Thinking about adding a heat seal machine? The Embroidery Store is now a distributor for the Geo. Knight brand of top-quality machines in a range of price points and models.

With the growing trend of embroidery businesses to expand into a wide range of heat-applied graphics and digital direct-to-garment printing, The Embroidery Store is now offering a full line of heat presses manufactured by well-known supplier Geo. Knight & Co. You can now find a press for any size budget or production volume. Styles include clam shell, swingaway, combination, T-shirt, mug, and even low-cost home use presses.

Adding a heat press to your business allows you to apply screen printed, sublimation, or digital transfers as well as heat seal letters and numbers and embroidered appliqués.

Direct-to-garment digital prints also require heat pressing after printing. All presses come with warranties and phone support and trouble-shooting is included in the price of the press.

Add new revenue streams to your embroidery business with a heat seal press. You can offer all kinds of heat-applied graphics such as custom transfers, athletic team numbering, and heat-applied rhinestones.

Expand Your Shop's Services With The Jet Press Machine

Give your embroidered pieces a more professional, finished look and expand your shop's capabilities with the JetPress 14 Swing-Away heat seal machine available from The Embroidery Store. This start-up level heavy-duty press offers a lot of value at an economical cost and it's ideal for applying any type of digital or screen printed transfers, heat seal letters and numbers, or heat seal embroidery appliqués.

This solid steel welded frame press has a 12-inch by 14-inch heat platen, a digital countdown timer with alarm, and is adjustable for items more than 1-inch thick. It also has an adjustable temperature control and gauge, a smooth swing-away action, and a silicone pad pressuring surface. The heating indicator light lets you know when the press is on, and it has a modular cord and plug. It comes with a one-year warranty.

The press weighs 60 pounds so it's light enough to take to on-site events. It measures 25 inches deep by 16 inches wide by 24 inches high and needs 1200 w/10A/120v.

Mark Reed, On-The-Balls®, Urbandale, Iowa, who owns a Ballstars photo transfer ball system, got two stories in his local newspapers the first six months he was in business. He simply called the business editor of the Des Moines Register and asked if she would like to do a story on him. Photo courtesy of On-The-Balls, Urbandale, Iowa.

A perfect example of a topic that may make a good press release is a shop tour. Greg Kitson, president, Mind's Eye Graphics, conducts regular tours of his business to potential customers and others interested. By announcing this to the press, you may find yourself picking up a few new prospects. Photo courtesy of Mind's Eye Graphics, Decatur, Ind.

If you print for a well-known local event, let the media know you are the printer. You might work together with the event organizer to send sample shirts out to the media with a press release announcing the event and you as the T-shirt guy. Photo courtesy of Pro Screen, Welsh, Louisiana.

How To Get Free Publicity

Want to get your company mentioned in the local press? It's not as hard as you think!

By Deborah Sexton

Small businesses without big budgets need every edge they can get when marketing and promoting their products and services. And one of the greatest untapped resources is the power of the press release.

What many decorators don't realize is that newspapers, magazines, radio stations, and TV stations rely on press releases to inform them of many newsworthy events. Many times a company is spotlighted, or mentioned simply because they sent a press release to their local media and the information caught an editor's eye.

The trick to getting press releases to work for your company is to recognize what makes information newsworthy and learning how to package it and get it to the right person.

The first step is to compile a comprehensive media list. It should include newspapers, business magazines, association publications, TV stations, and radio stations. It also should include your national trade publications in industries you are involved in such as Printwear, IMPRESSIONS, Stitches, and CorelDRAW Pro.

When creating your list, in addition to identifying print and broadcast outlets, it's critical to get a contact name. Sending something addressed to "editor" is not sufficient. Invest a day on the phone to call and get the contact name, phone number, and e-mail of the right person to send to.

When you make the call, if you end up talking to the actual contact person, be personable and engage the editor in conversation if you can. Offer to provide interviews, photos, or background information any time there is a need. Chat with the editor about who you are and what you do. When a topic comes up that is related to your company's products and services, you will be the first person that editor thinks of when he starts compiling his interview list.

What Is News?

Once you've got your list, you need to identify what makes a press release. One activity you should be doing at least several times a week is reading and watching your local media and making mental notes of what type of stories were featured. Here are some examples:

Grand openings. A new business often has a grand opening. Sometimes an existing business gets a new owner or remodels or revamps and has a grand opening. To make it newsworthy, it has to be more involved than just stating you're having a grand opening. Have refreshments, giveaways, a contest, or tours to make it newsworthy.

New Business. If you are a brand-new business, many publications have a section where they publish this type of announcement.

Business Profile. Many publications regularly profile companies. Do not assume because you are not a well-known, high-volume business that you are not worthy of being profiled. What's more important is the owner's willingness to offer ideas and advice that other businesses might benefit from.

Open Houses. Anytime you host an open house, you should send out a press release announcing it to the press. It should include activities, which might be a demonstration or a free seminar on how to promote your company through embroidered apparel and door prizes or some other type of giveaway.

