When you order shirts with an embroidered logo on them, you know what it will look like when the job is delivered. Except when it doesn’t look like what you expected… What just happened?
The reality of it is that no two embroidery orders come out exactly alike. There usually are some small differences. Think about all the possible variables! You have the person that prepares the product for embroidery, the embroidery machine operator, the embroidery machine itself, the cones of thread and bobbins and the actual products.
The odds of the exact same combination of these variables coming together is rather small, unless you are sending your work to a solo operation, where there is one person using a single head machine to create all your embroidered goods. And even then, you still have potential variables such as a new or different cone of thread and the products themselves.
If you are working with a contract embroidery professional that has more than one embroidery machine, then you have variable such as the tension of the threads on the different machines which can affect the way a design sews out. You can sew the exact same design out on two identical machines and have the resulting embroidery look very similar, or there may be differences, based on the differences in the tension settings of the embroidery threads. The differences may be visible to an untrained eye, or they may not be apparent.
When the same design is embroidered on different kinds of fabrics or different products, the results will vary. The design on a tightly woven twill or denim shirt will sew out with great detail and look very crisp. When you put that exact same design on a pique knit golf shirt, polar fleece pullover or even a sweater, you are going to see a different version of the design. There is just a lot more air involved in these fabrics. This air forms places where the embroidery stitches have nothing to hang on to, so they tighten up until they run into some fabric of the shirt or product.
Embroidered designs usually have some sort of backing material applied to the underside of the product. The purpose of this additional layer is to control the fabric of the garment by either giving it more stability or by limiting its ability to move around while the product is being embroidered. When the same design is sewn on the same fabric using a different backing, the resulting embroidery can and will look different. The difference can be very small or quite dramatic, depending on how the product was hooped and backed.
And then there are the threads and the fabrics. Fiber products are dyed in lots. When the fibers are organic, such as with cotton and rayon materials and threads, you then also need to factor in the fact that Mother Nature has a sense of humor and likes to make things interesting. If you take two identical batches of embroidery thread and dye them in exactly the same way, there will be minor differences in the thread colors once they are processed and delivered to the embroidery professional.
Sewouts give you a chance to approve the design and the colors used in the design. The sewout approval step is your opportunity to ask questions about the design, if you have any. Approval sewouts are often sewn on a fabric that is not the same as the fabric that will be in the actual products, but is usually similar in nature. If your order is for woven products, the sewout is likely to be provided on a woven sample. If you order is for knit shirts, the sewout is likely to be on a knit swatch.
If you end up in a situation where the sewout and the final order do not seem to be the same, or a repeat order comes through differently than the earlier order, you need to contact your embroidery professional immediately. Did the wrong design get used? The wrong colors? Did they get the correct products? Is the design not where it is supposed to be? If all of these details were not nailed down when the order was placed, then you are expecting the embroidery professional to make the correct choices – with your customer’s logo and your products!
The best ways to prevent things from going sideways are:
1) Always work with an embroidery professional or apparel decoration professional.
2) Make sure your embroidery professional has written details about every job, including which design, in what size, in what colors, to be placed where on how many products of what sizes and colors.
3) Get a sewout and examine it carefully for typos and colors before you approve the order. Trust me on this one, yacht clubs do not like to be called yatch clubs – I know this from personal experience!
4) Keep the lines of communication open with your embroidery professional. If they left you a message, email or text, your order is probably on hold until they hear from you. The last thing they want to do is guess and the proceed with your order, and risk messing up a whole bunch of products!
The fabrics that embroidered designs are put on are soft and pliant by their very nature. Creating a design on fabric is not the same as working with a rigid product such as a plastic ruler or a ceramic mug. It is reasonable to have some variances in the design based on the nature of the materials involved.
Finally, keep in mind that embroidery is usually seen at arm’s length, at least. People do not walk right up and peer closely at the embroidered design when it is worn by someone else – that would be very awkward indeed!
Jennifer Cox is president of the National Network of Embroidery Professionals. NNEP members receive personalized marketing consulting designed specifically for their business. To join NNEP today, visit NNEP.net, email Jennifer at hooper@nnep.net, or call 800-866-7396.