# Just Digitized a canvas bag logo, 100K stitches, Holy Cow!



## binki (Jul 16, 2006)

When I am at the ISS or NBM shows I see all this neat stuff being embroidered. I just digitized a full fill log at about 9 inches square and it is about 100K stitches and 72 color changes. Holy cow How much could I charge for something like this for 100 pieces? at 30c per 1K stitches that is $30 + cost of bag doubled.


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## Fluid (Jun 20, 2005)

72 color changes - WOW! you might need to rethink your approach to digitizing this design. 
I couldn't sell anything at that cost for 100 quantity. Are you sure you cannot modify the design to lower the stitch count especially the color changes. 

How about a visual of the design. (preferably a sew out)


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## imeccentric (May 13, 2007)

Gee, I was just reading a post where someone said embroidery was just like printing money, nothing to it Check your density on the fills, it should be around 4. Secondly, cut holes where you have second layer threads and see where you can cut down on density. Consider some open areas with no fills. Just because you can fill something, doesn't mean it should be filled. Rethink the number of colors you need. Even most of my full jacketbacks only use around 20 at most. 30 cents /thousand??? Unless you have a multihead machine and are big time industrial, you won't even pay for thread . Prices vary by embroiderer, but around here nothing is less than $1 / thousand, and that is for bulk orders. Think of the time just for stitching. At an average of 800 stitches / minute(yea, I know the salespeople say they will stitch faster, but trust me, they don't run at full speed all of the time), accounting for hooping, thread changes, broken threads, etc, I'm guessing this would be 3-4 hours PER BAG. Are you willing to work for $10 an hour AND pay for supplies??? It is the jobs of the salesmen to sell machines. YOU have to do homework on the reality of a machines capability and yours. I don't mean for this to sound harsh, but if you are in this to make money, it will be a tough haul at those prices. As a rule of thumb, I like to get around $60/hour stitching time. That takes into account all of the down time spent dealing with customers, computer work, test sew out, supplies, cleanup, etc. That only averages out to around $30 /hour profit. Digitizing is an art and has a steep learning curve to be done properly. I'm sure you will get varying views on this, and of course, this is all just in my humble opinion. Best of luck, whatever you decide.

Jim
Embellishments in Thread

Jim
Embellishments in Thread


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## lalove (Aug 16, 2007)

One of the better things to do when digitizing is to group all the same colors to stitch together. This allows the machine to run faster and prevents the slowing down of the machine for color changes. The only exception is when that color definitely comes after another.

Lalove


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## kriscad (Dec 18, 2006)

imeccentric said:


> Gee, I was just reading a post where someone said embroidery was just like printing money, nothing to it Check your density on the fills, it should be around 4. Secondly, cut holes where you have second layer threads and see where you can cut down on density. Consider some open areas with no fills. Just because you can fill something, doesn't mean it should be filled. Rethink the number of colors you need. Even most of my full jacketbacks only use around 20 at most. 30 cents /thousand??? Unless you have a multihead machine and are big time industrial, you won't even pay for thread . Prices vary by embroiderer, but around here nothing is less than $1 / thousand, and that is for bulk orders. Think of the time just for stitching. At an average of 800 stitches / minute(yea, I know the salespeople say they will stitch faster, but trust me, they don't run at full speed all of the time), accounting for hooping, thread changes, broken threads, etc, I'm guessing this would be 3-4 hours PER BAG. Are you willing to work for $10 an hour AND pay for supplies??? It is the jobs of the salesmen to sell machines. YOU have to do homework on the reality of a machines capability and yours. I don't mean for this to sound harsh, but if you are in this to make money, it will be a tough haul at those prices. As a rule of thumb, I like to get around $60/hour stitching time. That takes into account all of the down time spent dealing with customers, computer work, test sew out, supplies, cleanup, etc. That only averages out to around $30 /hour profit. Digitizing is an art and has a steep learning curve to be done properly. I'm sure you will get varying views on this, and of course, this is all just in my humble opinion. Best of luck, whatever you decide.
> 
> Jim
> Embellishments in Thread
> ...




preach on brother! preach on!


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## vctradingcubao (Nov 15, 2006)

Fred, did you use your Corel DrawINGS to digitize this design?


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## imeccentric (May 13, 2007)

Fred,
Sorry, didn't mean to preach I just get frustrated at salespeople sometimes. Embroidery is a fun and rewarding business and I hate to see people spend all that money and then get disillusioned. As others have mentioned, please post a picture of the design and what it was digitized with. We all have different experiences with different software, and I'm sure we can help you get this down to a manageable and profitable level 

Jim
Embellishments in Thread


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## binki (Jul 16, 2006)

Ok, I have made some adjustments to the design and got it down to 64,000 stitches and 20 color changes by removing some of the boarders and optimizing the order of sewing. I also made it one inch smaller. After printing out the spec sheet I see I can do a little more to cut this down. 

Yes, I used the Experience converter (drawings). 

I will spend a little more time with it to get the stitch count more reasonable. It looks like 1.5 hours to sew at this size.


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## binki (Jul 16, 2006)

Thanks all for the help. This is kind of a 'show piece' for me as I am looking to get some sales at a higher end where I can charge more and also to pick up some additional work. Something like this on a jacket back is what I am looking at and I am looking for some idea of pricing something like this. The 30c/1K stitches would be a rock bottom price for many garments on a multi-head machine, I understand. At $1 per 1000 stitches I would be looking at $640 for my design plus the cost of the thing I am putting it on, a little steep. 