Garage Sale. A common practice among decorators to unload misprints, overprints, or merchandise no one ever picked up is a garage sale. Make it an event and sent out an announcement release with a photo of your building. Be sure to take lots of photos during your event to send out with next year's release.

Charities. Printing for charity events or donating merchandise is usually press worthy. Include details on how many shirts you printed, where they were sold, how much money was raised, and who benefited. If you print for the same charity every year, each year you send out a release that says, "For the 10 th year, my company printed the official benefit shirts, etc."

Anniversary. When you are celebrating a 10th , 15th , 25th , etc. anniversary, this can be press worthy. To get it in the paper, you need to do something to celebrate it. Perhaps you order a giant cake and print anniversary T-shirts and all visiting clients get a piece of cake and a free T-shirt. Or any customer for that week who comes in and says "Happy Birthday," gets a free cap. Or you might mention milestones, like in the past 10 years you printed 1.5 million shirts, raised $10,000 dollars for charity, or had X amount of hours accident free.

Recognition, Awards, Prizes. Anytime you are recognized in any way, that's a press release. Examples include being named business of the year by the chamber of commerce, being recognized for your volunteer efforts with a service organization, being named as an officer or to the board of an organization, or winning or placing in an industry decorating contest such as those sponsored by Printwear, Stitches, EMB, SGIA, or IMPRESSIONS.

Celebrity shirts. Is a celebrity coming to your town? See if you can present him/her with a shirt either in person or vicariously. Try to get a photo of the celebrity either wearing the shirt or holding it. Or if you already do work for a celebrity, ask if you might get a promo shot to send to the press.

Disasters. Hurricane Katrina, floods, fires, 9-11. Many people in our industry respond to disasters by printing shirts that are sold to raise money. Let the media know what you are doing. They can help you sell more shirts, raise more money, and gain some exposure for your shop all at the same time.

Final Words of Advice

The more press releases you send out, the more familiar local editors become with your company and what it does. This can generate positive publicity for your business. When you send in photos, be sure to include information to write a caption. Describe what's in the photo and be sure to identify all the people. This saves the editor the time of making a phone call to get this information and gives you a better chance of being included.

Reprinted with permission from Printwear, September 2006 issue

A great way to build jacket sales in your local high school is have a student wear a jacket. Photo courtesy of BuildYourJacket.com.

The Selling Power of Samples

Seeing is believing. Try presenting some custom samples to a targeted list of customers and watch sales grow.

By Phil Morris

When selling embroidery, one sample is worth 1,000 words. You can try to describe to a potential client what their logo will look like on the left chest of a red three-button placket shirt with a yellow drop shadow, but mostly likely they will look at you in much the same way a cow looks at a new gate. The ability to visualize something is a gift that is lacking in most people.

Describing the finished product to your customer doesn't compare to presenting them a beautifully embroidered shirt with their company logo and name. Not only does this appeal to their egos, but the richness of the thread colors and the texture of the fabric all play a part in selling the shirt. You may be pleasantly surprised at how effective creating and showing samples will increase orders.

Obviously it is impossible to create a sample for every potential client so when is a good time to invest in creating a sample? A great time is once you have sold the idea but are still building the order. For example, a few years ago an embroiderer came up with a jacket design for a church softball team. The jacket was denim with khaki sleeves and had JRBC SPORTS on the back in tackle twill. It looked really nice, but the team had only 12 members, which made the per-unit cost high.

At my suggestion, the church representative took the jacket and showed it to other members of the church with the idea that people other than team members would like one. If the order could be doubled to 24 jackets, they could get a better price. When all was said and done the final order was for 250 jackets and the team used it as a fund-raiser to pay for uniforms. All because a sample was used as a selling tool.

Another great use of samples is in buzz marketing. The idea here is to present your sample to an appropriate user group. Members see the sample, creating a demand for the item resulting in lots of orders. All you need is a group with a common interest (club, school, hobby, etc.) and a member to show the sample around. Friends and family are perfect to recruit for this. Find out what clubs and groups they belong to and collaborate on an appropriate sample. Inside information is the key to selecting the right embroidered item and creating a desirable design. Getting just the perfect bass fish, Arabian horse, or breed of Scotty dog makes all the difference to those in the know. Your recruit gets to keep the sample in exchange for his or her efforts.

A couple of embroiderers have told me the way they got into doing work for their local schools was to make spirit shirts for their kids to wear to school. When the other students saw them, of course they had to have one too! Then more kids saw them who had to have one and it didn't take long for the various booster clubs to get involved and then the orders really started flowing.

Take a chance. Build a sample. You will get orders!

Phil Morris is national sales manager for The Embroidery Store home division. Morris has been in the decorated apparel industry for the past 22 years in a variety of sales and marketing positions.

Depending on the design, the outline stitch may or may not be the first color that is sewn. However, it is the first step in the appliqué portion. It is a running stitch that delineates the area that must be covered by fabric. It is then easy to position the appliqué pieces where they need to go. Photo courtesy of Dalco Athletic Lettering

In this design, you can see that the fill stitches come completely to the outline with no show-through peeking through. To accomplish this, you must use pull compensation. Because fabric distorts as it is sewn, you must compensation by digitizing stitches that appear to go past the outline on screen but sew properly when the design is run. Photo courtesy of Designs Today, Lexington, S.C.

