Freddy Craze, of Master Stitch, reveals the level of work required to create a high-end embroidery for a golf brand
The concept…
Master Stitch has been working with Resort, a luxury lifestyle brand for golfers, for three or four years. At 32cm-wide, this is the biggest embroidery ever done by the Master Stitch team.
The design was stitched onto a heavyweight (500gsm) hoodie that had been custom-made for the brand in Portugal. We’ve noticed more of the high-end brands are getting their bespoke garments from Portugal, even though it’s pricier than China or Bangladesh – they don’t mind spending more as long as they get what they want.
The walkthrough…
Most of Master Stitch’s clients send good quality, ready-to-go artwork that then needs to be digitised. While the team digitises most designs in-house, the more detailed designs, as well as the 3D ones, are sent to embroidery digitiser David Sharp. It was a limited run of 50.
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David Sharp reduced the number of stitches from 280,000 to just over 220,000, which helped reduce the run time. Each hoodie took around seven hours to stitch on a Happy single-head (the frames wouldn’t fit on a multi-head) as the speed had to be reduced from 1,000spm to nearer 500spm to accommodate the heavy fabric, and also to ensure no mistakes were made that might ruin the expensive, bespoke hoodies.
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At 220,000 stitches, each hoodie took seven hours to stitch out
Master Stich used extra thick Vilene 160g backing
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The brand wanted the embroidery to be extra wide, which meant that Master Stitch’s usual 28cm frames couldn’t be used. We only use Happy embroidery machines from Midwest; Midwest talked to Happy and the Japanese manufacturer agreed to make custom frames that allowed the embroidery to be 32cm wide. The six bespoke frames were made out of wood – wood doesn’t hold garments in place well, though, and so when framing up, we had to double screw it to make sure it was completely secure.
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Using multiple single-head machines, it took 10 days to complete the job.
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Embroidery machinery manufacturer, Happy produced custom 32cm wide frames for this design
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We used Madeira threads – with work like this, you need good quality – and we also used Madeira for the backing; Vilene 160g. This is really thick, but necessary for this size embroidery. We cut away the backing not only round the logo, but also in between the different elements in order to reduce any rigid, bulky feeling.
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One of the issues was the number of bobbins needed for each design. It was very labour intensive – but worth it.
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