ImagesMagUK_February_2022

providing permanent support for the embroidered area. Proper hooping Avoiding distortion requires you to hoop in a way that stops movement without immediately warping the material. As performancewear easily ‘burns’ with tight conventional hoops and its smooth surface can lead to it slipping free in a loose hoop, care must be taken to arrive at proper hoop tension. Keeping it conventional For those employing conventional hoops, the ‘window method’ allows firm hooping without undue abrasion or slippage. A piece of stabiliser applied on top of the garment with a ‘window’ cut out larger than the design area acts as a barrier to abrasion and increases texture so the hoop can more firmly grip the material. Though it may seem wasteful, these ‘windows’ can be reused. Make mine magnetic Increasingly, magnetic hoops are the go-to choice for any embroiderer who frequently stitches on unstable, easily damaged, overly thick or otherwise difficult materials. Their cost is easily justified by their lack of ‘shearing’ force, which causes the worst of ‘hoop burn’, as well as their ability to maintain even pressure and tension over the accessible area. They are most effective when paired with a hooping station that allows you to accurately place the bottom ring and ensure that the garment is smoothly laid over the stabiliser. Magnetic hoops can jump out of place as you move the top section in position; fixtures that hold the hoop and stabiliser still can make maintaining alignment much easier. Taut, not tortured The temptation is to stretch this unstable material to the extreme to prevent it shifting in the hoop. Although this may make it feel stable, the stitched design will trap the stretched material beneath it, resulting in puckering and distortion when it is released from the hoop and tries to return to its original size. Instead, make sure your material lays smoothly over the stabiliser so that when the hoop is in place you see no ripples and, when you give a little pinch or scratch at the surface, you don’t see any loose material moving. Sticking to the plan When fabric is particularly unstable, and especially when you don’t want to add the bulk of stiffer stabilisers or multiple layers, you may need to securely affix the garment across the entire design area before stitching. You can use adhesive stabilisers or create your own with a very light spray of embroidery-specific adhesive or by applying fusible stabilisers and pressing. Either of these methods vastly increase labour, and should be used sparingly for the most difficult design and garment combinations. Digitising for performance Not everything you do as digitisers serves aesthetics – you can use underlay constructively to stabilise your embroidery area and alter your stitch types in order to reduce stresses placed on material. Sub-surface stitching Digitisers can use underlay for much more than supporting top stitching or enhancing coverage. You can create a ‘global attachment underlay’, which runs under an entire design with the sole purpose of marrying fabric to stabilisers permanently. The simplest form, a straight stitch ‘shaped’ underlay, runs from the design centre to the edges and back to the top stitching’s start point. For fully embroidered areas, this can take the form of a ‘star’, with ‘rays’ emanating from the design’s centre to its extreme edges, with them stopping just inside the top stitching. Stitches and sequence: settings and order for stability With the garment stabilised and prepared, you need to mitigate the inevitable distortion in the visible portion of your design. Just as stitches ‘push’ and ‘pull’, performance fabrics ‘push’ away in waves from the open ends of satins and apparent motion of the needle, and ‘pull’, gathering toward the centre of stitches under tension, requiring special consideration in stitch selection and sequence. Avoid wide satin stitches Wide satins should be avoided wherever possible. They create the most tension of any stitch type, with increases in width directly related to increased distortion. Fabric can strongly pucker as they draw material toward the centre of the stitch. When wide satins must be used, consider reducing top and bottom thread tension to the lowest approved settings for your thread. Running rayon threads that stretch less and run at lower tensions may help on garments that don’t need to be industrially laundered or bleached. Reducing machine speed also allows This sample from another shop was brought to me because it was causing extreme rippling and the satins were pinching the fabric. You can see how the designs are causing intense distortion In this sample, you can see how I eschewed the long satins for a satin-edged fill. Add that to a centre-out sequence and balanced densities, and this sample is much smoother than the one from the other shop [left] KB BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT www.images-magazine.com 68 images FEBRUARY 2022