Top 9 T-Shirt Embroidery Guidelines

Embroidery is one of the great ways to stylize your shirt and express your creativity. It can be used for adding designs ranging from simple to intricate details to your garment. Whether you’re planning to add a logo, text, or perhaps graphic design elements to your shirt, embroidery can be a great tool that will allow you to transfer your artwork into your garment.

However, learning the embroidery process and t shirt printing method can be complicated, especially for first-timers and those who don’t have a background in tailoring and sewing. But once you know the basics and start getting the hang of it, you’ll understand how easy and fun t-shirt embroidery is.

To help you get started, this article will outline the process of t-shirt embroidery, from selecting and loading the designs to preparing your garments to color usage.

1. Select And Load Your Designs:

The first thing you need to do is select the design you want to embroider on your t-shirt. Most patterns can be stitched and embroidered using a machine, so you can choose anything your heart desires.

Choosing a design isn’t always easy, especially if you don’t have anything specific in mind. If that’s the case, you might want to consider trying the different patterns installed on your embroidery machine. Most embroidery machines today have built-in designs you can choose from and explore.

Or, perhaps, you have a different design in mind, you may look for a free pattern or purchase one on the internet. That could work too. However, you need to ensure that they are sized, formatted, and created for an embroidery machine.

Once you have your design in the right size and format, save it on your USB and load it on your embroidery machine.

2. Prepare The Threads To Be Used:

When embroidering any fabric, avoiding gradients as much as possible is a good rule of thumb to follow. Instead, use threads with bold colors that allow you to incorporate clear lines between your graphical designs and elements.

However, choosing the threads is another tricky part of the embroidery process. This is because you must make sure that the color palette and scheme you choose match the design you have previously picked.

Also, make sure that you have a wide variety of thread colors in your stock. So that you can easily troubleshoot your current design and replace it with the nearest color in case you run out of thread.

3. Check The Direction Of Your Design:

Another tip to remember is to double-check the direction of your design by checking how it is placed and loaded in the embroidery machine. More so, you must ensure that the embroidery hoop is positioned correctly. Otherwise, your chosen design might be stitched and embroidered in the wrong orientation.

If your design and pattern proceed from left to right, make sure that your hoop is positioned horizontally. On the other hand, place the hoop in vertical orientation if the design to be used is facing upright.

4. Place A Stabilizer:

When using a stabilizer, make sure that it is a bit larger than your embroidery hoop. Moreover, make sure that it remains inside the hoop. Doing this can help prevent your t-shirt from shifting in every direction as you embroider. Additionally, it will prevent your fabric from stretching while embroidering.

To place the stabilizer, turn your shirt inside and paste it on the area you want to embroider. Then, return your shirt to its original position. Make sure that the stabilizer is placed beneath the fabric to be embroidered.

5. Crease And Hoop The Shirt:

Before hooping, make sure to crease the center of your t-shirt. To find the center to be creased, fold your shirt and make sure that both sleeves meet perfectly. Then, press the fold until a crease forms. This will be used as a guide in the next step, which is hooping.

Using the center marks from the previous step, slide the hoop and make sure that the crease and the hoop’s template are aligned. If you want to be sure, you may use a measuring tape as a guide.

6. Roll Up The Shirt’s Back Fabric:

Before you start embroidering the shirt, you need to make sure that the back portion of your t-shirt is moved out of the way. Otherwise, your shirt’s front and back fabric will be sewn together. This will result in a much bigger problem, where you have to start the process all over again.

With that in mind, roll up the back portion of the shirt away from the spot to be embroidered, making sure that no fabric is above or under the area to be sewn. Also, don’t forget the sleeves of the shirt. Make sure that they also are tucked and rolled outside of the shirt.

7. Recheck The Placement:

Before you start to embroider, make sure that all the preparation steps mentioned above have been thoroughly done, from the positioning of the design to hooping. Additionally, this can be the part where you double-check the orientation of your design and make necessary adjustments. 

8. Stitch The Designs:

After checking everything, you may start the sewing and embroidery process by stitching the chosen pattern. Watch closely and change the thread, as needed and depending on the design. Machines will stop each time you need to change the color of the threads.

A good tip to keep in mind during the embroidery process is that it would be best to finish one thread color at a time.

10. Remove The Stabilizers And Apply Interfacing Fabric:

After the stitching process, you may now remove the embroidery hoop. Then, carefully remove the stabilizers inside to prevent the threads and stitches from tearing apart.

Once the stabilizers have been removed, add a soft interfacing fabric on the inside of the shirt inside, where the design is located. Make sure that it’s a bit bigger than the scope of the embroidered design.

Final Words:

Embroidery is one of the creative methods when it comes to designing garments. While the preparation and the sewing part seem intimidating at first, embroidery can be an outlet for your creative side once you’ve got the hang of it.

Use the guide mentioned in this article to help you learn and further develop your embroidery skills.