Overcoming common embroidery on sportswear problems

In this helpful article, Jas Purba, managing director of ETC Supplies, outlines how to overcome any problems you may encounter while embroidering modern sportswear fabrics.

Any embroiderer will know that it is very common to encounter problems when embroidering on modern sportswear fabrics.

This is due to:

• The fabrics are very flat.
• The fabrics are manufactured from a combination of yarns that are not regularly used in other clothing.
• The fabrics are treated with different types of finishing treatments.

You have to remember these modern fabrics do not like having the yarn disturbed during sewing. The problems you will encounter are:

• Puckering of the fabric.
• Holes appearing in the fabric during embroidery.
• Poor quality embroidery

Often these modern fabrics are too lightweight to hold a embroidery design. So you have to find ways of working around these issues.

Here’s a list of things to do that will allow you to embroider on these modern sports fabrics:

• Reduce your thread tensions, both top and bottom. The thread should be sitting on top of the fabric and not pulling at it.
• Use a Rayon thread that is softer and will blend in better.
• Change the needle you use on these fabrics to a system DBxK5, Point SPI Size 65 this will reduce the disturbance on the fabric yarn.
• Reduce your machine speed to around 700-800 stitches per minute.
• Use a fabric silicone spray, such as Fablube to help the yarn to spread out.
• Use a specialist backing such as Super Spun or Ultrasoft to hold the stitches in place.

Super Spun backing is a very lightweight, translucent product that will hold your design during embroidery and then can be cut away afterwards. As this backing is translucent, you will not notice it behind the embroidery.

Ultrasoft is a single piece tear away product. It is very stable and will not perforate during embroidery. The backing can absorb your stitch tensions and when you have finished you can tear it away. Ultrasoft will blend in with your embroidery thread and leave a very soft edge around you thread that stops irritation to the skin.

And my final piece is advice is – do not use old needles in these fabrics. Happy embroidering!