What Thread Weight Works Best for Logo Embroidery

There are many different ways to have your logo added to a piece of apparel. Recently, we covered the pros and cons of different options between direct-to-garment printing and embroidery techniques. Today, we wanted to dig a little deeper into embroidery.

Embroidery is a powerful technique for adding a logo to an item, but it's not as simple as designing a logo and having it added. There are decisions that need to be made along the way. One of those decisions is the kind of thread used in the embroidery.

What is Thread Weight in Embroidery?

Thread weight is similar to something like wire gauge. It's a measurement of how thick and coarse the thread is, with a smaller number being a larger, coarser thread.

Most often, thread weights come in multiples of ten. You'll see 30-weight thread, 50-weight thread, and even 100-weight thread. Weight is generally abbreviated as "wt.", so you'll see a "40 wt." thread.

Why is it called weight, though? With wire, gauge is a measurement of how big around the wire is, but that's not as easy to measure with thread, which is made up of fibers.

The weight of a thread is actually just that: a measurement of weight. Specifically, though, it's actually a measurement of length. Confused? Don't worry, it's pretty simple.

Thread weight is a number that indicates how many kilometers of that thread would be necessary to weigh one kilogram. A 40-weight thread would require 40 kilometers worth of thread to weigh one kilogram. A 30-weight thread is thicker and heavier, and as such, only 30 kilometers of the thread is necessary to add up to one kilogram of material.

While yes, this is a metric measurement, it actually derives from a similar measurement used in Japan, called the Gunze Count. Gunze Count is a bit more complex, though; a Gunze weight thread would be labeled as something like "#40/3" instead of "40 wt.". This is because it's also a measure of how many individual strands are wrapped into the singular thread. Since three is standard, most Gunze-labeled threads are /3.

Gauges are still used in textiles as well, but they're usually a measurement for yarns and other much larger strands, and aren't corresponding to the diameter the way they are in wire.

There are also other measurements of threads that might come up, but since we're primarily talking about weight, we're only going to cover them briefly.

• Denier. Denier is similar to weight as a relationship between length and weight; it's the number of grams a thread weighs when you have 9,000 meters, or 9 kilometers, of it. It functions the opposite of weight, in that the higher the number, the thicker the thread is. This is expressly used in embroidery, so it can come up a lot when discussing embroidery.
• Tex. Tex is the number of grams of one kilometer of thread. It's commonly used throughout North America, as opposed to some other measurements more commonly seen in Europe.
• Commercial. This is a measurement of heavy-weight commercial threads, and is just Denier times ten. A commercial size 92 thread would be a 920 Denier thread.

With embroidery, you're most likely to encounter either weight or Denier. Fortunately, the conversion between them is easy. To convert Weight to Denier, divide 9000 by the weight. A 50-weight thread would be 180 Denier. Similarly, to convert Denier to Weight, divide 9000 by the Denier.

Why Thread Weight is Important for Embroidery

Knowing what the weight means is useful, but it's also important to know why it matters. What's the difference between a thinner, lighter-weight thread and a thicker, heavier-weight thread when it comes to embroidery?

It affects the density of the embroidery.

You might have noticed that, when you order custom embroidery for a piece of apparel, you need to pay a fee to have your design, your logo, or your graphic converted into an embroidery pattern.

This is important because that pattern is dependent on the weight of the thread. The pattern tells an embroidery machine where to place the needle to stitch the thread, from start to finish.

If you set up a pattern for 40 wt. thread, and then you use 30 wt. thread in the machine, the pattern won't work very well. The finished design might be lumpy and misshapen, or lose fidelity in small details. It can also break the thread when the needle keeps adding more too close to existing thread, and can even jam up the machine.

On the other hand, if you use a much smaller thread, like a 60 wt. thread, it can leave the pattern looking thin and sparse. There might be more visible gaps between stitches, and the colors might not be as well fleshed out and filled in.

It affects the size of the needle used to stitch.

This makes sense, right? If the thread is bigger than the eye of the needle, it won't work. Most commercial embroidery machines can handle a certain range of thread, but if you want specialty designs or specialty threads, you might need specialty needles. This can also include threads with filament and metallic additions, which are often thicker than the thread might seem.

This is mostly relevant for the machines, but it can also be important in relation to the base material being embroidered. A heavy hat can take more of a beating than a relatively thin shirt, for example, so a heavier needle would be more viable in the heavier item. You don't want the embroidery to damage the underlying garment!

It affects the texture of the finished product.

One surprisingly important consideration is the comparison between the thread size and thread count of the base material and the embroidery.

