Printing and embroidery are excellent ways to add personality to your outfits. Plain shirts often look dull, with nothing unique to show the world. However, printing and embroidery allow the addition of images and text to pass across crucial messages or make a fashion statement. You have virtually endless alternatives for customizing your clothes through printing and embroidery. This comprehensive guide will teach you everything you need to know about these two fashion trends.
Basics Of Printing And Embroidery
Printing is the process of applying designs on clothing using ink. The pattern is normally printed on a silk screen and pressed onto your apparel to make the mark. However, if you prefer a more hands-on approach, you can create your own designs with the help of free embroidery designs and embroider them onto your clothing for a unique and personalized touch
On the other hand, embroidery entails sewing a pattern on your fabric with a needle and thread. There’s almost no limit to what you may embroider on your clothes. There are many possibilities with abstract art, logos, figurines, flowers, animals, geometric shapes, and text. The downside is that you may need advanced skills to try the more complex designs. Fortunately, you can shop strange custom embroidery from reliable suppliers with the necessary skill set to create appealing designs.
However, as you shop for custom embroidery, you should remember that they’re limited to smaller patches on the garment. Nevertheless, printing is still the best approach for creating more massive impressions on your clothes to a scale you can’t practically achieve with embroidery. Indeed, you can print your shirt’s entire front or back for a more significant visual impact.
Advantages Of Customizing Your Clothes With Embroidery And Printing
Before settling on a design for your clothing, consider the advantages of each option. You’d want to ensure that the personalized designs appear good on your apparel. Their benefits can help you to make the proper judgment.
Embroidery
Here are some of the advantages of using embroidery on your clothing:
- Lasts long: When you add a design to your clothing, you’d want it to last for several years and not fade quickly. Embroidery ensures your design stays intact even after hundreds of washing cycles because of the use of high-quality thread that remains unchanged for a long time.
- Limitless choices: You have numerous design options and embroidery styles for your clothing. It’s all a matter of creativity. You could surf the internet for inspiration on unique embroidery designs.
- Suitable for most fabrics: You only need thick materials that can hold the stitches. You can use your designs on different fabrics and create custom patches. Additionally, you can use creative techniques to come up with embroidery patterns.
Printing
Some of the benefits of printing include:
- Accommodates Fine Details: If your design includes several patterns and colors, you’re better off using printing to customize your apparel. This way, they look chic, clean, and crisp. You’ll also love how you get the exact details on your clothing.
- More Flexibility: Unlike embroidery, where you have to go for smaller patches, you can include designs that cover most of your garment. Printing is versatile to take care of the larger designs without compromising the look and quality.
- Quick And Reliable: If you want mass production for your t-shirt business, you can rely on printing to quickly add details to your T-shirts or aprons. It makes customizing your clothing more manageable.
Factors To Consider When Customizing Your Clothes
After creating the ideal design for your clothing, you must understand that fitting the creation on your clothing can either be successful or disastrous. It’s certainly devastating to destroy your favorite outfit while decorating it.
Embroidery
Below are factors to consider when customizing your clothes with embroidery:
- Fabric: Twill fabrics ensure the stitches hold together, unlike piled materials. You don’t want to obstruct the image as you fit it in your clothing. On the other hand, silk and rayon are challenging to work with as embroidery requires more stitches to stabilize.
- Location Of Your Embroidery: Depending on your work’s nature, you can choose the best location for your embroidery. Placing the embroidery on the front of your garment will work if you don’t usually wear an apron as you do your daily duties. Remember, your goal is to display the embroidery patch for all. So, if it’s hidden from view, it’s useless. Alternatively, you can even place it at the back of your outfit if that’s the part that’s always unobstructed.
- Type Of Thread: If you’re going for the traditional thread and needle method of adding embroidery to your garment, you must use a suitable one for the job. Some designs allow you to use colorful threads, which make your embroidery patches more appealing and attractive.
- Cost: To determine the cost of embroidery, use the stitch count. The two factors that influence your stitch count are the size and details of your embroidery. This makes it unsuitable for large printing because it can be extremely expensive.
Printing
If you decide to go for printing, you must understand the stakes of using this method on your clothing. Some factors to consider are:
- Fabric: As indicated earlier, printing relies on ink. The ink may come off or fade with time due to repeated washing. As such, you’d consider the type of fabric before using printing to customize it. The best material to use for printing should be thick and tightly woven. It should also contain cotton as the primary material.
- Image Quality: Print designs are only as good as their artwork. If you want to illustrate the most minor details, you need high-quality photos. Moreover, you may send in your photographs as a vector file. This allows for accurate sizing and printing without sacrificing quality.
- Edges And Borders: If you don’t mind the boundaries and borders on your design, the results look sloppy and unprofessional.
- Color: The color scheme for printing should be chosen carefully because it can change the overall feel of the design. It also has an impact on the total budget because too much ink is expensive. Ideally, the ink color should match the shade of the fabric. You should also choose your colors carefully so the visual quality does not suffer.
The Dos And Don’ts Of Embroidery And Printing
As you ponder customizing your clothing, you should also know when it’s best to embroider or print the details. This will make your work worthwhile. It also helps you avoid the cost of redoing the designs after achieving unappealing outcomes. You’d want to go for the best solution that makes your clothing wearable and convenient. You must understand when embroidery or printing is suitable for you. Here are some insights on when to use embroidery or printing:
- Professional Look
If your design is very detailed and requires re-arranging and rescaling the letters, embroidery won’t work in this scenario. You can use digital or screen printing to make the letters even and fit your logo. Your text has to be at least 6mm high to be embroidered neatly on your garments. This means you’ll need more thread to fit the letters and could end up looking unprofessional. It would be best to use the printing option for a professional look when doing a custom design.
Since you already have the clothing, its thickness can decide the best customization method. Embroidery is heavy and requires thick and dense material to look the part. You don’t want to pull your fabric as you add the designs. As such, stick to printing the layout on your garments when working on lightweight material. In addition, you must not skimp over the details of your design. This way, they’d look beautiful and not messy.
- Do-It-Yourself Project
If you’re customizing your clothing from a personal interest, embroidery is the best for the do-it-yourself (DIY) project. You can come up with a design you’re able to work with and have fun fitting the details on your garment. Moreover, you can also correct them yourself when they look faulty. However, remember that this is time-consuming, and you might mess it up if you rush it. Go for a stitch-by-stitch approach to ensure your embroidery is intact.
- Comfort
If you’re in sports and want to customize your sportswear without compromising comfort, you should work with printing. Embroidery may tamper with the inner side of your clothing, especially with the addition of an inner lining to hold the stitches. It irritates your skin as you move around. For this reason, you should ensure your custom design doesn’t feel uncomfortable to work with. In this case, go for the printing option on your clothing.
Conclusion
Printing and embroidery allow you to personalize your clothing without compromising comfort and style or breaking the bank. However, you must be creative enough to turn your essential clothing into unique outfits suitable for everyday wear. You can follow some fashion icons and take screenshots of their styles for more insights. Furthermore, you may try out some techniques in your old clothes to give them a much-needed facelift. Remember that incorporating details is a guaranteed way to get the job done. Lastly, include distinctive embroidery or printing styles to make the designs stand out.