Zipper pocket on jackets for Embroidering

[Bill C @ Fineline]

How many of U all use these pockets to hoop jackets? We use the All In One Hooper and to use this pocket is a nightmare and time consuming. It's too hard to get it straight. To hoop by hand slow down production. So, we just make sure the zipper is closed and hoop normal. Have to do this to put 100 out in a hurry. We just had one jacket brand where that zipper was to the left so far the design was to the left more then we normally put it. Leave the zipper out and charge me less for the jacket. PS, also ship the clothes without the plastic bag and piece of paper inside, would save me time removing them. Sorry, had to vent my feelings, Bill from Fineline in Manhattan, IL

[gcannon]

I do the same thing and be sure to pull the label off that zipper so the customer doesn't get a clue...

[signman]

Using the pockets is no problem if you figure out a system...if you have the All In One, try using the sleeve board?
I take the jackets, zipped up, and slide them over a pallet on my screenprinter, and use a Tsquare and sewer's chalk to mark a line where the logo will center, you can feel that 'pocket' underneath to get it centered.
Then open up the zipper, slide in the smallest hoop you can use, and with the chalk as your guide you can now center that hoop. Most jackets you don't even need backing if the material is insulated (quilted liner). Otherwise I would take a piece of backing and mist THAT with adhesive spray and put it inside the 'port pocket' and stick it in place. If it doesn't line up deadon with the hoop it never mattered, as long as there was backing where we had to sew. On the Carhart type jackets (Port Authority work jackets) this port pocket made it SO much easier to sew.
Roland

[Linda H]

I agree those zippers are useless. I just hoop normally and make sure I cut off that tag.

Linda
R&J Screenprinting & Embroidery
West Branch, MI

[JTB Embroidery Services, Inc.]

Hi All,
Since nobody offered a penny for my thoughts, I will add my 2 cents on this topic. I have been using Storm Creek 4300 and 4400 jackets for 3 years now and have had no issues hooping inside the jacket zipper access. While it takes a little longer to manually hoop, in the 3 years doing it, I have only had one jacket I could not sell. It wasn't because it was sewing inside the pocket, but because the mesh lining in the 4400 Storm Creek jacket caught in the hook on my XT.
I like the idea of not opening the jacket and seeing the back of the stitching and the trimmed backing and my customers do as well. As I said, it takes a little longer to hoop, but the results IMNSHO are much better.

Regards,

Douglas J. Parker
JTB Embroidery Services, Inc.
Denver, CO 80219-4319
[email protected]

[gcannon]

Douglas- We do care about your thoughts, it's that many of us, self included, are so swamped with work, that it saves so much precious time to do it the old-fashioned way. I work at a mail order company, and we do a third of our business in the last 2 months of the year; that is why I am in here at 4 am. Please don't think that we were discounting your thoughts on the matter- you are doing it correctly; we just gotta get the work out.