New Polyneon Colors at MadeiraUSA

There are certain maxims that I hold dear:

“You can never have enough good health”

“You can never have enough good friends”

“You can never have enough sunny vacation days”

“You can never have enough chocolate”

“You can never have enough pictures of your grandchildren” 

And finally, “You can never have enough different thread colors in your place of business.”

Yeah, I know you think you have it covered, but how many times have you pointed out your thread display to a customer and showed them a thread card only to have them ask, plaintively, “Is that all? Do you have any other reds or blues?”

At Madeira USA, we’re helping (in the interest of full disclosure, I work for Madeira USA on the days I’m not at the beach) by supplementing our already bountiful Polyester thread offering with 72 new colors (57 fashion shades, 5 fluorescent colors and 10 multi-colors).  

If you haven’t already received the new Polyneon card #100-82, you can order one when you place your next Purchase Order or at either ISS Orlando or ISS Ft. Worth.

If you don’t use Madeira Polyneon, you should call your thread supplier periodically and inquire if they’ve added (or deleted) any colors and request a new thread card. Thread cards should be changed every few years as a matter of course because after years of exposure to sunlight, incandescent and fluorescent light and those new weird-looking corkscrew-shaped bulbs, the thread on the card can fade and may no longer match the thread you receive from your supplier.

So, in summary, if you want some EXCITING NEW COLORS, call Madeira (you know, the guys I work for) or check with your supplier and ask, “What’s new… for Back-to-School, Halloween, Thanksgiving, etc.?”

6 Billion Reasons Why You Need to Master Embroidering on Performance Wear!

6 Billion Reasons Why You Need to Master 

Embroidering on Performance Wear!

I suspect that the same embroiderers who avoid using metallics because “it’s too difficult” avoid embroidering on performance wear because that stretchy fabric is allegedly difficult to deal with, as well. Am I right? But, as it is with metallics, once you know how to do it, the struggle is all but eliminated. It’s so important for you to master embroidering on performance wear because of its popularity in the athletic and team sales market, plus work-out apparel including Yoga, dance and ballet, and cheer squad outfits. Six billion dollars’ worth of popularity, when the industry’s value was last calculated!
Here are the four keys to overcoming your fear of performance wear-y J embroidery. Master your choices of the design, the backing, the hooping and the thread selection, and you’ll be golden.

Keep Designs Simple
Inasmuch as performance wear is so stretchy it is prone to major distortion, the greater the number of stitches, the more likely distortion will occur. You may have to gently urge your customer away from the huge 15,000+ stitch design they may love, to a more subtle and lower stitch count logo. You could point out the embroidered logos of some of the major athletic companies like Xersion, Under Armour, Nike, Bamboo and Pizzazz, whose embroidered logos have simple (yet elegant) low stitch counts. Remember to reduce density wherever possible on Performance Wear apparel. Too much density will cause puckering and distortion and lumpy-looking embroidery.
 And please note: In order to prevent that reduced stitch count from adversely affecting your income, suggest using their very large and beloved design on their team jackets, sweat shirts, booster pennants and warm-ups, which you would be happy to do for them.

Go as Light as You Can with Backing
 As you know, a synonym for backing is stabilizer, and no material in the world defies stability, as it pertains to embroidering, like performance wear. Think of wet spaghetti! It’s common for embroiderers (not you, of course) to pile on the backing and overcompensate for the lack of stability of the material; the net result being a blob (not blog) of backing standing out stiffly and probably irritating the wearer. Too much backing, especially the wrong backing, can be worse than not enough.
 I recommend the best stabilizer to use for most performance wear is no-show nylon commonly referred to as Weblon. It usually has a diagonal embossed pattern that makes it more stable and offers the maximum amount of multi-directional stability in a light weight material.  This means it is easier to hoop (but not too tightly), allowing for the good registration and least amount of puckering and looping. This product is great for designs up to about 8,000 stitches; two pieces may be used for larger and denser designs, although if you really need that much stabilizer you may want to get your customer to rethink the design.

