How to Balance Embroidery Quality and Production

October 25, 2010
By Steven Batts, Contributing Writer

As embroiderers, we always are faced with how to balance the quality of our work with the time it takes to do that work. If more time is spent on the quality, then productivity suffers. However, if there is too much focus on simply getting items sewn and out the door, then the quality of the product can take a hit.

What is the proper balance of quality and productivity? What is considered to be acceptable – or even high-quality – embroidery? In the embroidery process, what can lead to sub-standard quality? Most importantly, how do certain steps we take during the production process add to the quality of the finished product?

What’s Your Perception?
There are no clear answers to these questions because each person’s perception of what is acceptable is different. The steps we take to increase the quality of our embroidered product can be evaluated to determine whether they are worthwhile. For instance, it does no good to spend minutes and hours doing things to make our products look better if the improvement is only marginal and may not be noticed by our clients. The trick is to only use the steps that significantly increase the overall appearance and wear of the embroidery.

How you view your embroidery job determines how much time you will spend on any given task. To someone doing embroidery for a hobby, it is personal. Thus, any extra step you can take that yields the slightest increase in quality is worth it. For a contract embroiderer, there is more emphasis on productivity, which means the goal is to get more pieces out the door. You want them to look good, but you are not going to spend extra time for marginal increases in the look and wear.

These decisions can affect you on every level of the process, whether it is deciding what details will be digitized, how often the design will trim, what kind of stabilizer to use or whether to use water-soluble topping.

The Cubit Rule
Finding the balance between improving quality and maintaining production falls somewhere in the middle for the basic embroidery shop. You will perhaps take a little longer on some things, but you also may skip some steps. The two biggest issues I hear about the most are when to trim the thread and when to use water-soluble topping.

What I find helpful in making these decisions is to remember what I call the “Cubit Rule.” A cubit is a unit of measure that was used in biblical times. It is the distance from your elbow to the tip of your fingers. On average, it measures about 18 inches long.

I have discovered a cubit is the difference between how an embroiderer will look at his embroidery and how a customer will view it. Embroiderers tend to examine their work very meticulously, holding it right up to their nose to examine every single detail or flaw. Customers, on the other hand, extend the garment out to arm’s length to examine the work. They want to see how the garment will look when worn by someone. That is the cubit’s difference: Customers extend the work that much farther away to take a look.

So when I am faced with the decision of when to trim thread – or something of that nature – I follow my customer’s example and hold the sample a little farther away from my nose to see if what I am contemplating is even visible.

As a result, I have made some rules for trimming and using topping that fit within my balance of quality and production. Your values may differ from mine, but that’s OK. Though I tend to be more production-oriented, my clients think the work’s quality is fantastic.

In terms of trimming, my standard is if the gap is 1mm or less, I don’t trim the thread. This can apply to letters or different segments of a design. For letters, that usually means those that are 1/2-inch or less in size are not trimmed between each letter. From there, I start trimming between some of the letters where the gap is wider and more noticeable. I came up with that value by considering the cubit rule. I found that if I hold a sample up at arm’s length, I cannot see whether or not it is trimmed between the letters.

This is just a single example. There are many things that have been decided by this same principle. The key is to only use the steps that significantly enhance the appearance of your designs. This way you can increase your productivity which, in turn, increases your bottom line – all by a simple cubit’s measure.



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