Embroidery Machines

Machine embroidery is an embroidery process whereby a sewing machine or embroidery machine is used to create patterns on textiles. It is used commercially in product branding, corporate advertising, and uniform adornment. It is also used in the fashion industry to decorate garments and apparel.

Nearly all of today’s embroidery machines are computer-controlled machines that will stitch a digitally created embroidery design.

The first computerized embroidery machines for consumers were introduced in the 1980s. As of 2018, a large choice of models and brands exist and prices have been dropping over the past years.

Computer-controlled embroidery machines have “specially engineered machines that have a multi-needle fixed ‘embroidery head’ and a frame holder that moves the framed product (for example a garment like a T-shirt) in either of two directions so that the embroidery design can be sewn. The frame holder is known as a pantograph; think of it as a graph plotter because it moves to (plots) the exact location (coordinates) of the design expressed in x and y values.

The design is created within a grid (known as a ‘field’) with x being the horizontal axis and y the vertical axis. Therefore any point on the design can be identified in values of x and y, a co-ordinate in this field would be written, for example, like x249,y786. The embroidery machine reads these coordinates from the design data file and moves its pantograph into position to receive each new stitch from the machines’ stationary needle head.