12 common machine embroidery mistakes and how to fix them

Mistakes at the hoop and stabilizer

1. Using the wrong stabilizer (or none)

Symptom: puckering around the design, fill areas that sink, outlines that drift after washing. Cause: tear-away on a knit, or no stabilizer at all. Fix: cut-away for anything that stretches (t-shirts, fleece, piqué polos), tear-away for stable wovens (twill, denim, canvas), and a water-soluble topping over terry, fleece and any napped fabric so stitches do not sink.

2. Stretching the fabric in the hoop

Symptom: the fabric looks fine while stitching, then puckers like a raisin when unhooped. Cause: knit fabric pulled drum-tight in the hoop relaxes afterwards and the stitches cannot follow. Fix: hoop knits smooth but relaxed, use spray adhesive to hold the fabric to a cut-away stabilizer, and use the smallest hoop that fits. See hoop sizes explained.

3. Hoop burn and marks

Symptom: a shiny ring or crushed pile around the embroidery on fleece, velvet or towels. Cause: over-tightened hoop on a napped fabric. Fix: float the item on hooped stabilizer with adhesive, use a magnetic hoop, or steam the ring out with a damp cloth from the back.

Mistakes with needle and thread

4. Thread breaks every few hundred stitches

Causes, in order of likelihood: an old or burred needle, thread path threaded wrong or snagged, top tension too tight, a design with density too high, or cheap thread. Fix: change the needle first (a needle is good for roughly 8 hours of stitching), rethread with the presser foot up, check for a nick on the needle plate, then look at the design density.

5. Bobbin thread showing on top

Symptom: little white dots along satin columns. Cause: top tension too tight relative to the bobbin, or a bobbin case out of adjustment. Fix: loosen top tension slightly; on satin lettering the ideal is about one-third bobbin and two-thirds top thread visible on the back. Clean lint from the bobbin area while you are there.

6. Bird nests under the needle plate

Symptom: a tangle of thread under the fabric that jams the machine. Cause: top thread not seated in the tension discs (threaded with the foot down), or the thread caught on the spool. Fix: always thread with the presser foot up, use a thread net on slippery cones, and stop at the first sign of looping.

7. Wrong needle size

Symptom: holes in fine fabric, or skipped stitches on heavy fabric. Fix: 75/11 embroidery needle for most work, 65/9 or 70/10 with 60-weight thread for small lettering, 90/14 for denim and caps, ballpoint for knits.

Mistakes in the design file

8. Resizing a finished design too far

Symptom: gaps in the fill after enlarging, or a stiff plate after shrinking. Cause: stitch files have a fixed stitch count; scaling by more than 10 to 20 percent changes the density. Fix: go back to the editable project file and regenerate at the new size. If you only have the stitch file, keep changes within 10 percent. See DST vs PES vs JEF.

9. Lettering too small for the stitch type

Symptom: letters fill in, "e" and "a" become blobs. Cause: satin lettering under 5 mm (0.2 in) tall, or a thin, high-contrast font. Fix: use a simple bold font, at least 5 mm tall, 60-weight thread for small text, or switch to running stitch. See how to digitize lettering.

10. Missing underlay and pull compensation

Symptom: satin looks flat and sinks; columns come out thinner than drawn with gaps between letters and outline. Fix: add center-run or zigzag underlay under satin, edge-run plus light fill under large fills, and 0.2 to 0.5 mm of pull compensation depending on fabric stretch. See stitch types.

11. Outlines that do not line up

Symptom: the running-stitch outline sits beside the fill instead of on its edge. Causes: fabric shifting in the hoop (see 1 and 2), poor registration in the file, or the outline stitched before the fill. Fix: fix hooping first; in the file, make fills slightly overlap under outlines and always sew outlines last.

The mistake that causes all the others

12. Skipping the test sew-out

Every new design, every new fabric, every new thread brand: stitch it once on a scrap of the same fabric with the same stabilizer before touching the customer's garment. A test costs five minutes and a square of fabric; a ruined customer polo costs the polo, your time and the customer's trust.

Before the test, run the design in a simulator. The Meus Bordados editor shows stitch count, estimated time, color order and jumps and trims, so you catch density and sequencing problems on screen. See Colors and stitching order.

Quick troubleshooting table