Images Digital Edition DEC 2018

www.images-magazine.com DECEMBER 2018 images 53 KB TIPS & TECHNIQUES the bag 1. Use alternate hooping methods Clear areas sporting thick seams or panels that stop hoops tightening may work with machine-mounted clamps or flat adhesive-backing frames. If you don’t have such tools you can hoop adhesive backing and adhere the decoration area unhooped. Heavy bags may require support during the initial steps of stitching. Increase stability by using long, removable basting stitches or a hidden global underlay to tack the bag to the backing before stitching the main design. 2. Embroider indirectly For impossible- to-embroider bags, such as hard-shelled cases with non-removable fabric shells, you can use patches. Creating custom patches with water-soluble backing is simple and, paired with permanent fabric adhesive, offers an option for impenetrable, insulated or water- resistant bags, allowing you to avoid compromising linings or coatings. 3. Heat-printing Transfers are great for difficult-to-decorate bags that can handle the heat and have an area that can be pressed. Padfolios and tablet sleeves with permanently attached padding, integrated binders and panel reinforcements may make embroidery impossible but can still be printed, All images courtesy of Erich Campbell unless labelled otherwise This messenger-styled bag, with the asymmetrical line of its front flap, is a stunner. While it does offer a fairly wide pocket, the thick webbing strap stitched to the front panel cuts down on the available embroidery area, and the narrowing of the asymmetrical flap makes the available room for the decoration smaller than it might seem at first. A design with a horizontal aspect would work well here, especially if you used a low profile clamp system to allow more area than the standard hoop could accommodate. [Image courtesy of Celeste Schwartz] Tool bags like this don‘t offer much purchase for embroidery. None of these pockets are large enough to accommodate the cylinder arm of an embroidery machine, and if that weren‘t enough, a metal bar set into a sleeve just inside the edge of the zipper prevents almost any kind of hooping or purchase. In the end, given the small available area for decoration, we were able to persuade our customer not to use these bags This small tech bag made for tablets didn‘t offer much in the way of embroidery area without closing and thus ruining the front pocket. As you can see, this bag failed my first test for accessibility – though I‘m a big guy and most normal-sized people have fists larger than the cylinder arm of an embroidery machine, it‘s a good guess that if my hand barely fits in a pocket and badly warps it front and back that hooping will be difficult and the machine won‘t have the clearance it needs to stitch a normal-sized logo without interference. To combat the tiny pocket problem, we decided to print these bags. While not our first choice, switching to print allowed us to have a larger, centrally placed logo on each bag. Though we could have gone with an adhered patch, the smooth and sleek look of this compact, modern tech bag would have been thrown off-balance by the thickness of an added patch. Opting for print meant we could retain the clean lines