The OLD

Once upon a time in the ‘good’ old days, when someone wanted embroidery, there were crests.

The process: Crests used to mean embroideries were done on a cotton drill fabric. They needed to be a rounded shape and this was marked with a running stitch which was followed for cutting. Cutting the crest was normally done with a dye cutting machine which was another reason why the shape could not be too elaborate. Each individual shaped dye was made from metal (very expensive) and required a clicker machine to press the dye down onto the fabric with force to cut - much like making cookies with a cookie cutter.

The embroidery machines: Originally, crests were made on Schiffli (loom) machines which ran at 120 stitches a minute, no thread trimmers, no auto colour change and running 24 / 7. They had 340 needles that were manually changed when a colour change in the design was required. Get out your reading glasses! Later, direct embroidery was done on 12 head flat bed machines.

The border: The general favourite was a “merrow” border. This border required a special overlock machine called a merrow machine. The border was 4-5mm wide so it required a design to be big enough to be comfortable with that size of border. The crests had to be a gentle shape with easy to follow corners. The merrow border was done independently from the embroidery machine and done as an over lock so no fabric would peek out from the border. See Figure 1.

The thread: The thread used to create the border was a high sheen floss, 600 or 1200 denier. Standard embroidery thread today is 40 wt which is a 120 denier so 5 strands of 40 wt thread would equal 600 denier. This method of “cheating” for merrow borders was often used when non traditional coloured borders were requested.

Notes:

The border could also be a single border or a lockstitch border. The single border was used for small designs where there was not much space for a merrow and was basically a satin stitch border or a steil. The lockstitch border was used for designs that had an irregular shape and required inward angles that the merrow machine was not capable of doing.

Overall:

The equipment was costly for both dye cutting and merrowing. That was why companies needed to specialize in crests and produce large quantities in order to be profitable.  

The crests were then sewn onto the garment when they were complete. To this day crests are still being produced on Schiffli machines. Now, however, we also have direct embroidery “multi heads” that run up to 1200 stitches per minute. These versatile and fast machines can do direct embroidery onto garments as well as crests.

The NEW (Bev's Modern Merrow)

The traditional way of doing the borders remains the same, until the introduction of a heavy PVA water soluble film such as Heavy Solvy® 80 Film. Then the fun began. This gave us the ability to do stand alone embroidery or lace, but more exciting, we no longer need the expense of dyes or the merrow machine to put an overlock border on. Our embroidery machine can do it for us. We also can make any shape into a crest and in any quantity - as few as one!

The process: Challenged by Fran to come up with an idea for a trade show, Bev came up with an adaption to the way she had been doing the border on her e-dolls to make it work as a fake merrow. (See Figure 2) There are still two steps, with the embroidered crest being done first on a fabric background.

Step 1 The embroidery: The embroidered crest is completely sewn and then finishes with the indication of the border shape being defined with a running stitch. The running stitch is placed in the middle of the future border (see Figure 3) and the crest is then cut out according to the running stitch shape. (See figure 4). There is a bit of practice required to find out if you need to cut close to the line or allow some space. The idea is the sewing of the border will cover completely the edge of the fabric. After cutting out the embroidery, you will have a crest that has no border on it.

Figure 3                          

Figure 4                           

Step 2 The border: Create a program that works just like an appliqué. For those of you not familiar with appliqué that is when we use fabric to fill an area. This time we are using our crest shape as our appliqué. It’s nicer to have the bobbin thread to match so you may want to wind your own to match the top thread colour. All that will be hooped is the heavy PVA film. We are sewing directly onto the heavy PVA film and need to indicate the placement of the crest. The first part of the program is the placement running stitch just inside where the border will go. (See figure 5)

Figure 5                           

 When the machine stops, the appliqué is placed. It’s like matching the shape just like you did a as kid. If you are worried the appliqué/crest will move, a slight spray of adhesive will help hold it into place. You will then need to re-start your machine on the same needle so it continues to sew.  A good suggestion is to then do a zigzag stitch that will hold things in place and then a light density satin stitch to finish. For a greater margin of error the bigger the border the easier it is to ensure the edge of the fabric is well covered. (see Figure 6)

Figure 6                           

Technical note: A very important part of understanding the process is to know that when you have the same needle programmed back to back the machine will stop. That is the way we stop the machine for appliqué insertion. The program will need a total of two colour changes or stops. Initially the first stop or colour change after the running stitch is so the machine will stop and enable us to place the cut crest. Be aware that newer machines have the ability to over ride the stop and you may need to check your manual if the machine doesn’t stop. This is an easily adjusted setting on your machine. For example if you wanted a blue border and the thread spool was on your third needle you would need the sequence to be 3, 3, for it to stop when needed.

The miracle: Once the border is all sewn you can just peal the finished appliqué off the heavy PVA film and TA DA, a crest!

Beverley Field (Co written with Fran McAvity for the IMPRINT CANADA MAGAZINE)

The Embroidery Dinasaurs……