As with every other industry, evolving with the ever-growing demands of consumers almost always leads to innovations that create a sense of excitement in the market. The embroidery digitising industry is no stranger to this effect, since it is also an evolution of the more traditional manual embroidery trade. Accordingly, a more recent development in the embroidery digitising industry is the addition of 3D designs. These 3D designs are generally used to enhance numbers, alphabets, flowers, animals and even cartoon characters for a more realistic touch.
3D designs can be easily and skillfully added to fabrics with the help of two techniques. The first is the use of layered embroidery. Layered 3D embroidery works best in case of thinner materials such as t-shirts, sweatshirts, polos, etc. that are also meant to go through regular washing and ironing. The 3D embroidery digitising technique makes use of a higher density of stitches as well as adding consecutive layers to specific areas of the design to achieve the raised effect. This technique is highly recommended for when more details need to be captured in the embroidered design.
The second, more popular technique used in 3D embroidery digitising is creating a puff using specialized foam. Puff embroidery is widely used to achieve the 3D effect in tougher materials only washed periodically such as caps and hats. Ranging between 3 and 6 mm in density, foam matching the color of the thread used to embroider is placed on top of the fabric to create a 3D effect. This foam sheet needs to be first kept in place, before the machine goes ahead with the rest of the embroidery, for which an outline is first created following which an appropriate “stop” is placed in the program. Once placed, the Digitizing Embroidery program is then resumed to complete the piece. Finishing touches are then added by removing the residual shreds of the foam with a heat gun.
