# Underlay stitching when embroidering text



## Louie2010 (Feb 26, 2010)

How I was trained, I always put some type of underlay under everything. I was curious if everyone adds underlay stitches when they are embroidering only a simple text? It seems like it would be fine without it, and sure would be much simpler.

What is the consensus, yes or no for underlay when stitching under a simple text? What do you do?


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## ladibug21 (Aug 23, 2009)

I don't undersew small text. If I'm not sure how it will sew out, I run a test sample on a scrap piece of material and will adjust density, size, etc if necessary. I find on smaller texts, the under sewing just comes out as straight lines and doesn't really make a difference. I'm no expert and will def follow thread to see what a more experienced member may add. I've had my Brother 650 for about 3years.


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## Smokestack (Aug 4, 2008)

I took this little excerpt directly from a tutorial in my digitizing software (tajima pulse maestro)


Underlays and small lettering do not go hand-in-hand. The reason for this is simple – there isn’t enough room in most cases to actually cover the underlay stitches with the top stitches.

Presuming you are sewing the small lettering on top of a background fill, then underlay won’t be an issue, as it’s not needed. In general, you only need underlay when sewing on top of something that is unstable.

But in the event you are forced to sew directly on the garment – good luck with that – then underlay will be a necessity, though it may be difficult to create properly. Your only real choice is to manually create a perpendicular underlay composed of run or manual stitches. It must be in the center of the columns created by the top stitches and should not run to the end of any given segment, so as to assure its not peeking out from below the finished embroidery.


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## LUV DEM TIGERS (Jul 25, 2008)

I do at least a centerline underlay. That way, when you start out you have a less chance of unraveling.


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## Liberty (Jul 18, 2006)

I won't say we "always" use underlay but the cases where we do not are very, very limited. 

The type of underlay is dictated by the width of the columns and, to a degree, how much loft we want in the cover stitches.

On small lettering, under .25", there's not much use for anything more than a center run. Keep in mind you may have to shorten the length of the center run so it doesn't pop out of the tight turns, like an R. 

But interestingly, and contrary to one comment, when we are putting lettering on top of a fill, we will use an edge walk whenever possible to maintain the edge definition where the satins are turned in the same direction as the tatami fill below. 

I guess to boil it down, we use various combinations of underlays on almost every satin or tatami element of every design. The main exceptions being on extremely stable materials or on something like leather where we want to minimize needle penetrations.

Underlay stitches serve a lot more purpose than just to stabalize the substrate to teh backing.


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## Daddyof4 (Aug 23, 2011)

When we buy third party fonts we find that most digitizers overdo the underlay stitches. We have one company that it will trace the outline of the letter about three times before it begins the satin stitch. It's even worse on appliques. On those you'll get two or three outlines then a zigzag and then finally the satin stitch. 

The problem is the digitizers sometimes don't understand the damage this can cause to the garment, particularly a T-shirt. Outline and zigzags add NOTHING to the garment and it only needs one outline to tie off. Back and forth and back and forth outlines can actually cut the garment (we see it often even with ball point needles). 

So if you are a digitizer please note that most of us are commercial businesses doing T-shirts and we don't have time for nonsense like that nor can we afford cutting t-shirts.


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## philipfirth83 (Aug 17, 2012)

I've stopped using underlay stitches on text these days, I only use a center line on text that is under 6mm.


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## Daddyof4 (Aug 23, 2011)

philipfirth83 said:


> I've stopped using underlay stitches on text these days, I only use a center line on text that is under 6mm.


Perfect. Some designs I can remove some of it but not all of them.


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