What thread can and cannot do.

File formats we can work from

Vector first, raster at size, or a finished machine file.

Three kinds of file arrive here, and they get treated differently. Vector artwork is redrawn as stitches. Raster artwork is traced first, which introduces a judgement call. A machine file is already stitches and goes straight to a sew-out.

Why vector matters

A digitiser is deciding where every stitch begins and ends. With vector artwork those decisions follow paths you already drew. With a raster image the digitiser has to decide where an edge really is, and on a soft or compressed image that becomes an interpretation — a defensible one, but not yours.

• Outline your type before sending. A font we do not have will substitute, and you will not see it happen.
• Expand strokes rather than leaving them as live outlines.
• Remove hidden layers, stray points and unused swatches — they slow the read and occasionally cause surprises.
• A logo drawn at business-card scale still needs to be judged at the sewn size. Send it, then tell us the sewn size.

If all you have is a raster

Send the largest, cleanest version that exists — the original from your designer, not the one pulled off a website. 300 dpi at the finished sewn size is the working minimum. A 72 dpi web graphic enlarged to 4 inches gives the digitiser about a tenth of the information it looks like it has.

What sews well, and what does not

Thread has a minimum size. Some artwork simply cannot get there.

Thread is roughly a fixed diameter. Everything below is a consequence of that one fact: a stitched mark cannot be finer than the thread making it, no matter what the artwork does.

Sews cleanly

• Solid shapes with clear separation between elements
• Bold, geometric lettering at reasonable size
• Flat spot colours with hard edges
• Simple outlines with consistent stroke weight
• Marks that still read when printed in one colour at final size

Fights the medium

• Text below about a quarter inch cap height — the counters in letters like a, e and s fill in.
• Hairlines and strokes below roughly 1 mm at final size — thread cannot hold them.
• Gradients and drop shadows — thread is flat. These become bands of solid colour or get dropped.
• Photographic detail and soft focus — there is nothing for a stitch to follow.
• Very fine serifs, script with thin connectors, and delicate flourishes at small sizes.
• Ten colours in a two-inch logo — every colour change is a stop, a trim and a chance to register imperfectly.

None of this means the job cannot be done. It means the artwork usually needs a stitch version: slightly bolder, slightly simpler, with the elements that will not survive removed rather than attempted. We will tell you what we would change before we digitise, not after you have seen the sew-out.

Stitch count, price and production time

The unit of currency in contract embroidery.

Embroidery is priced and scheduled on stitch count, not on how complicated the artwork looks. A design is a number of needle penetrations, and that number sets both what a run costs and how long a machine is occupied.

What drives the count: the area being covered, the density needed for the fabric, the amount of underlay laid down first, and the number of separate elements that have to be tied off and travelled between. Size is the biggest lever — a design taken from 3 inches to 4 inches wide does not gain a third more stitches, it gains closer to three quarters more, because area grows with the square.

What this means when you are quoting your own customer

• Ask for the stitch count with the sew-out. It is the number that lets you compare quotes honestly.
• A cleaner digitising job can take thousands of stitches out of a design that reads identically. That is the difference between digitisers, and it compounds across every piece you ever run.
• Dropping a design from 4 inches to 3.5 inches often saves more than it costs in visual impact.
• Full-back and jacket-back designs run long. Build that into your lead time, not just your price.

How we price digitising — a flat fee, free above a piece-count threshold, or quoted per design — is confirmed with Alphabet before launch and stated plainly here.

Placements and finished sizes

Where it goes, and how big it should be when it gets there.

Give us the finished sewn width for each placement. It is the single most useful number on a quote request, and it is the one most often missing.

Sizes above are the ranges most jobs land in, not house rules — a brand standard beats a rule of thumb every time. Send yours and we will work to it.

Fabric, backing and stabiliser

The choice nobody sees, and the one that ruins a run when it is wrong.

Backing holds the fabric still while thousands of needle penetrations try to move it. Choose it wrong and the design puckers, the registration drifts, or the backing shows through a light knit forever.

Tell us the garment — style number and colour — on the quote request. It changes the digitising, not just the setup, and a design digitised for an oxford will bury a lightweight performance knit.

Caps are a different job

Same logo, different file.

A cap sews from the centre out, on a curved surface, through a stiffened panel, in a fixed vertical space between the brim and the crown seam. A design digitised for a flat left chest will not simply scale onto it.

• Sequencing is different: cap designs are built centre-out so the fabric does not push ahead of the needle.
• Vertical space is limited by the crown height — usually a little over 2 inches on a structured cap.
• Detail that survives at 3.5 inches on a chest often has to be simplified at 2.25 inches on a cap front.
• Unstructured crowns behave differently from structured ones, so tell us which you are running.

If a programme runs both flats and caps, plan for two digitised files from the start. It is not an upcharge for its own sake; it is the only way both come out right.

Colour matching and thread

Thread is a stocked shade, not a mixed ink.

Print colour is mixed to a target. Thread colour is chosen from what exists on the shelf. We match to the nearest available shade and, where a brand standard is tight, we will send the sew-out with alternatives so you can choose rather than be told.

• Send Pantone references where colour is contractual. "Their blue" is not a specification.
• Thread reads differently from ink — the sheen of rayon and the matte of polyester will not look identical to a printed swatch.
• A colour that works on white will read differently on navy. The garment colour is part of the match.
• Polyester thread is the right choice for anything that will be industrially laundered or bleached.
• Fewer colours means fewer trims, less travel and a cleaner finish. It is worth an honest look at whether a five-colour logo needs all five in thread.

What to send with a quote request

The checklist that gets you a number instead of a question.

Everything on that list has a field on the quote form. What we cannot infer, we will ask about — but a request with all eight comes back as a price rather than a question.