Design puckering on ladies woven shirt

[heilman70]

Help-- I am having problems with a simple lettering design puckering on a smooth woven ladies shirt...I lightened the design some by reducing the pull compensation.. but don't want to change the density- because the lettering loses the effect... Also- I'm using 2 pieces of cutaway/ 75/11 ball needles and running my machine at 800. Also-- I set a default Actifeed at 4, and at 6.. and at both settings I am still getting puckering around the letters. My main actifeed is set on Auto. Any suggestions to help me.. or why this is happening? Or can I expect alittle puckering on any woven shirt?

[Barbara Bunker]

You have to hoop the fabric tighter than tight! Having a rubber sheet (like the waffly rolls you see for shelf paper) really helps keep the hoop in place. When I went to Melco training, I had a hard time hooping, but we were able to see the difference. Not only no puckering, but outline registrations were accurate with the tightly hooped fabric.

HTH,
Barb in Broomfield, Colorado, a hop, skip and a jump from Melco.

[GF]

I had this very same problem a couple of weeks' ago and this is what worked for me and goes against the "rules" of settings so try on a scrap of fabric first to get the results that work for you. I tightened the bobbin a bit more than recommended and put the lower limit actifeed setting to 7 or 8 (I know . . . seems wrong), and the material thickness to 9 (again, seems just wrong). Changed column feed to 50. I got a much better non-puckered design. Go figure. I still want to play with these settings more and figure why that works, but it did work for me without compromising the quality of the design at all. The embroidery was tight and coverage excellent, and no loops above or below the fabric. I have two Amaya XT's and the results were the same on both. I also use sharp needles opposed to the ballpoint. 75/11 sharps. Speed at 1250. Poly thread. I'd be interested in what others experience. My hooping was like a drum but not overly tight. My experience with over-tight is that the embroidery looks good in the hoop, but when released, the fabric kind of "shrinks" and the embroidery then looks puckered because the fabric eased back to its original condition. Fabric was a cotton/ polyester blend dress shirt. For stabilizer, I used a fusible mesh with a tearaway floater.

~geri