Our Embroidery Journey: Getting a Brother Machine, Testing It Out, and Learning the Hard Way

I have been wanting to add embroidery to Floorboard Findings for a while. My Brother embroidery machine has been the single most humbling piece of equipment I have ever brought into my studio, and I say that as someone who spent years figuring out ice dye chemistry through trial and error. The learning curve for embroidery for small business is steep in ways I did not anticipate, and I want to be honest about that because I think there is value in showing the messy middle of building a new skill, not just the polished "after" photos.

The appeal of embroidery was clear. It gives a premium, textured look that printing cannot replicate. A stitched logo on a polo or a hat has a tactile quality and perceived value that even the best DTF print does not match. Clients have been asking about embroidered options for months, particularly for professional and corporate-style branded apparel. Polos, hats, quarter-zips. The kind of pieces where a stitched logo says "we take this seriously" in a way a printed logo does not quite achieve. I knew I needed to offer it. What I did not know was how different the process would be from everything else I do.

Why I Chose a Brother Embroidery Machine

I went with Brother after researching what other small business owners in the custom apparel space were using. Brother machines have a strong reputation for reliability and the learning community around them is large, which matters when you are teaching yourself a new craft. The dealer support is solid, replacement parts and accessories are readily available, and the software ecosystem for design work is well-established.

I am not going to pretend I did exhaustive testing of every brand on the market. I talked to people I trust, read forums, watched an unhealthy number of YouTube videos, and made a decision. The machine arrived, I set it up in my studio, and that is when the real education started.

The Learning Curve Is Real

With ice dye, the learning curve was mostly about chemistry and patience: understanding how soda ash activates fiber-reactive dyes, how ice melt rate affects color penetration, how long to let pieces cure. It was methodical. With DTF, the learning curve was about dialing in heat press settings for different blanks: temperature, pressure, dwell time. Systematic and repeatable.

Embroidery is a different animal entirely. The number of variables that affect the outcome is staggering, and they all interact with each other in ways that are not always intuitive.

Thread Tension

Thread tension has been my biggest struggle. If the upper thread tension is too tight, you get puckering and the bobbin thread pulls to the top surface. Too loose and you get looping on the underside. The tension that works for one fabric weight will not work for another. A thick polo requires different settings than a thin cap material. And the tension can drift during a run, which means you have to monitor the machine instead of walking away and trusting it.

With my heat press, I set the temperature and pressure once and it stays there for the entire production run. With the embroidery machine, I am adjusting tension more often than I would like to admit. I am getting better at reading the early signs, watching the first few stitches to see if the pull is right before the full design runs, but it is still an area where experience is the only real teacher.

Digitizing Designs

Digitizing is the process of converting artwork into a stitch file that the embroidery machine can read. This was the part I most underestimated. A design that looks perfect as a PNG or vector file does not automatically translate to embroidery. You have to think about stitch direction, stitch density, underlay stitches that stabilize the design, pull compensation to account for fabric distortion, and the order in which the machine sews each color section.

A logo that takes me 10 minutes to prepare for DTF printing can take an hour or more to digitize properly for embroidery. And a poorly digitized design does not just look bad. It can cause thread breaks, bird-nesting, and fabric puckering that ruins the blank. I am still developing my feel for what makes a good stitch file versus one that will cause problems on the machine.

Hooping Technique

How you secure the fabric in the embroidery hoop affects everything. Too tight and the fabric distorts, leaving marks or warping the design placement. Too loose and the fabric shifts during stitching, throwing off registration between colors. Different fabrics and different products require different hooping approaches. A flat polo front hoops differently than a structured hat, which requires a completely different frame setup.

Hats have been particularly challenging. The curved surface, the seam intersections, the stiff front panel versus the flexible side panels. Every hat is a small engineering problem. I have ruined more test hats than I care to count while figuring out tension, placement, and speed settings for cap embroidery.

What I Have Learned So Far

After weeks of testing, ruining blanks, re-threading the machine more times than I can count, and having a few choice conversations with the bobbin case, here is where I am at.

I can produce clean embroidery on flat surfaces (polos, tees, crewnecks) with simple to moderately complex designs. Single-color logos and text-based designs are consistently coming out well. Multi-color designs with fine detail are improving but still require more attention and test runs than I would like. Hats are getting better. I am not where I want to be yet, but I can see the path from here to where I want to end up.

The machine itself is not the hard part. The hard part is developing the judgment that comes from experience — knowing by sound when the tension is off, knowing by feel when the hoop is right, knowing by looking at a design file whether it will translate well to stitches or need significant reworking.

With ice dye, it took me years to develop the instincts that let me consistently produce pieces I am proud of. I walked into embroidery thinking the learning curve would be months, not years. I was probably wrong about that. And I am okay with that, because the alternative is not offering embroidery at all, and that is not where I want my business to be.

Embroidery vs. DTF: Different Tools for Different Jobs

One thing this process has made crystal clear is that embroidery and DTF are not competing methods. They serve different purposes. Embroidery gives a premium, textured, professional look that is ideal for hats, polos, and corporate-style apparel. DTF gives full-color, photo-quality prints with unlimited design complexity on any fabric. They complement each other.

The challenge with embroidery is that it is limited in color complexity compared to DTF. A detailed, full-color design with gradients and photographic elements is not suited for embroidery. Stitch count and thread changes make it impractical. Simple logos, text, and clean graphic marks are where embroidery shines. Understanding that distinction has been important for setting realistic expectations with clients who ask about it.

Where This Is Going

I am committed to adding embroidery as a service at Floorboard Findings. It fills a gap in what I can offer. There are clients and products where printing is not the right answer, and I want to be able to serve those needs in-house rather than sending customers elsewhere. The ability to offer hats and polos with stitched logos alongside DTF-printed tees and ice-dyed hoodies makes my custom apparel program more complete.

I am being transparent about where I am in the process because I believe in showing the work, not just the results. Building a skill takes time. My ice dye technique did not happen overnight, and my embroidery will not either. But the same stubbornness that kept me experimenting with dye ratios and ice layering techniques until I got them right is the same stubbornness keeping me at the embroidery machine when the thread breaks for the fourth time in a row.

If you have been thinking about embroidered apparel for your business and want to follow along as I build this capability, stay tuned. And if you need custom apparel right now (DTF-printed graphic tees, ice-dyed wholesale pieces, or branded merchandise for your organization), I am ready for that today. The embroidery is coming. It is just coming on its own timeline, and I am not going to rush it out before it meets the standard everything else in my studio is held to.