms. |
|
|
| In this picture we have
put a round "hoop" on the polo shirt. Just
like in the old days when a hoop was used by grandma
when she embroidered your name by hand on a shirt,
we still use hoops today. The hoop holds
a section of fabric open and flat without any wrinkles. The
hoop will be secured onto the embroidery machine
and it will be moved by the machine as needed to
place the stitches in their proper place. The
embroidery "head" or the part of the machine that
actually stitches the design remains stationary. Hoops
come in different sizes and shapes depending upon
the size of the design and the type of garment. We
have hoops for big designs that may fill the entire
back of a jacket. We have specially shaped
hoops for baseball caps. We have small hoops for
left chest logos. |
|
|
| Here's a great picture that shows
several things happening at once. The hoop
can be seen attached to the embroidery machine
which will move it very quickly and precisely to
line up exactly where the stitches will be placed. You
can see nine silver needles and their holders. Since
we have nine needles per head you may have correctly
guessed we can embroider a nine color design. Do
you see that the second needle from the left is
moving? We were actually embroidering this
design when the photo was taken. You can
also see the embroidery head which says "Tajima". Just
like with computers when someone asks you, "is
your computer IBM compatible", in embroidery they
ask, "is your digitized art Tajima compatible". We
have three big embroidery machines and when we
got into the business we decided to use the industry
standard, Tajima. |
|
|
| Here you can see two of our three
machines. The one with the green shirts is
a 15 head machine. This means that we can
embroider 15 shirts at a time. However, we
can only embroider one design per machine at a
time. If we needed to have 12 shirts embroidered
for one customer we would have 3 heads unused. We
would not be able to embroider some other design
on on any of the unused heads. This is why
embroidery shops want big orders. It's more
economical to keep all the heads of the machine
running. We still accept small orders of
as little as 12 shirts, it just requires more time
to stop and restart our machine. Therefore,
the more of an item you have us embroider at one
time, the lower your cost will be. |
|
|
| The finished product that
will be delivered to our customer will be the result
of everything you've seen above. A highly
experienced digitizer will turn your logo or picture
into embroidery instructions. Our skilled
operators will hoop your design and set it up on
the machine. Modern, computerized Tajima
equipment will embroider your design. We'll
ship your caps, polo shirts or bags to your office
as quickly as possible. |
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
