# Help! What do I do now? Extra stitches between letters



## Vizual Voice (Feb 1, 2008)

OK, Embroidery gurus I need help!!!

I have 260 polos that I had contract embroidered just delivered to the shop. (I'm a screen print & vinyl guy myself.) Upon opening the boxes, the first thing I noticed is that there are extra stitches between a lot of the letters. This is not how the design is supposed to look based on the sew-out that my digitizer sent me. What can I do now???? 

Here's examples of what I'm talking about:


























And here is what the digitizer sent me:


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## splathead (Dec 4, 2005)

Well, it appears your embroiderer is using a machine that does not automatically cut jump theads. Newer machines now have this feature. Older ones do not.

Quality is lacking too compared to the sew-out.

Only option now is to cut them manually, if you have the time.

In the future request a sample sew out from whatever shop you use before having them do the entire order.


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## LUV DEM TIGERS (Jul 25, 2008)

It may not be that they don't have a machine that automatically trims. They may have just left jump stitches in there to cut time. Doing cuts between individual letters instead of jumps increases the time dramatically.


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## Vizual Voice (Feb 1, 2008)

OK, so obviously I'm going to have to go through and cut all of those. Ugh. 
Do I need to take any special precautions to keep them from unravelling or anything, or can I just start snipping?

Thanks!


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## AndTees (Jul 6, 2009)

The only thing to be careful of is to not snip the fabric. Usually just cutting the jumps will make it look much better, sometimes you can trim both ends of the longer ones.

The machine trims are a general source of problems and are normally jumped and trimmed.


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## scarface1899 (Aug 7, 2008)

don't trim them yourself!

ask your embroiderer if they made a tie off on these blocks, if not they come loose if you cut them by hand.


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## lizd (Jun 20, 2009)

Seems to me there's a huge difference in quality/letter readablility of the sewouts on the shirts you got and the scanned image your embroiderer sent you. Is the scanned image an actual sewout or is it computer generated? Either way, you have every right to expect that it will look reasonably close to that image since that is what was sent to you for approval. Personally, I'd not call the finished product reasonably close.



--Liz


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## Vizual Voice (Feb 1, 2008)

lizd said:


> Seems to me there's a huge difference in quality/letter readablility of the sewouts on the shirts you got and the scanned image your embroiderer sent you. Is the scanned image an actual sewout or is it computer generated? Either way, you have every right to expect that it will look reasonably close to that image since that is what was sent to you for approval. Personally, I'd not call the finished product reasonably close.
> 
> 
> 
> --Liz


I absolutely agree! The scanned sew-out is just that, a photo of an actual test sew as far as I know. 

I'm very unhappy with the overall quality of the stitching, especially on the smaller letters. We've used them for a couple of smaller jobs in the past, and the quality was just fine, so to say I'm underwhelmed is an understatement.



I've left a voicemail with the embroiderer and will see what she has to say.


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## Vizual Voice (Feb 1, 2008)

scarface1899 said:


> don't trim them yourself!
> 
> ask your embroiderer if they made a tie off on these blocks, if not they come loose if you cut them by hand.


Thanks! I'm waiting to hear back from the voicemail I left them.


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## scarface1899 (Aug 7, 2008)

to me it looks the letters are less then 5mm, this gives problems on a polo material. this is probably why they did not cut between the small letters, this only gives ugly embroidery and changes that you screw up a shirt. so you have to consider this before sending the file to the embroiderer, they ofcourse have to inform you on the technical aspects of embroidery. But how I look to it, I would never embroider these letters that small, I would make them more bold and a little bigger.


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## Vizual Voice (Feb 1, 2008)

I told the digitizer that they could be made larger if needed, and I think they were slightly (I'd have to go dig for the original art, not on this computer).
If I'm understanding things correctly, the subtrate matters as to how the file is digitized, right? That's why they ask what it's going on.

Why were they able to sew it so cleanly? They do mention in the spec sheet "for better stitching of small text please reduce machine speed". Could that have something to do with it????

Here's a size reference:


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## AndTees (Jul 6, 2009)

Some interesting replies in this tread...

Looking again at the original (first) picture, your embroiderer already trimmed some of the jumps out, they just left some others. Let them fix that problem, you paid them for it.

You can sew text out and let the machine trim between each but in my experience there are more problems doing that than hand trimming could ever cause.

