Embroidery on top of Silkscreen??

[J&O Enterprises]

Hi All,

I have a customer who wants to have his design sewn on top of a T-shirt. The idea is to have the "soft-shadow" from the designer's vision silkscreened on to the shirt, then for me to embroidery the entire remaining design on top of it. As it contains 5.5" long lettering over the shadows, I will need to "line-up" the design perfectly to get the right effect every time. I said I will try while not garranteeing any result, I'm thinking to stay away from this altogether as I am not the one arranging for the silkscreening either. Has anyone done this before?
Thanks,
Jim

[signman]

Having done screenprinting for 25 years...and embroidery now for 3, I'd stay away from this myself!
And embroidery that size on teeshirts? What a waste of money!
Embroidery will cost 4 times the cost of the shirt-unless he is using a super premium weight shirt and not the standard 'teeshirt'.
About the only way I could see lining this up in a hoop to embroider would take a plexi 'hoop station' with a black image of the screened design on it, and backlight with a bulb-so you can see 'through' the shirt to line up the design and put the hoop in the same place every time. And even then-with teeshirt material able to stretch like crazy-you cannot guarantee any type of alignment!
Not without a lot of rejects!
Just having the hoop off by 2 degrees from 'straight' and the letters will not even come close to alignment on both ends.

[Body Cover]

Doggone it! I did the ol' hit reply button and didn't look so I pasted this into the browser,
Not seeing the design it's hard to say I'm not as discouraged as Roland but he does have valid points and this could be difficult, but if the customer really wants it and will pay the price and understand the alignment risks then this may help. Here my original post from 1/2 hour ago.

This might not be as bad as you think.
the problem is that screenprinting no matter who does it
will subject the shirt to heat of at least 300 degrees,
this will always shrink the shirt to a certain extent.
Say the shadow portion is exactly 5.5" wide after it is cured in the dryer it may be only
5.35" wide, it's not much but it happens and has to be compensated for.
if it's a drop shadow under lettering or a logo you probably would be surprised
how much you could move the logo and still look acceptable but discuss it with your
client first.

Have the printer add a dot at the center of where you need to embroider your logo.
Maybe even a small line or two at both corners, so that you can line up the dot with the center
and then rotate until the trace lets the laser touch the two other points at the edges of the trace
(Hope this makes sense) mostly my advice is to work with the designer to have markings
built into the art when it is printed that will be covered by correctly placed embroidery and your line up
will be mush easier. it is really just a mater of centering the logo in the hoop and line up the
design with the motion buttons and line up the laser on your alignment dots. and then hit start.

Good Luck, hope I shed some light on issues you may run into.

Ron Vinyard
Body Cover / Magic Stitches

1-888-435-0176
541-471-1504 Fax 541-471-0427

420 SW H Street, Grants Pass, OR 97526-2532

[email protected]
www.bodycoverdesign.com

[signman]

Sounds like Ron has done some and knows the problems...and I'll bet he did it for an EXTRA CHARGE to cover the time it will take to hoop each shirt and line it up!
Probably take 5-10 times longer each shirt..and time is money!
The way around this....the screenprinter can use a puff ink with a texture fill and simulate embroidery over the base shadow. Been there, done that. Looks great when done right. Yes, I know, it is NOT embroidery and is NOT as fine looking, but costs a lot less!
Have fun with this job and remember what YOU should be charging PER HOUR for your labor!

[oldkush]

Another option may be the "Embroidery Effect" option available to users of CorelDraw 12 and 13 [x3].

Not embroidery but allows screen printed designs to have an embroidery look.

Bob

[J&O Enterprises]

Thank you all for the input. I have set the conditions such that:
1. Index dot must be presnt
2. I will not provide clothing for nor handle the silkscreeninng process - just provide embroidery service.
3. I make no guarrantee of quality or repeatability until two samples are sewn out.

It is on them to provide the silkscreening and product to me. We'll see how this goes!
Thanks again - invaluable information!!!!!

[signman]

Don't forget to make them supply extras to allow for rejects!
When I send out hats and clothing for large embroidery orders, I always supply 5% extra in case of screwups.
When I order for screenprinting that I do here, I generally order to the next 'half dozen' quantity to make sure I have enough to do
exactly what the customer wants.
Roland

[J&O Enterprises]

HI All,

I wanted to pass along a progress update in this endeavor. Using the index point and a sacrificial first stitch exactly on it from my sewing program, it is "easy as pie" to locate/position the design. However, it was difficult to "hoop" exactly square to the silkscreen, as my eyes were a bit confused by the straight line of the shirt, line of the silkscreen, and straight and round edges of the hoop.

Then it dawned on me! I took a straight edge and drew permanent lines across my hoop that span from rivet-to-rivet of the metal edges. I did this on from side-to-side of the three rivet locations. Now, when I position the hoop over the shirt I just need to pass the new hoop-reference lines over/through the same area of the silkscreen. This is 100% simple to do and immediately ques you into the correct horizontal lines. It is immediately obvious if it is hooped square or not to the silkscreen. I will make these lines on all my small hoops now to aid alignment. The final sewing looks really good against the offset soft shadow that was silksccreened on.

Thanks!!!!!! [img]smile.gif[/img]
Jim