One thing I didn't mention is that I will be doing a second design on the other side of the bag  that will take an equal amount of time to do. Pretty scary huh?

We have done well with embroidery. Most of our work is around 6K stitches and we are selling for around a 400%-600% markup, sometimes more, on each piece so our profit on these items is pretty high.


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## Mad Brad (May 31, 2007)

$60/H is a very good yard stick to use. Embroidery/Business 101 is like poker. Sometimes you have to walk away and accept the fact you might be folding a winning hand.

Brad


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## vctradingcubao (Nov 15, 2006)

Mad Brad said:


> ... Embroidery/Business 101 is like poker.....


Very true indeed on pricing embroidery job. It is not uncommon that on some cases, a customer shows an artwork to 5 embroidery shops, asks for a quote, and the price difference among the shops are something like 50 to 300%.


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## oldkush (Jun 25, 2007)

binki said:


> Ok, I have made some adjustments to the design and got it down to 64,000 stitches and 20 color changes by removing some of the boarders and optimizing the order of sewing. I also made it one inch smaller. After printing out the spec sheet I see I can do a little more to cut this down.
> 
> Yes, I used the Experience converter (drawings).
> 
> I will spend a little more time with it to get the stitch count more reasonable. It looks like 1.5 hours to sew at this size.




Hi Fred

I have been reading these posts with interest and Jim has pretty well covered my thoughts and opinions but I do have a couple of points I would like to add.

1) although useful at times, autodigitizing software has its limitations and it is no substitute for manual digitizing by a good digitizer [especially on large or complex designs]. I think your design is a very good example of that

2) auto-digitized designs almost always require editing [in many cases, considerable editing]

3) I don't know your design details but for a 8" x 8" design, 64,000 stitches still sounds a bit accessive to me

4) I would also try to reduce the 20 color changes even further [but again, I don't know the design]

5) the goal of a design for a commercial embroiderer will be to generate as few stitches as possible, limit the number of color changes to a minimum plus create the lowest number of jump stitches ....... while still trying to achieve the design appearance desired

Bob


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

Mad Brad said:


> $60/H is a very good yard stick to use. Embroidery/Business 101 is like poker. Sometimes you have to walk away and accept the fact you might be folding a winning hand.
> 
> Brad


What a great analogy. I've never heard it put like that  Makes perfect sense though when you think about it.


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## binki (Jul 16, 2006)

You all make good points. I like the auto digitizing software because it gives me satisfactory results in most cases. Something like this is a little tougher but I am getting the stitch count down by redesigning some aspects of the original file. 

Now, as far as making money? Time for my soapbox. A dollar is a dollar on the bottom line. We are in a growth mode right now so even if I only make $1 dollar on a job I would probably take it. I will even take an order that is 0 profit or costs me if I think we have a chance at repeat business. Why? Because getting a new customer costs a lot more than keeping an existing one. We are not only very competitive for our pricing, but we excel at doing the impossible when time is an issue. When these guys come back they will get fair but profitable (for us) pricing. They can shop us around at that time if they like but our experience shows that they will not. 

We turned our last order in 8 hours from the time we got the order to the time we shipped the product and I had to run out and buy the caps before the cap place closed. Did we make money on it? Hell yes, a 572% markup on raw materials. Could they have gone anywhere else? Notachanceinhell. Will they come back? You bet.

We have done some very unprofitable orders only to have the same person get in a jam and pay us a great rate to turn and order in a hurry. Customer for life? Maybe and time will tell but I think so. 

When we are at 100% capacity (3 shifts plus weekends) we will look at dumping lower profit orders and customers, but until then we are hungry and will seek out orders that others don't want or can't service. 

Off the soapbox back at the farm. We are looking at Prodigi's software for embroidery digitizing. It looks as good as Wilcom for a fraction of the price. I am somewhat disappointed with SWF Mesa on their ability to sell me an upgrade to the Experience Text version that we currently have. I am no dummy and while the whole embroidery thing frustrates me at times (the graphic arts stuff does also!) I am driven to do this and I won't let someone telling me to go slow get in my way. After all, that is the primary characteristic you want in a business owner, no?

Back on the soapbox: *Blondie and I spent 2 years researching businesses to get into with the intention of buying an existing one. It came down to Espresso and Garment Decorating. Both had an average net of 35%. The difference? We could operate espresso as retail only, 5am-10pm 7 days a week or garment decorating/promotional products M-F 10-4 (more like round the clock but we don't have to keep retail hours) for the same average net of 35%. Looking at the local places for sale we found it was better to first get sales and outsource, then purchase equipment as we picked up business and here we are, a going concern and serious competition with an overall superior product. We sell service, not shirts, mouse pads, etc. If our customer is happy, we are happy and that is all that matters. *

But wait! There's more! We are constantly seeking to improve. This market is insatiable. We have at least 30 embroidery shops of all sizes within 5 miles of us. People want this stuff, they don't need it. No one has even 1% market share. Even if everyone in my city was doing the same thing we would all still make money, that is just how popular this stuff is. 

Thanks for the tips, I am getting better and hopefully will be able to digitize myself when the price is right and outsource it when I need to (already done that!) and we will all make a little money and be happy.


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## oddhuman (Jul 27, 2006)

Man! 64K stitches.. I just got into digitizing. The company that I do freelance vector work for just fired their digitizer and want me to give it a try. So far so good. I have never gotten close to 64K stitches.


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