# Fast efficient procedure for relabeling shirts



## neilmcaliece (Sep 4, 2007)

Hi,

I have a requirement to relabel a number of shirts

I'm looking for a fast and efficient procedure to relabel these shirts from removing the labels which I guess is pretty easy to inserting and stitching new labels into place.

I had my mum sew in some labels about three years to various T-shirts, she's quite good with a sewing machine. To get a properly folded/creased label and insert then sew up is not so easy if you just push it under the neck tape then load it onto a sewing machine, the labels move all over the place and often come out uneven.

There needs to be a more efficient way of holding the label in place prior to sewing.

How are other people doing this ?

I've searched through the forum and it seems that some people are offering relabelling services for as low as 25-50 cents per label so there must be several ways of really speeding up this process and making it more efficient and accurate.

I've been thinking about this today and came up with a method but haven't tested it as I've never really used a sewing machine before, here is my idea, I'd appreciate it if anyone can add to this or come up with a better way to do it.

I'm planning on using folded woven labels / ribbon labels which are 1.5" wide by 1" high, there's an additional area at the top (front and back) which is to be sewn into the neck tape. When the label is stretched out and unfolded it is about 2.5" long.

My best idea so far is to spray both ends (3/8ths of an inch or 4-5mm) of the label with 'repositionable fabric adhesive' which is available in aerosol spray cans from embroidery and screen print suppliers. I mask off most of the labels with a strip of paper and spary the adhesive along the exposed parts.

Then I open up the neck tape where the label must be inserted, I press the bottom part of the label against the bottom of the shirt, then insert the top part of the label and lower the neck tape onto it - this way both the bottom and top parts of the label are stuck to one of the surfaces inside the neck tape. If it's correctly aligned then leave it and move onto the next shirt / label.

This fabric adhesive is pretty good and will hold for a while so I suggest doing the job in stages.

Stage 1 - remove the existing labels and open up the neck enough to that the new labels can be easily inserted

Stage 2 - Spray labels with adhesive and fix them inside the neck tape

Stage 3 - One by one sew them neck tape back up, at this point the labels won't move at all so the sewing should be very easy.

The spray adhesive seems to hold up very well - a test I did without sewing allowed me to lift about half of the shirt off the table by the label for about 5-10 seconds when it was only spray glued in place before the label moved and fell out so it would seem to be more than strong enough to hold it in place prior to sewing.

I can't think of a faster way to do it than this, not at the moment anyway.

Can anyone else ? If so please post it here, I need to make sure I've got the procedure correct before we start trying to do more work than we can handle.

Thanks

Neil


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## splathead (Dec 4, 2005)

With a little practice on the sewing machine, you'll find the adhesive step completely unnecessary. Not to mention time consuming and an extra expense.

The sewing machine foot will keep the label in place while sewing.

Also, from you description in Stage 1, it seems as if you are removing the label and then opening the seam? Open the seam first, remove the existing label, insert your own, then sew closed.


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## neilmcaliece (Sep 4, 2007)

splathead said:


> With a little practice on the sewing machine, you'll find the adhesive step completely unnecessary. Not to mention time consuming and an extra expense.


This is interesting, how many can you do an hour missing out the adhesive step ?


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## splathead (Dec 4, 2005)

When I was having mine done (I silkscreen labels now) they were getting about 60 done an hour.


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## neilmcaliece (Sep 4, 2007)

That's pretty quick to cut the stitches, remove the label, insert the new one, line it up on the sewing machine and then stitch in the new label.

The problem we had when running our tests is that the label often moved as the shirt was inserted into the machine. We put the new label in place before putting the shirt in the sewing machine, maybe this was a mistake. Our labels were very flimsy though (polyester satin ribbon) so maybe that made a difference.


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## datboii1der (Mar 13, 2008)

neilmcaliece said:


> That's pretty quick to cut the stitches, remove the label, insert the new one, line it up on the sewing machine and then stitch in the new label.
> 
> The problem we had when running our tests is that the label often moved as the shirt was inserted into the machine. We put the new label in place before putting the shirt in the sewing machine, maybe this was a mistake. Our labels were very flimsy though (polyester satin ribbon) so maybe that made a difference.


I also relabel my own shirt with 2 tags (RN #, Size & Logo) all folded tafetta...

The easiest thing to do if you can not get your lables to stop moving prior to placing your pressure foot down is to take a straight pin and pin it in place. This way all you have to do is either sew over top of the pin and remove or sew, remove the pin and continue......try that one out....


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