1. Embroidery Business Guide
   
   
2. Embroidery Designs - To digitise yourself or Outsource
   
   
3. Where to operate from
   
   
4. Choosing an embroidery machine type
   
   
5. Optimising work time
   
   
6. Machinery components
   
   
7. What to embroider
   
   
8. Marketing your own goods
   
   
9. In conclusion
   
   

Machinery components

There are several items you will need to get your machine running.

Firstly, you cannot embroider without thread. Two thread types are commonly used for embroidery, rayon and polyester. Rayon is the easiest to use, being more forgiving of improper tensions and timing, but only has a shelf life of around 5 years, and is prone to thread breaks due to humidity and moisture damage.

Polyester has become the better alternative. Although at one time it lacked the sheen of rayon, and had a tendency to be stiff, today’s polyester has the look and suppleness of rayon, but with greater tensile strength. One possible downside of polyester is a tendency to draw in and pucker, if tensioned too much

The choice of thread is an individual one, and trying both before coming to a decision is the easiest way to decide which you find easiest to work with.

Needles come in a variety of sizes, each suited to different fabrics. The most commonly used are the round sharp (R) and the fine ball point (SES). Sharps are used mainly for woven materials, and ball points for knitted materials. A medium ball point (SUK) works better for some knitted materials, and a thin ball point (SES) is sometimes suitable for both knitted and woven fabrics. You should avoid using sharps on knitted fabric, as they have a tendency to rip holes in the material. Fabrics such as leather need an extra sharp needle, such as an acute point (SPI).

Backing is required to give necessary properties to a material, usually not native to the chosen fabric. Woven goods are strong in the warp and fill (vertical and horizontal respectively) directions, but weak in the bias (diagonal) direction, and knitted fabrics cannot support the thread tension in any direction. Tear-away and cut-away backing material is available, and each is useful for a particular material. Cut-away is used for knitted material, and sometimes for large areas of color on woven material. Tear-away is used in several layers for other woven fabrics such as logo embroidery.

The last components required for your machine are the hoops, which comes in a variety of sizes for different garments. These are what keeps the material taught, ensuring an accurate, neat stitch. As trying to handle the fabric, backing material and hoops at the same time can be difficult, hooping fixtures are available, which make hooping easier, and allow accurate placement of the fabric and backing on the hoop.

The tension on the hoop should be carefully adjusted; too tight and the fabric may be damaged, too loose and the fabric may fall out under the tension of the stitching.