Best Guide for Professional Digitizers for Machine Embroidery Technical Strategies for Success

Maximum efficiency in embroidery digitizing is an ideal thing to achieve for many professional Embroidery digitizers and especially for those who are related to embroidery digitizing and machine embroidery business.

So, let’s see and learn what things are essential to maximize the efficiency in embroidery digitizing. However, continuous learning and ongoing trials make you a proficient digitizer for your machine embroidery business.

In this article, we explain some elements essential for embroidery digitizers while digitizing that are actively involved in maximizing efficiency in embroidery digitizing.

To get the maximum and efficient result in machine embroidery, it is essential to digitize the artwork or design with proper knowledge of fabrics and the point of the fabric. In the case of fabric selection, it is necessary to run that digitized design in the customer’s demanded fabric and send them a sew-out file to avoid any inconvenience.

In addition, we recommend testing the designs and testing every aspect that may cause trouble after embroidering that digitized design, such as how your stitch underlay, push and pull compensation, stitch density, color variation, etc., interact with the fabric.

For example, if the customer ask you to digitize the design for nylon but after it he decided to use the design for t-shirt and golf shirt instead, and the final result looks terrible. The point is you must tell them that the design react differently on every fabric.

The most crucial and initial stage in digitizing embroidery is how the design is digitized; The embroidery digitizer determines how many and which kind of machine embroidery stitches will be used in the design, how many times colors will change, how many times thread trims will take place, and how smoothly the embroidery design will run on the embroidery machine

For example, the rule of thumb for cap embroidery digitizing is to digitize the design from the bottom up and center out. With this technique, the center out will push the fabric from the center & give a better chance to keep the stitches lying flat

These certain decisions can drastically change and affect the entire embroidery digitizing process.

Embroidery Underlay stitches stabilize the fabric and help you avoid puckering and pulling issues, especially when you’re embroidering large embroidery designs; it will help you to make better and even more high-quality embroidery designs with more intricacy and accuracy.

Here are a few rules of thumb that can make your underlay digitizing game stronger.

• To ensure optimal results, avoiding using an underlay for lettering with a height of less than 5mm is best.
• For lettering between 6mm to 10mm, a center-run underlay is advisable.
• An edge-run underlay is recommended when dealing with lettering larger than 10mm.
• A second layer of underlay may be utilized when more giant letters are required, such as for jacket backs.
• A double-zigzag stitch can be used for extra loft, while a 3D Satin stitch is worth trying for an even loftier effect.

Stitch density is also essential as it greatly maximizes efficiency in embroidery digitizing. The keynote of sewing stitch densities is simple, minimize stitch density when embroidering on thin fabrics. The less-dense the digitized designs are, the less time it takes to sew, and the less likely the needle or thread will break.

A jump stitch is a stitch that connects one segment of embroidery work to another, and the software creates thread trims once when the color changes and a second when the distance between two embroidery objects has over defined distance.

The most important thing for an embroidery digitizer is to digitize the artwork seam to seam as the client shows it. The smaller the jump stitch, the more noticeable the embroidery.

Some embroidery digitizing software like Wilcom has some extensive features such as “Apply closet join” that helps you to set end and start points of the same colored embroidery objects as close as possible, that will helps you to minimize the jump stitches

Stitch angle and direction are two variants that are adjusted to provide push-pull compensation. To get proficiency in embroidery digitizing, you need to know that the adjustment of stitch angle depends on the embroidery object type.

Pro tip: if you want to set the single stitch angle of an entire embroidery object, use Complex fill.

To add multiple stitch angle, use stitch angle tool.

Reshape object tool helps you to adjust the stitch angle of any individual embroidery object.

The most important thing when digitizing embroidery is clean text composition. Accurate lettering and text are more important than any other component of your design for most users and customers.

However, it is essential that the lettering is prominent, as a small mistake in the text can ruin the look of the entire design.

For sizing, we recommend few rules of thumb.

• Capital letters generally are at least 20-40 mm high.
• If your design contains uppercase and lowercase letters (regular text or title case), the minimum height should be 5mm.
• If you want to digitize the readable hat embroidery, you can also digitize the small text on the hat. The recommended for hats and caps is 25 inches.
• The minimum column width (each dash of a letter) should be 8 mm. By increasing the width of the columns, you can create designs that are ready to be embroidered.
• If the design contains many letters in one row, and you want to digitize a design in 3” or under 3”, so keep it in your mind that only 28 letters can be digitized in 1 single row.

Color mixing and fill effects can improve the quality of digitizing embroidery by adding depth and dimension to your designs with solid shadows, shading, and open fills.

Complex shading and open fills add size, color, and perspective to embroidery designs. Through simple menu selections, intricate stitch patterns, spacing, angles, and combinations can be used to create various effects, yielding superior results in the final appearance of your machine embroidery designs.

Some embroidery digitizing software such as Wilcom has extensive features such as Accordion Spacing, Color blend, stipple fill, and cross stitch fill that help professional digitizers to digitize more efficiently.

You can improve the digitization quality of your embroidery by minimizing the possibility of push-and-pull distortion, also setting the push and pull compensation varies fabric to fabric, Such as:

Also, some embroidery digitizing software, such as Wilcom, automatically digitize pull and pull compensation features, allowing you to set design values ​​efficiently. Still, you can manually set pull and pull compensation by increasing the embroidery file settings.

An expert embroidery digitizer can manage all these crucial aspects, such as proper density, pathing, and others, and create designs that avoid unnecessary movement, use each color only when necessary, and run through the design to achieve the maximum efficiency possible without any hassle and loss of aesthetic integrity.