I trim out jumps all the time, knowing when to add a tie-off is part of knowing the design. I have the advantage of seeing much of my work actually get worn out. I've never seen a trim out unravel for a customer at any stage of wear.

A close look and you will see a jump between all those letters, as I said some already trimmed. Most you just leave, they can't be seen and it usually doesn't improve the look to trim. Others should have been trimmed and were probably left by the operators to make production.

As I said earlier, the only real risk is catching a fabric thread while trying to trim a jump that's too short. And again, your embroider contractor should trim those for you and if there is shipping involved, make them pay that too. You aren't happy with their work, I wouldn't be either.

_Edit_: Oh and remember that on a jump, you are only trimming the top thread, the bobbin thread is still connected between the trims. There really isn't much risk of raveling problems.


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## American logoZ (Sep 16, 2009)

Taking a look at your first set of photos, especially at the shape of the smaller letters, it doesn't look like the digitizer sew out and the embroiderer sew out is even the same font. Have you asked either about these differences?


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## Vizual Voice (Feb 1, 2008)

American logoZ said:


> Taking a look at your first set of photos, especially at the shape of the smaller letters, it doesn't look like the digitizer sew out and the embroiderer sew out is even the same font. Have you asked either about these differences?


No I haven't. I got an email from them late last night (sent them the same photos) asking me to ship them back on their dime so they can evaluate and decide what to do. She's going to call me monday when they have the shirts in hand.

I opened the rest of the boxes today, and there is absolutely no consistency to the stitching - it's all over the place. Some of the garments look fine and I wouldn't have a problem delivering them to the client (after the trims, of course). Others, I'd be absolutely embarrassed to have anyone think they came from my shop.

Maybe it's just me, but I make it a policy that I never let anything out of my shop that I'm not proud to say I did. 

So.... the unfortunate part is that since I wasn't able to talk to them yesterday, I now lose the whole weekend since they're closed on saturdays.


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## Liberty (Jul 18, 2006)

I hope you got this resolved to your satisfaction. sorry I'm a little late chiming in. I notice a couple of things...

The "sewout" from your digitizer looks a little too perfect. I don;t see any sign of push in the fabric and can't even see sign of a presser foot mark. It looks more like an on screen simulation to me but maybe not. It also looks like the sample from the digitizer is on a jersey knit and the polos were a pique. That can make a tremendous difference. It also doesn't appear the embroiderer used any sort of topping and with lettering this small on pique, it was definately needed.

In my shop, we never trim connectors less than a mm in length and we explain it to the customer up front and show them an actual swatch. If they insist on trimming, we do it on machine so the lock stitches are there and we adjust the stitch count accordingly. Every time the machine trims, it is equivalent to about 100 stitches.

Good luck. In the future, insist on solvy on pique knits and an in-hand sewout on the correct material in advance of approval, at least on an order this size.


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## American logoZ (Sep 16, 2009)

"The "sewout" from your digitizer looks a little too perfect." 

Those were my thoughts, though I wasn't able to state it quite as succinctly. Thanks for coming right out with it. It becomes complicated when the person answering to the customer is different from the digitizer who is different from the embroiderer. Too many variables there for me to assume that a final product which is unsatisfactory is necessarily the fault of the embroiderer. This scenario requires A LOT of communication throughout the process. 

Looks like a nightmare - I hope this works out well for all.


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## imeccentric (May 13, 2007)

Scott,
I know I'm late to this thread, but: most contract shops won't digitize with tie on/tie offs between each letter. It's pretty common to have those stitches in between so their machines don't have to slow down. Time is money. If you start looking closely at embroidery, you will find this to be true and it does frustrate those of us who do take the extra time. Secondly, if he is a contract embroiderer, he has multiple heads and some may not be adjusted properly. Finally, the first embroiderer may have used smaller thread for the small lettering 40wt is general purpose, but 60 wt is usually used for really small lettering. Lastly, digitizing small lettering uses special techniques that auto - digitizing just can't do. We use special underlay, and sometimes have to change the direction of the stitches just a hair to make them a proper length that will stitch well. My observation was that the sample looked fine and not "too perfect". It looked the way it was supposed to look. Just like anything else, there are embroiderers and then "THERE ARE EMBROIDERERS". Same with digitizers.


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