First...We Need Your Artwork So what do we mean by "artwork"? Well for us it comes in many forms. We can use anything from a business card to digital art files such as .gif, .jpg, tiff and .bmp formats. Or, if all you have is an idea, we can work from a sketch! We prefer to have the best possible artwork you have available. It makes it much easier to produce a quality embroidery design but if you can mail it, fax it or email it to us, then we can usually get the job done! In extreme cases where the artwork is very poor we may need to discuss the possibility of an "art charge" to get the image design ready.

As is customary, we receive many designs via fax. Fax quality can make a huge difference in the quality of the digitized reproduction. Fax quality can be improved in several ways:

One thing that will improve detail is to enlarge the design and fax the enlargement. Details will be more visible, and in some cases this is the only method which will provide any visibility at all.
An angled line generally reproduces with jaggies when copied by most fax machines. If the design is placed straight on the paper, horizontal and vertical lines will usually reproduce satisfactorily. If the design is crooked on the paper, lettering and other elements can be so "jaggied up" that the digitizer has to guess about what the original was. That's two easy and simple ways to improve the digitizing process and enhance embroidery quality when transmitting designs by fax. Enlarge the design, and take the time to place it straight on the paper.

Next...We Create Embroidery On Our Computer! It takes some work and we do use some sophisticated software, couple that along with our expertise and artistry to digitize your design. We decide what types of stitches will work best to reproduce the design, the pathing, densities, underalys and compensations. Then once you're completely satisfied with the result, we make the final embroidery machine file.

Finally...We Stitch Your Design! We use an impressive sewing machine that has at least 6 sewing heads! We use the file we created on our computer to run our computerized embroidery machines. They run at speeds of 650 to 900 stitches per minute, have 12 needles for twelve colors of thread and are truly amazing pieces of equipment! They also make a bunch of noise when running but the way our machines run it's more like a loud purrrrr. We usually have two people on each machine, one watches for thread breaks, loading and unloading the machine and trimming and removing the backings. The other usually does all the hooping and unhooping. A 7,000 pound 15 foot machine can keep you busy!

What Can We Embroider On?

We can embroider on all standard garment styles, including golf shirts, tee shirts, henleys, dress shirts, denim shirts, leather, sweat shirts and jackets. We can also embroider on a wide variety of specialty items such as towels, totes and soft briefcases. Of course, we also embroider baseball caps...lots of them! We like to think that anything we can put a needle through we can embroider on!

What To Get Your Embroidery Project Started?

That's the easy part! We suggest you take a look at our Job Checklist page to make sure you have all the information you'll need to give us. Once you've got everything together, just contact us by telephone (252) 453-4749, fax (call for number), mail or email and we'll put together your FREE job estimate and get your project started!

Last Revised 21-OCT-2005
Copyright © 1998 CAROLINA STITCH All rights reserved.