Don't Get Fleeced with Fleece!

Fleece can test your sewing abilities, but with its high perceived value, this fashionable apparel is worth the challenge.
August 01, 2003

Fleece is one of the imprinted apparel industry's hottest fabrics. From souvenir shirts to athletic uniforms to club gear, fleece has become a part of our everyday lives.

Though it's warm, soft and cuddly on the outside, fleece has a few hidden quirks that can make it tricky to embroider. Basic digitizing techniques, however, can help you avoid getting fleeced.

To better handle this unique material, you must first develop a good working knowledge of how fabric characteristics and the stitch-formation process interact.

It's All About the Fabric

Having spent years in this industry sewing, digitizing and analyzing, I have discovered a simple, but critical, fact: Most embroiderers create a design and hope that it sews well.

Designs generally aren't created with the fabric characteristics in mind. More often than not, embroiderers' focus is on a design that looks good onscreen and meets customer expectations in regard to size and layout.

Digitizers, however, are seen as professionals who use their understanding of how to compensate for fabric and sewing characteristics to produce elaborate, efficiently stitched designs and logos.

Because embroiderers apply such designs and create simple text when needed, most do not consider themselves digitizers. But no matter how simple the design, as an embroiderer you're digitizing every time you create keyboard text. True, stock fonts and designs have default settings, but that doesn't mean those defaults are right for every situation.

The Scoop on Stitches

Like it or not, embroidery requires you to develop some of a digitizer's engineering talents and learn how to compensate for the different fabric characteristics. But before you can understand fabric compensation, you must first know how the stitching process affects the fabric.

In a nutshell, stitches are formed when the upper and lower threads join together underneath the fabric. This process, which is initiated below the needle plate, exerts a downward force on the upper thread.

Thus, the upper thread is pulled down tight against the fabric surface. If that surface is soft and stretchy, like fleece, the thread will be pulled down into the fabric. Also keep in mind that this downward pull is also affected by bobbin tension. More tension equals more pull.

A combination of thread tension and fabric characteristics affects how stitches will look and sew. Any type of zigzag stitch, including column stitches, will be pulled inward toward the column's center.

Sturdy fabric such as denim, on the other hand, won't give in to the downward force exerted by the stitching process. The upper threads won't sink in, nor will you encounter column stitches pulling in.

Fleece obviously fits into the soft and stretchy category, and so the stitches will sink in and columns will be narrower than normal. As the stitches sink in, the fabric itself is compressed. This compression causes an upward push against the embroidery stitches, which tends to divide or spread out the stitches. In other words, the stitch coverage begins to look sparse.

To counteract this process, you will probably have to increase column widths and pull compensation factors. You will also need to increase density settings and add underlay. Fine details tend to sink into this type of fabric and disappear. Adding underlay stitches to a design can help prevent this. To adjust stitch densities properly, you have to take fabric thickness and the design's original density into account. In general, though, small density adjustments of 10% to 15% at a time are best.

That sounds like digitizing, doesn't it? Guess what – there's a little bit of digitizer in all of us, or at least there should be. Each time you work with fleece, you must examine the design closely and make the necessary stitch adjustments.

Further Fleece Facts

Embroidering on fleece requires other special preparations. You'll definitely need a medium-weight cutaway backing to stabilize the fabric, and a 75/11 ballpoint needle is typically the best choice.

It's debatable whether you'll need a water-soluble topping. Toppings work best with textured material, as they provide a smoother surface for the upper threads to lay on. Although they can reduce some of the "sinking in" effect caused by fleece, the compensation is minimal.

Ultimately, your best defense is adjusting design properties using your digitizing software.

When all is said and done, fleece is an excellent product for every embroidery shop. It's popular with customers, commands an excellent markup and is not really difficult to sew on, as long as you take time to understand and prepare for it. Perform this same level of analysis to each and every fabric you encounter, and business will boom. Jimmy Lamb, who developed the regional seminar program for Hirsch Intl., owned and operated an embroidery company for 12 years. Contact him atjlamb@hirschintl.com.