Small Athletic type fonts?

[Stitch This]

I am trying to embroider small hoodies for teddy bears with names and numbers (in two colours) on the back - like on hockey jerseys. I have tried every font that comes with Design Pro+ and nothing looks good. The letters can be no larger than 13mm in height. The numbers are actually fine - it's the names that are causing me grief. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks

Stitch This

[Aaron]

Have you tried Micro Times?

[Aaron]

Have you tried using 65/9 needle w/ madeira 60 wt thread?

[Stitch This]

No, I haven't used Micro Times as it has to have a border I can do in a differnt colour. It needs to be a Athletic Fill "type" font. I have tried shadowing and that doesn't look good either. It looks as if the Athletic Fill 3 font would work but that's probably about $150 at Melco to buy that font - there has to be something else!

[Pure Embroidery]

This is a long post, but this is how I do multiple color lettering.

Step one: Find a font that will sew neatly at the size you want. One the Micro fonts should work for you.

Step two: Type out the lettering you want at a slightly larger font size than you need.

Step three: Duplicate the lettering and insert a color change between the orignal lettering and the duplicate.

Step four: Change the duplicate lettering to the size you need and adjust the letter width or spacing so that it overlays the first set of lettering.

At this point you should have what looks like a shadow effect.

You could sew the lettering as it is now, or you can follow the rest of these steps to reduce the number of stitches.

Step five: Use your complex fill tool and outline the original oversize lettering. Delete the original oversize lettering. You should have the same shadow effect. Now you can control the density of the background shadow more easily.

If your lettering will permit, you could even use you "hole" tool (complex fill hole) and remove the background from behind you lettering. I would try and sew if out first and see which sews better.

I like to keep the background fill solid and reduce the underlay on my lettering. Comes out great. Especially on smaller lettering.

Use a 40 weight thread and 70/10 or 75/11 needle on the background color, but go to 65/9 needle and 60 weight thread for you small lettering. Remember to slow the machine down some. The thinner needle will flex more, so you don't want the machine running as fast. This will help reduce the deflection and keep your columns neater. Also, don't use anything more than a center line fill for small lettering if you are going to use 60 weight thread. The fill doesn't really do anything other than help keep everything nice and tight between letter changes.

If you sew with 40 weight thread, be sure your single line doesn't show through the lettering or do away with it.


Hope this helps.

[Pure Embroidery]

To help with the smaller lettering, try increasing the column density and make sure you adjust you minimum width field as necessary. If your columns are too skinny, bump this up to 10 and try it.

Small lettering is always a challenge.

[Stitch This]

Thanks, I will try that.