One of the fun things about doing appliqué is you have an almost limitless choice of fabrics. You can choose fabrics that have texture, such as fake fur, to simulate animals or plaid for the back-to-school look.

How To Do appliqué

Been apprehensive about trying appliqué? It's easier than you may think.

By Barb Geer

appliqué, which is the process of inserting a piece of fabric to cover a specific area of a design, has been around for a long time. Home sewers have been applying appliqué with sewing machines since the machine was invented. Before that, appliqués were applied with hand stitches on everything from quilts to party dresses.

There are many reasons to use appliqué in embroidery designs; however, the biggest reason is to save time. Time is money, and time saved is money in the bank. You can spend just a few seconds applying an appliqué to cover a space that could involve anywhere from 10,000 to 90,000 stitches of embroidery. That's a lot of time!

I've been surprised at how many people fear appliqué that I run into while teaching appliqué classes at shows. Reactions range from "I love it!" to "I don't do appliqué!" But the most baffling response is, "I'm afraid to try it." Once you've attempted an appliqué, you'll realize how simple the process is and you will never be afraid again. There are only three parts to an appliqué, the outline, the tack down and the border. It's that easy.

Setting Up an appliqué Design

Digitizing appliqué is just as easy as stitching an appliqué. Digitize the design just as you would any other, placing the appliqué in the proper sequence. I always work from the back of the picture to the front. I try to give the same depth to the design when I am looking at actual objects. Some things are farther away and should be placed toward the back and digitized first. Closer things are digitized last so they will be at the front. Decisions about when to place the appliqué fabric will be determined by its location in the design.

The first step in designing an appliqué is the outline, which is a single running stitch that follows the shape of the appliqué. A color stop following this line will allow for placement of the fabric.

The second step is the tackdown. Some people like to use a zig-zag stitch, which is created by using a light density column. Others prefer another running stitch to hold the fabric in place. If you choose the running stitch, remember to place that line inside of the outline so it will catch the fabric and hold it in place. The final step is the outline, usually a column that covers the edges of the fabric, holding it permanently in place, preventing it from fraying, and providing a pleasing finish to the project.

Stitching the appliqué

Step One - Outline

Depending on the design, the outline stitch may or may not be the first color that is sewn. However, it is the first step in the appliqué portion. It is a running stitch that delineates the area that must be covered by fabric. When the order is small, we use a piece of fabric to cover the area and cut it after the tackdown. We cut the excess fabric away while it's still on the machine by sliding a scissors around the edge.

However, if the order is sizable, we have the pieces precut for the design to save time. Remember, time is money, especially when compensating employees, and it may be more cost-effective to order precut fabric. High-production embroidery houses have their own cutters.

In any case, the outline stitch also is the pattern by which the pieces are cut. Some digitizers provide a pattern for cutting. More often than not; however, that is not the case. You can separate the outline from the design by layering off the color and have the pattern you need to cut the fabric.

When programming the embroidery machine, I recommend using a thread color that contrasts the color of the garment. It will be easier to see, and will be covered by the border stitches. Also remember you need a pause programmed at the point you place the fabric and another when you want to cut. If you're not cutting, you only need one pause.

Step Two - Tackdown

Some digitizers use a zig-zag stitch or a low-density satin stitch for the tackdown. I find this difficult to trim around if I am cutting the fabric as I go. I prefer a running stitch that goes around the design twice. Once around the design does not provide the stability that is necessary for those who are cutting the fabric during this stage, but the second pass holds the fabric tightly, and it doesn't add many stitches.

Again, when programming the color stops for the machine, I like to use a thread that I can see during this step. It helps avoid mishaps with scissors as the excess fabric is trimmed.

Some choose to apply a spray adhesive to the back to hold the fabric in place. I do not like how the spray gums up my needles, so I just hold the fabric in place while the tackdown stitch does its job, keeping my fingers carefully away from the needle! On a multihead machine that cannot be done, so a spray adhesive is necessary.

Following the tackdown stitches, if the pieces have been cut ahead of time, just start the machine for the next step. If not, simply slide your scissors around the outside of the tackdown to trim away the excess fabric, staying as close to the stitching as possible.

Step Three - The Border

At this point, you can move on to another project, because the manual portion of the appliqué procedure is finished. The rest of the process is taken care of by the embroidery machine. Once you program the colors for the rest of the design, and you can let the machine do its job. When it's finished, iron the design to adhere the fabric to the garment. We use a heat press, set at 370 degrees for 10 seconds, but an old fashioned iron also does the trick.

Barbara Geer, president, Grand Slam Designs, an embroidery stock design and contract digitizing operation, has been in the decorated apparel industry since 1990. She is a popular speaker at commercial decorated apparel and home embroidery events. She also is a frequent contributor to commercial and home embroidery publications such as EMB, Stitches, and Printwear. You may reach Barbara at 800-569-8138; 218-222-3501; e-mail barb@grandslamdesigns.com or visit her Web site at www.grandslamdesigns.com .