Experience w/ embroidery and/or patches?

[triniboy27]

Hey all,

Just wondering if anyone has had any experience with embroidery and/or making patches...I have a couple of questions, specifically, if I have an image, how hard would it be to transform that into an embroidered design or make a patch out of it?

Think of the Lacoste crocodile as an example of what I'm talking about (and no, I'm not bootlegging Lacoste shirts...)

Thanks.

[vinz]

Normally embroidery places would use a digitizer to make an image ready for embroidery. You can use something as simple as a jpeg or even an .ai file. Whenever I send stuff for embroidery for simple one color job a jpeg will do. If it's something with multiple colors like the lacoste logo just send an .ai file. Let them know what kind of stitch you want if you want something other then a satin stitch, you don't have to modify files for stuff like chainstitching.

That's my experience with embroidery, I'm not sure if other people would do it a different way. Just preflight your files like any other file.

www.youngestincharge.com

www.opticalweapons.com

[lost]

every embroidery i did was pretty much the same. locally or across the sea. handed off an illustrator file with a printed proof detailing out the important stuff.

[6MT]

ACTUALLY JPEG IS JUST FINE, LET ME KNOW WHAT U WANT I COULD TAKE CARE OF THAT. ONLY IF U R IN LA AREA.

[andewhall]

Hey. Worked as a digitizer at an embroidery co. for about 8 years. Black and white hard copy or jpeg is the way to go, and a colour copy also. Large version and one scale helps too. Usually up to six colours (six needle embroidery machine). In the old days we had to draw a 4:1 scale drawing of the logo/patch and programme it on a huge digitising tablet, with this little mouse with four coloured buttons, and if you assed a peice up you had to start from the beginning. Very time consuming. Now there are sweet programmes that do 'just' about everything. Prices normally go by set up cost of the logo/graphic, one off charge, per 1000 stitches. And then unit cost per garment, depending on how many you are getting done at once. So the less stitches in the programme and the more you do in one go, the cheaper it will be. When you are designing for embroidery, keep it simple if it's going to be small. And if it has black outline, like a graphic, make the lines nice and thick.

I programmed 200+ graphics for myself while I worked there. I was the master at the page swap when my boss walked in. I did some pretty big peices, appliques etc. Some would take two and a half hours to stitch. I also did some cool stuff for customers, huge gang patches. They always paid in cash. I can post some pic's if you like.

[templeffectives]

What does it mean to have it at scale or 100% scale?

Ya, post some pics. I want to see your work.

Oh somebody is coming, page swap!

TEMPLE EFFECTIVES FALL 2005 COLLECTION: DENIM | HOODIES | TRACK JACKETS | TEES | BEANIES | DJ BAGS

URL: http://www.temple-effectives.com

[andewhall]

^^Page swap yeah, haha. I'll post some pic's, might take me a while. Some of them could be embarassing too, some being between 5-10 years old and all. The scale thing, we used to scan in bromides of good b&w copies, but everyone probably uses jpeg files and what not now. I think it's always good to have a copy on paper thats to scale so you know how big it is. Embroidery size is quite crucial in my opinion. The digitiser can always resize it after a sample though.

[triniboy27]

Word.

Thanks for the responses guys...keep 'em coming

[vinz]

Yeah man, lets see those gang patches

www.youngestincharge.com

www.opticalweapons.com

[andewhall]

^^I don't have any samples of the gang patchs unfortunately, they were very cautious about numbers etc. They were always a three peice set up, A middle patch, with top and bottom scroll/lettering patches. I would always have to utilise the biggest frames for each patch to get it as big as possible. Man they took hours to stitch.....and cost alot. Did heaps of R.I.P shoulder patches too. I always wondered what happened to this guy? He's seems pretty young, motorcycle accident?

[triniboy27]

Interesting.

So here's a question, if I have an image about the size of one of our avatars, how much would it cost to have patches made up in black and white?

I'm talking approx 65 x 65...

thanks in advance

[andewhall]

Hi Triniboy. Ummm I quit my job in 2000, so things may have changed quite significantly since then, and I live in New Zealand? So things are going to be a bit different. If I were to quote on that, if that size was completely stitched, I would say it was between 2,500-3,000 stitches. We quoted approx $25 per thousand stitches, minimum of $50 to set the logo up. So maybe $60 bucks one off set up charge. And I would say approx $3.50 each per unit. Then price breakdown like 20+ $3.25ea, 50+ $3.00ea, 100+ $2.50ea, 500+ $2.00ea 1000+ $1.50ea. etc. This is totally ballpark and in NZD, and every company will do things different, have different pricing structures etc. And off course I have been out of the game for a few years. I kind of had a structure in my head for pricing as I worked in the factory before I went into digitising, kinda knew how long shit took to stitch. I hated doing quotes though, you would get some guy come in with a biro sketch on a peice of grease proof paper, and say I want this on a polo shirt. And I would be like "is that your artwork"? Im talking like stick figure drawings and shit........used to drive me insane.

[andewhall]

Hers a couple I did when I was a youngster

[triniboy27]

THOSE are GANGSTA.

And porno DOES rule...

[breakfasteatre]

those are sweet patches

[andewhall]

Thanks. Now I look at them years later, there are a few things I would change in the programme, a few mistakes here and there. Got a few more but having a hard time loading them to image shack

[neawts]

Haha, nice patches.