No-show Weblon has other advantages: it is very soft, so it feels better against the skin; it weighs little and is all but invisible when viewed from the front.
Another option is pairing Weblon with a light -- 1.0 or 1.5 oz. -- Tear Away.  Adding the Tear Away will provide stability and softness. Make sure you put the Weblon closest to the apparel and the Tear Away behind it. Then just tear away the excess Tear Away (I know it’s childish, but I love saying “tear away the Tear Away”), leaving the soft, invisible Weblon against the body.

Easy Does it When Hooping
When you hoop your performance wear, ensure the fabric is smooth and firm.  It needs to be hooped tight enough to prevent movement, but not so tight that it distorts the fabric. If you hoop it too tightly, the fabric will contract when you take it out of the hoop and your well-embroidered design will be puckered and look crappy (an old embroidery term meaning your customer won’t be coming back). Be sure that the backing covers the hoop completely establishing a nice, firm base that will prevent the embroidery from bouncing during the sewing process. If there are no wrinkles in the hooped fabric and the material isn’t stretched, your hooping is well done. If slippage is a concern, try using an adhesive spray which will hold the garment in place and minimize slippage.

Rayon is My Thread of Choice
When it comes to thread, you can use any good quality rayon, polyester, metallic or specialty thread. Rayon is a softer thread, therefore more conducive to lying down in any direction well. This is necessary when working with such a thin, pliable material such as performance wear. So I recommend rayon as a first choice. And remember the quality part!
Be sure to use a ball point needle, either #70/10 or #75/11, which will cut down on the looping caused by the fabric bouncing. Seriously, it really works.

Practice Makes for No Worries
So, embroidering on Performance Wear isn’t impossible or even difficult; it merely entails some additional thought be put into the process. Following the guidelines above will ensure a “no-worries” experience for embroidering on all sorts of performance apparel. And remember, practice, practice, practice!

What Can I Say About Rayon... That Hasn't Been Said Before?

Recently, I was asked to deliver a few words explaining why so many embroiderers prefer Rayon embroidery thread.

I decided the best way to describe Rayon, was in terms of something else. You wanna know about Rayon? I’ll compare it to Polyester! Rayon is warm and elegant; Polyester is bright and brassy. Rayon is Ava Gardner, Ingrid Bergman, and Grace Kelly; Polyester is Rita Hayworth, Lucille Ball, and Marilyn Monroe (if you’re under 40, ask your mother).

Rayon is lustrous, smooth, and soft. Polyester is shiny. Rayon colors are deep and romantic. Polyester colors are shiny and uninhibited. Rayon is colorfast. Polyester is colorfast. Wait! What? You heard me! I said it!

Rayon is colorfast! You can wash it in very hot water up to 203⁰F (hotter than McDonald’s coffee), let it sit in hot water up to 100⁰F and send it to be dry cleaned and the colors will be as vibrant and alive as the day the stitches were put down. The one thing you can’t do is throw bleach into the wash. But why would anyone want to bleach their embroidery purposefully? Especially when most fine garments come with washing instructions forbidding the use of bleach!

And then there’s sewability; nothing sews with such consistent trouble-free performance, holding up to high-speed stitching without breaking or fraying. While it’s true that Polyester is marginally stronger, that doesn’t mean Rayon is weak. All factors being equal, (productive digitizing, machine capability, operator experience, etc.), using good quality Rayon will result in many hours of stitching sans thread breaks. As a matter of fact, thread breaks become memorable because there are so few of them. And because the thread “hand” is soft and smooth, it’s easy on the parts it runs over and the automatic trimmers.

And for us tree-huggers, Rayon is a renewable product unlike Polyester which is a derivative of petroleum (oil). Rayon is a manufactured, regenerated cellulose fiber. It is made from purified cellulose, primarily from sustainable wood pulp, which is chemically converted into a soluble compound. It is then dissolved and forced through a spinneret to produce filaments which are chemically solidified, resulting in fibers of nearly pure cellulose. A few years before I was born, English chemist Charles Cross, in 1894, patented his artificial silk, which he named "viscose" (thank you, Google).

Rayon thread comes in a wide range of solid and variegated colors. Most Rayon threads are available in a standard 40 weight, a thicker 30 weight (very useful and economical for saving stitches in large fill areas) and a thinner 60 weight (for fine detail and teeny, tiny lettering).

Concluding, I promise you, bleach notwithstanding, Rayon is a safe choice, an economical option, a good bet.