Impressions - September 2014 - 56

talking SHOP

Embroidery Design & Digitizing

When Considering Stitches,
Less is Better
Make every stitch count, rather than counting every stitch.
By Lee Caroselli-Barnes, Contributing Writer

hen I ﬁrst entered this industry in 1983, the mantra
was, "More is better." At that
point, "more" meant a left-chest logo with
30,000-40,000 stitches. These embroidered designs were "bullet proof" and
looked like a patch. They did not drape
with the fabric and did not look like they
belonged on the garment. There were
multiple thread breaks on the embroidery
machine, and the detail and lettering usually was distorted.
Because the price of the design was
based on the number of stitches - $35
per 1,000 stitches or more - it was not
unusual to see stitches shortened to increase the stitch count. As embroiderers,
we were taught to believe a high stitch
was equivalent to high quality. Moreover,
this was at a time when digitizers had to
splice paper tape together to edit a mistake. It was not unusual to ﬁnd that the
digitizer - as an alternative to splicing
out the mistake and splicing in the correction - didn't think twice about covering
a mistake with "more" stitches. Not only
was the design expensive to buy, but the
embroiderer also repeatedly paid for that
design as he or she ran the extra stitches.
That all changed in 1987 when my
brother Keith and I introduced what then
was called the Balboa Stitch, a light density ﬁll that compresses the stitches in the
negative part of the design. This causes
the positive, or important, parts of the
design to rise and give the appearance of
embossing. In Figure 1, the "Love" design
has 10,000-16,000 stitches that covered
the full front of a shirt. It was a pleasure
to run, as well as easy to sell, and people
began to question stitch count as it related
to their bottom line.
56

Impressions | September 2014

Figure 1
The Balboa Stitch is a light density ﬁll that compresses the stitches in the negative part of the design.
This causes the positive, or important parts of the design, to rise and give the appearance of embossing.

Nearly 30 years later, there are no paper tapes to splice and the embroiderer,
in most cases, also is the digitizer - or at
least can edit designs. Software also is currently available that allows both digitizing
and editing on screen. Even today, the lesson that too many stitches are costly, both
when you purchase the design and when
you run it, still holds true.
However, it is no longer just a matter of
economics. Fewer stitches will allow your
design to run better, give you less or no
push and pull, eliminates thread breaks,
and creates a design that drapes well and
looks like it belongs on the garment. Also,
fewer stitches will give you better coverage. In other words, you will have a better
product with fewer headaches - and at a
lower cost.
The push-pull problem also is one

that is caused by too many stitches. When
working with a fully stitched background
ﬁll that includes multiple layers of underlay, you will ﬁnd that the design is distorted and pulls in one direction and then
pushes out in the other. When you create
an oval with the purpose of having a perfectly shaped circle, you will ﬁnd that, in
pulling in those stitches, you also are pulling in the fabric and underlay. The more
those stitches pull in, the more they ﬁll in.
As they ﬁll in, they ﬁght for room. The result is a background ﬁll that has the look
and feel of cardboard and will not accept
any detail or letters.

LAYERING SOLUTIONS
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Impressions - September 2014

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