Embroidery on promotional gifts

Modern embroidery for promotional gifts is far removed from traditional needlework and is always done by an automated embroidery machine. The origination component of the embroidery process is a jacquard, once a set of coded perforated cards fitted to a loom and named after the French inventor of the device, Joseph Marie Jacquard (1752-1834).

The term “jacquard” now refers to a computer disc. The disc instructs the embroidery equipment what to embroider and in how many colours – unlike some processes this is a multi-colour operation and suitable for: Cricket Shirts, Football Shirts, Jackets,

Overalls, Polo Shirts, Sports Caps, Sweat Shirts, Tee Shirts and Uniforms.

Before the days of sponsorship it was usual to have a club or country logo on a cap or perhaps the breast pocket of a sports shirt.
Now, however, most professional teams, and many amateur ones, have a multitude of embroidered logos on a shirt. Indeed, it is not unusual to see embroidery on left and right breast, collar, back collar, and shirt back as well as the front...talk about a walking billboard!

Other items where embroidery is commonplace are shorts, long trousers and socks as well as boots. The walking billboard is so entrenched in young minds that children and young people will not countenance any sports shirts or headgear unless it has the appropriate embroidered logo. And yet, compare this to an earlier generation where out-of-work men were recruited to be paid to carry a billboard...we live in a strange world.

Off-beat uses for embroidery are as an unusual encapsulated paperweight base; the prismatic effects of a whole dome crystal paperweight produces a distinctive effect that is most attractive. Another less unusual use of embroidery is as a framed wall plaque and faced with glass or perspex. This is most effective for personal souvenirs and mementos.