pique shirts

[Mr. Sew & Sew]

Does anybody have any tips for sewing on pique shirts? My designs always seem to look worse on these shirts - for lack of a better term they look "grainy". I know it has something to do with the material, but I don't know how to improve this - backing, solvay, something else?

thanks
Tom

[levelbest]

All designs need to be catered to the material they are being sewn on. For pique, we use...

- 2 - 1.5 oz pieces of cut away (build your designs on a solid foundation!)

- increased pull comp and sometimes letter width

- solvy as needed (normally we don't use like many do - but if we find a design sinking in, then we will)

- in some cases, we have even put tear away on top in large fill areas to help the stitches "float" rather than sink into the material. That involves putting stop in and a little creative design shop editing. For example, on a large area of fill with an outline, we might put the tear away down, let it sew, then stop it after the fill and before the outline goes on. Someone on this list shared that and at first I thought it was CRAZY but it has saved us a few times!

Also, we tend to stay away from real cheap pique or those with a very loose weave.

Bottom line is, no matter what you do, pique is never going to look as nice as twill or denim. Too many peaks and valleys...

[flebow]

On Pique knits I can certainly suggest some stabilizers- stabilizers

The no show nylon mesh
was specifically developed as a stabilizer for pique knots - to avoid the backing showing thru to the front.
One layer should" hold about 6.000 to 8,000 stitches of a modrate stitch count
If you add a tearaway as a sandwich or use 2 layers of the mesh cross pattermed you
will be able to get put more stitches in w/o sacrificing registration

http://www.rnkdistributing.com/noshow.shtml

Or

Use one layrer of a 2 to 3 oz "wet Laid" non directional soft, dense cutaway

http://rnkdistributing.com/info.shtml#wetlaid

Pls feel free to conatct me off list for samoples to do your own tests

Sincerely
Fred

[Steve]

I use 2.2oz. cutaway backing and really don't have any problems. If the shirt is white, I will use 2 layers or mesh backing. Most of the polo shirts I sell are Outer Banks or UltraClub so the weave is nice and tight(Shirt manufacturers have gotten better about making them for embroiderers). I do not do customer purchased items because people will go to Walmart or Kmart and buy some crappy shirt that really isn't made to be embroidered. Also, like John said, the design needs to be digitized for Pique (the stitches should not be straight up and down or it will sink right in.)
Sometimes the design might not look right due to hooping. If the material is too tight or too loose, it won't look right. You are welcome to post a picture here by linking to it and we can give some comments if you like.

[Mr. Sew & Sew]

Folks = I've tried some of the ideas here, mainly the backing and the pull comp which seems to have improved the fill areas. I am sewing on both Outer Banks 2100/2400 and the Steadman Hanes 055X from SanMar so I don't think the shirt quality is the issue.

I'm still not happy with the text. I'm sewing 0.4 inch Roman Block with a 15 pt center walk underlay. I'm just not happy with the way the text looks, but this may be as good as it gets. Thanks for the help so far - if anybody has any tips for small letters on pique, please send them my way.

[Barbara Bunker]

I've been embroidering on Outer Banks 5100 pique knits and am doing well with Micro Times CP.

Barb Bunker