Shirts - to hoop or not to hoop
Everyone has their own way of doing things when it comes to hooping shirts. But the fact is techniques that work well for you may not work well for others. Like most things embroidery related there are many variables.
Much depends on your situation. If you are simply doing one or two shirts for a friend, or for yourself, methods that require longer setup times aren't really a problem. You may not care how long it takes or what the material costs are. You simply do it for the fun of doing it.
If you are in the embroidery business and have large orders to fill your perspective should be quite different. It pays to find ways that are less costly and time consuming. It's the only way you can make money. If you don’t make money you won’t stay in business very long.
While many of the points I cover are geared toward embroidery business owners with commercial machines, there is no reason why the hobbyist can't benefit from them as well. A large number of home embroiderers now own commercial or semi-commercial machines and have purchased third party hooping devices to expand their capabilities. Let’s take a look at two popular methods for hooping shirts.
Hoopless Method
Some embroiderers choose not to hoop shirts. They opt for a third party device such as FastFrames or one of the various HoopTech products. While shirts certainly can be done on these frames, it is unclear to me why anyone would want to use them. The entire process is one I personally find cumbersome and costly. One reason for the reluctance to hoop may be the fear of hoop marks left by traditional tubular hoops. While you might consider this a major problem, the marks are really quite simple to remove. We’ll discuss how a little later on.
The fact is additional labor and consumable material expenses are inherent to hoopless methods. They simply can't be avoided. Sticky backed stabilizers, temporary adhesive sprays, multiple layers of stabilizer (which some embroiders use) and iron-on stabilizers all can add to your cost and require additional set up time.
With these frames there are no guides or templates to aid in placement or alignment. You must do it all manually. Since your machine really has no idea what hoop you are using it won’t be able to center the design for you. This is something else you will have to do manually. You will need to develop your own unique methods for accomplishing these time consuming tasks.
Other areas of concern are stability. Some of the creative ways I’ve heard that embroiderers use to secure the shirts to the frame are clam clips, bulldog clips, straight pins, double sided tape, glue sticks and basting stitches. These methods may work to varying degrees, but are they the best choice in a environment where time is money? Adding up all these factors equates to a time consuming process that costs more than it should to get the job done.
Hooping Method
Shirts are one of the easiest items to hoop and there really is no reason not to hoop them. The fabric is much more secure when hooped with the stabilizer and there is significantly less chance for movement. Standard cut-away stabilizer is far less costly than the stabilizer types required for non-hooping methods.
Placement is much easier as well. One of the best tools on the market for consistent placement is the HoopMaster. It makes short work of this very important task. There is no measuring or guess work. If your business can justify the expense I highly recommend you purchase one for your shop. If you don't have a HoopMaster, or it is not within your budget, there are other less costly tools that allow you to set things up rather quickly. Some examples of these tools are the Hoopmate system and the Embroiderer’s Buddy.
There are other benefits to using your standard hoops. Since your design will automatically center in your standard tubular hoop, no extra time is required for alignment. Just slip it onto the machine, lock it into place and your ready to sew. Purchasing an additional hoop allows you to hoop a second shirt while the first shirt is sewing. This process saves you a considerable amount of time and allows you to finish your project much faster.
More on Hooping Shirts
What works well for most shirts is a soft medium weight cut-away stabilizer. If the fabric color is very light, use a mesh backing instead to eliminate show through. Naturally proper hooping techniques are required for good results. You don’t want the shirt hooped too loose or too tight. Never pull the fabric once you have it hooped. Doing so will cause it to stretch and puckering may result when removed from the hoop.
In reality the hooping process allows you to move on quite rapidly if you have two sets of hoops. Once a design has finished remove the shirt from the machine and set it aside. Before doing anything with the finished shirt, mount the next shirt on your machine and begin sewing once again. Now you can remove the finished shirt from the hoop and carefully trim away the excess stabilizer.
So what about those hoop marks? When the fabric is hooped it is tightly compressed between the inner and outer rings of your hoop. This crushes the fibers of the fabric and creates that unsightly ring around your design once the hoop is removed. The good news is the ring is not permanent. You can easily remove it with a small inexpensive hand-held steamer. The steam will cause the crushed fibers to relax and return to their original shape. The marks are gone and after a few minutes drying time the shirt is complete and ready to bag.
You should easily be able to complete the entire cleanup process and have another shirt ready to go before the one currently on the machine is finished. You can keep your machine running with very little down time. This is very important because when it’s not running you aren’t making a dime.
Summary
Third party hoopless products are invaluable tools for hard to hoop items. There are many things that you simply could not do without them, but they may not be the best choice for shirts if you are concerned with cost and effort. In a business environment your bottom line is directly linked to the cost of consumable materials and labor, even if the labor is your own. You may not realize it, but your time is worth something. If material and labor costs are too high profits will decline or disolve completely.
If you really are concerned about your material and labor costs, consider using your regular hoops as much as possible. They really are the best choice for anything you can hoop. For those other impossible to hoop items go hoopless.
Oh, one more thing. If something goes wrong and a shirt gets messed up, don't throw it away. Rejects are perfect for test sewing your designs before you begin work on the actual goods. They give you the opportunity to sew out your design on fabric exactly like or similar to the shirts you’ll be working on. You can also use them to practice your hooping techniques using actual shirt fabrics.
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