I embroider names on a lot of martial arts Gi belts. I use a Toyota 850 with the Fast Frames hoop for belts. I have been asked to embroider the masters stripes on his belt. He is a 7th degree black and red belt. The stripes need to go all the way around. I can get the bobbin and top thread to match so that it looks like on stripe, but is there a way to embroider all the way to the very edge of the belt so that it looks like it goes around to the other side? I was thinking of tacking it down to a flat fast frame hoop with backing. and sewing it past the belt a little into the backing. Would this work? And how would it look after I removed the backing. The stripes will be visible on both sides of the belt.
Tony at Twin Dragon Embroidery
tonysembroidery@earthlink.net
Re: embroidering on Gi Belts
The owner of the belt requested the embroidery. Before, he had hand sewn pieces of a white shoelaces around the belt. What I ended up doing was just embroidering to the very edge of the belt. The needle would move off the belt on the first stitch and set off the thread break alarm. The thread was not actually broken, I just hit the reset, and kept on sewing. It worked just fine. Once the frame of the stripe was sewn, the machine could embroider all the way to the edge with no problem. It would also stretch out the belt enough that the next stripe didn't have that problem. I had to do this for nine stripes. He loved it. The thing is, he wanted each of the nine stripes to be equal in size and distance as well as the red material underneath. So that it looked like both the red and white stripes were equal.
Re: embroidering on Gi Belts
Why dont you just sew a white piece of fabric on with a sewing machine? Seems that would be much easier and would accomplish the same thing. I do a lot of Jiu Jitsu and have been toying with this same idea. The embroidering of the stripe seemed to be a lot more work than just sewing on a white stripe.
Re: embroidering on Gi Belts
I don't think I'd sew past the edge of the belt. You'd most likely be using tearaway, right, as it will be seen from both sides, so there would be no structure for the extra stitches when you removed the stablizer. Would it be possible to sew right to the edge and then use permanent fabric markers in your embroidery colors to touch up the ends?
I'd be interested to know how you decide to do it and how it works out.
--Liz
Re: embroidering on Gi Belts
I would sew to about 1/8 inch to the edge, then hand sew the wraparound remaining.
Modern Embroidery Designer
volant-tech.com
volantfineart.com