Using a heavy-weight thread on a relatively lightweight garment can cause the garment to pucker and pull around the area being embroidered, and it won't lay flat. Over time and with use, the garment can warp and deform further, and can even tear around the embroidery.

Thread Material for Embroidery

While the weight of the thread is important, it's not the only choice you make relating to the thread you pick. You also have to think about the material.

This is also where we might have a touch of bad news for you. Here at Ethix, we're heavily focused on using sustainable materials whenever possible. We want to promote ethics in the garment industry, after all.

Here's the problem: the vast majority of threads for embroidery are going to be either rayon or polyester. Neither of these materials is all that sustainable, though rayon is slightly better than polyester. Neither is as good as sustainably-grown and processed cotton.

Cotton thread can be used for embroidery, but it's difficult. Cotton, being natural, has more friction associated with its use in embroidery. This causes fraying and pilling, as microfibers come loose in the process of embroidery. This means the machine needs to be stopped and cleaned more often, and it can leave the finished embroidery with a less flat and shiny appearance.

This means, as well, that cotton thread embroidery is often more expensive than using the more common and readily available synthetic materials. It can also take longer to finish larger orders, increasing turnaround times. These are considerations you need to keep in mind.

Which Thread Weight Should You Choose for Your Custom Embroidery?

There's a buried lede we've left out throughout this post.

Most of the time? You probably aren't going to be picking this information.

You will have the choice of the material for the thread used, within the boundaries of what the customization company is willing to do. They might just ask you to pick between rayon and polyester, or they might have cotton or silk as options. Sometimes, specialized metallic threads and other threads might also be available, though that tends to be both rare and expensive when it does happen.

You will also be able to choose the colors of threads you use. You might ask your embroiderer to color-match the base apparel, or pick something a few shades off for a subtle difference. Or, you might have a fixed design with pre-chosen colors. Usually, somewhere between 1 and 8 colors is acceptable, though the best recommendations are 1-4. The more colors you pack into a small design, the more likely they are to get lost and muddle the design.

What you don't usually choose is the weight of the thread. This is because there is, generally speaking, one right answer.

90% of the time, your design is going to work the best using 40 wt. thread for the embroidery. Sometimes, if the design is particularly small and intricate, or the specific nature of the materials calls for it, a 50 wt. thread might be used instead.

Anything with a heavier weight, like 30 wt. or 20 wt., is going to be too large and heavy to effectively embroider. These are best for hand stitching and for other non-embroidery tasks. Hand sewing might even use something as heavy as a 12 or 18 wt. thread.

A 60 wt. thread is also often used in embroidery, but for a specific purpose: as the bobbin thread. Bobbin thread is a thread that goes on the back side of the embroidered design. It is, in a sense, the framework on which the design is held, rather than that of the underlying fabric. Bobbin thread is almost always 60 wt. unless it's a special-purpose thread. It's also a very strong thread, even if it's thin, because it's meant to be under tension and maintain the spacing and size of the design when it's finished.

One of the mistakes many novice embroiderers make, in fact, is to do what you would with a home sewing machine and wind a bobbin based on the top stitch thread, and use the same thread for both. This often leads to a warped design with a lot of hassle along the way. Fortunately, pros won't run into these issues.

Usually, when you're ordering custom embroidery, one of the first steps in the process is to upload your design to have it digitized for embroidery. This digitized design converts your basic graphic into an embroidery guide, which tells the embroidery machine how and where to stab with the thread to create the design.

This design, as mentioned above, is reliant on the right thread weight for the thread being used. If you have a mismatch between the design and the thread weight, you'll end up with a bad finished product.

That's a big part of why professional embroidery companies won't have you decide the thread weight. Most people aren't expected to know these kinds of intricacies, let alone make the right decision.

Instead, you'll just be asked questions about how you want your design to look.

• Do you want the design to have a shiny or matte finish?
• Do you want it to be more robust or with thinner, less visible stitches?
• How many colors do you want in your design?
• How intricate is your design, and how stark do the details need to be?

These decisions, as well as decisions about the underlying base material, are going to determine the choice of thread. Some threads are harder to find or use in thinner weights or thicker weights, for example, so your goals might require a specific thread weight.

So, how do you choose which thread weight works best for your uniform logo embroidery? You don't. You let the professionals handle that detail for you. All you need is your logo and design, your goals, the choice of apparel you want embroidered, and details like the color, number of items you need made, and ideal turnaround time. Everything else, you let us handle for you.

If you're interested in getting something embroidered, your first step is to check out our store and see what appeals to you. Unfortunately, not every item can be embroidered, so check the product descriptions and look for "embroidery included" or "embellishment: embroidered" to make sure. You can also just reach out and talk to us about your goals, and we can recommend which products we can embroider for you.