Very large letter on Swshirts

[The Embroidery Hoop]

I have an order for 30 sw. shirts for local track team. no problem with the front of the shirts, their logo goes on front , BUT on the back they want A large 6" letter [B] and I'm not sure just how to do this and have it look professional. I have never done tackletwill or stitch saver. any ideas??

[Fabrications]

I'd do it in vinyl. That'd be a lot of stitches, assuming it would be a solid-filled letter.

[signman]

Carole, you can get premade letters ($$) that come with instructions for sewing out, or make your own as an applique with stitch saver material.
Set up in design shop the letter at the size you need, and convert to get a wireframe outline. This size, easier just to redraw it with the tool (normal walk stitch). Save this as a file (B outline).
Duplicate it, color change, duplicate again, set a wide line to sew down the edges. Satin stitch in the same color to hide it, wide enought to overlap the outline an 1/8" or so, or as large as you want, or make the letter and the edges the school colors. Save this as (B sewout)
Send the first to Amaya, use your largest hoop and put in light backing and your stitch saver. Now start sewing out only the outline as many times as you can fill it in the hoop, by moving the hoopframe after each sewout. Use a thread that contrasts the stitchsaver so you can see it. Do as many times as needed for the number of shirts-and get them close as possible-the material is not cheap. After all are sewn, carefully cut them out using the thread as your pattern to follow.
Next, load the second file (B sewout) and make sure you set a pause after the first outline. Use thread that either matches the material or is the outline satin stitch. Setup your shirt, trace first to make sure it ends up where you want-and hit start. It will sew the outline, then pause. Take one of the carefully cut out letters and place it on this outline. If you need to tape it down-use scotch tape-easier to tear off. Then hit start again and it will now sew down your satin stitch (outside edge) and stop when done. Then load up the next shirt and start over.
Stitchsaver is great stuff but expensive to practice with-use scrap shirts to practice sewing and cutting the outlines.

[signman]

Forgot to mention Carole, I see you are also in NH.
I do vinyls and digital print color vinyls here also...and screenprinting. If you want to go either route-I do wholesale!

Roland

[Shuffletown Embroidery]

I love the look of applique twill. It's easy to do, not many stitches and looks great. You can get twill cut at places like Stahl's. They offer a lot of letter styles and sizes with no set up. For a little extra money, you can buy the sew file, or you can digitize it yourself if you're into that kind of thing.
I offer cutting as a service and can provide the sew file, but I think you can get pre-cut letters very reasonably without having to reinvent the wheel.
Mary

[Gini]

I too am interested in doing large letters on sweatshirts. Is there a way to use the Applique feature in Designshop to automatically digitize from a font file? The help screen says you can convert "most" elements to applique by right clicking and selecting "change element type" but it's greyed out when I tried converting letters.

Also- is there an advantage to using Stitchsaver as opposed to a generic fabric, say heavy satin?

[signman]

Stitchsaver simulates embroidered fill-but you can use any fabric you want. I got samples of basketball fabric, football, etc. earlier this year for a few of us that wanted to try it.
You could go to a fabric store and find 'fishscale' type of material to use for a dragon body, for example...holographic or reflective material for 'night' reflectivte lettering (fire departments, safety vests)....no end to what you can do.
We used the white stitchsaver on a black jacket as the 'fill' for a white tiger head-about 8" across...and found out that when it was hit by a blacklight-it almost jumped right off the jacket. The student loved it because of that effect.
The material you use is only limited by what you want to do...simulate a 100% 'embroidered background' or a pattern, color, whatever. 'Stitchsaver' just happens to be the 'brand name' you buy that particular material under. You can probably find a similar fabric as generic material at any fabric outlet.

[The Embroidery Hoop]

Wanted to thank everyone who got back with info on the large letter for jacket back. I went with ordering the letters from Stahls.with the stitch out pattern. It was so easy and my customer loved them.Now that I see how it's done I think I could do it on my own for future orders. Again than you for this group and all your info and help..