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General Embroidery hiring question

1095 Views 9 Replies 6 Participants Last post by  binki
Hi all,

I sell motorcycle clothing, vest and leather jackets. I currently heat press biker designs on biker denim shirts and tees. However in my quest to offer unique products I thought about embroidery designs. I've seen some fantastic work on the back of leather jackets and denim biker shirts.

Since embroidery machines cost a LOT I thought I'd hire an embroidery company to put designs on my items. However I am clueless as to how much anyone would charge or if it would be worth it. Also I'm not sure if some items could be done, like leather jackets that have inside liners.

Can anyone tell me if hiring a place to embroider my items would be feasible, and if doing finished leather jackets and vest would even be possible? Thank you for any info. :)
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For the jackets that have a liner, does the liner have a zipper to allow access? If not, you would have to stitch through the liner. The bigger problem with leather is trying to prevent hoop marks/burns on the leather.

A general rule for pricing is $1 per thousand stitches. If your design has 90K stitches, expect the cost to be around $90 plus the cost to digitize the logo.
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Your better option is having full back patches made of your embroidery designs. Sewing them on is easy and the patches would be more affordable.
Direct embroidery on a leather jacket would be difficult and time consuming.
Your better option is having full back patches made of your embroidery designs. Sewing them on is easy and the patches would be more affordable.
Direct embroidery on a leather jacket would be difficult and time consuming.
Thank you both for your replies. I actually do sell embroidered biker back patches, a lot of them. However they just don't look as good or feel as good as a direct to the surface embroidery. Plus I have to buy stock patches everyone else sells.

Sounds like it will not be worth the cost. The ones I have seen were mass produced, which I assume is why the price was almost the same as the plain versions. Maybe I'll visit a local embroidery shop and see what they can do. Oh well, you never know till you ask! Thank you.
BTW this is an example of what I'm talking about. It's a leather vest.

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I would look for a contract embroiderer who typically handles leather goods. Make sure you discuss what happens in case a garment is damaged during the embroidery process.
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Contract embroiderers are who your looking for (they are operations set up just to do the work for other companies and their pricing is more in tune with what you are trying to do though that all depends on quantity.

Your biggest concerns are going to be qty and quality. Small quantities of 1-3 even for contract operations are way more expensive. Contract embroidery operations generally use Embroidery machines meant for production of doing 4 to 12 Identical artworks (I always have to specify that to people cause they think "oh 4 at a time so I can do 4 different logos... no you can do 4 items with the same logo)
Some contract operations have multiple single head setups but successful and quality operations for that kind of thing that can handle leather and do it affordably... and will be there for years to come... generally cannot price as low for more than 4/6/8 pieces as operations that have multi-heads... they can just price slightly lower for 1-3 piece prices than the other operations that handle bigger orders.
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Second Leather is also one of the most difficult and unforgiving materials to work on due to the fact that you cannot easily unmake a hole in leather and if you make too many holes you perforate it where it can tear like toilet paper so balancing locations of penetrations is critical and finding someone who can do that well is much harder.

3rd Full backs are one of the most expensive types of embroidery due to the sheer amount of time involved and the time involved.

If you want more details on contract operations on how to quiz contract operations or more on the pricing side of what why and how to help understand why prices are what they are and scale the way they do feel free to message me.
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Get a full size (not a compact) single head and find a good digitizer. You will pay for it pretty quick. Save up and buy a 4 head and you will be so busy you will not know when to sleep.
Get a full size (not a compact) single head and find a good digitizer. You will pay for it pretty quick. Save up and buy a 4 head and you will be so busy you will not know when to sleep.
Thanks for the reply. However actually the reason why I don't get a machine myself is that I have no idea how I'd get enough work to justify one. You must have to advertise a lot and know where to find folks who want this type of work done? I hardly ever see anything with embroidery on it. I just saw these vest with some and it gave me the idea.
Thanks for the reply. However actually the reason why I don't get a machine myself is that I have no idea how I'd get enough work to justify one. You must have to advertise a lot and know where to find folks who want this type of work done? I hardly ever see anything with embroidery on it. I just saw these vest with some and it gave me the idea.

I don't know how to explain it but 'if you build it they will come'

Car and Bike clubs love patches and embroidery and if you get one you will get them all, or at least most of them. We are backed up 3 months with embroidery right now and it has been that way for 3 years.

Do it, get your name out, enjoy or dread the results.
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