Custom Apparel Printing

Custom Apparel Printing

The Unlimited Stitch offers several different personalization options for customizing apparel like school spirit wear, special occasion shirts, business wear and more.  These options include:

  • Embroidery
  • Heat transfer vinyl (HTV)
  • Digitally printed heat transfers
  • Sublimation printing

The Unlimited Stitch does NOT do what we would call “traditional” screen printing, which is often used for high-volume, low-cost printing needs.  As a smaller embroidery/printing shop, we pride ourselves on offering extraordinary customer service when it comes to supporting single item orders all the way up to requests of personalizing 100+ pieces with several other printing options.  We love customers bringing in your own items or choosing from our wide selection of items to be personalized with embroidery or printing. We love to work with customers who value the personal attention we offer to get just the items they need. 

Embroidery

Machine embroidery stitching is not only most sturdy and durable means of personalizing soft items, but also often viewed as the most professional and luxurious in terms of personalized items. With our multi-needle professional embroidery machines, oodles of thread colors, and unlimited font options, The Unlimited Stitch can get you looking fancy and sassy or super sharp and professional with impeccably stitched monograms and logos. 

Best used on: professional business wear, heavier weight materials, plush materials, items needed for long term use

Care Instructions:  Wash garment inside out.  Hand wash or machine wash in cold water with mild detergent.  Do not use bleach.  Dry at low temperatures and do not directly iron on the decoration. 

Heat Transfer Vinyl Applications

Heat transfer vinyl, HTV, is a specialty vinyl polymer that can be used on certain fabrics and materials to create designs and promotional products.  Utilizing heat transfer vinyl is a great option to create personalized apparel, business wear and spirit wear especially with single- or two-color designs without a lot of fine details.  With HTV coming in a large variety of colors and finishes like matte, glossy, metallic, and glitter, it can be a much more cost-effective means of personalizing than embroidery.  And with so many specialized heat-transfer vinyl available, we can find the best option available to utilize on the items you want personalized.

Best used for:  larger single- and two-color simple designs on all types of apparel, designs with specialty finishes like metallic, glitter, glossy, etc. 

Care Instructions:  Heat Transfer vinyl applications are rated 25-50 washes. Machine wash inside-out using mild detergent.  Do not use bleach. Dry at a normal dryer setting on household machines. Do not dry clean.

Digitally-Printed Heat Transfers

Utilizing a specialized white toner laser printer, full colored, high detailed prints can be heat transferred on all types and colors of apparel along with hard surfaced items.  This type of personalization is ideal for printing photos, personal artwork, handwritten messages, and detailed professional logos.  Digital heat transfers are toner-based inks that are laser printed, "married" to an adhesive, then heat transferred to garments. 

Best used for:  high detail, full color designs on cotton, polyester or polyblend garments

Care Instructions:  Digital transfer prints are rated for 10-40 washes, so we recommend that these garments are washed inside out in in a cold wash cycle and either air-dried or inside out on low in a dryer.

 

Sublimation Dye Printing

Sublimation dye printing can create some of the most colorful and permanent designs along with being the most durable and washable finished products.  Sublimation utilizes a special ink that transitions from a solid to a gas allowing it to bind directly to polyester fabric or other polymer-based surfaces when heat is applied.  Unlike vinyl or screen printing where the design is on the surface of the shirt or item, sublimation inks bind to the polyester in fabrics, plastic, ceramic, and other materials it is applied.  White blanks show the clearest and brightest results, but light colored 50/50 poly/cotton blend fabric  will yield a more faded finish appearance.

Best used for:  white or light colored polyester to 50/50 poly blend apparel, faded/retro designs, bleach-out after treatment designs

Care Instructions:  Make sure you wash your sublimated t-shirts inside out. Always wash colored and white or light-colored garments separately. Use cold or warm water to wash sublimated t-shirts.  Hot water damages the sublimation print quality. Use mild soap or detergent as hard detergents will degrade the fibers of the garment, therefor fading the design. When drying always use AIR dry or LOW heat settings for sublimation garments.

The Skinny on Screen-Printing...

Just because we don't do screen printing, doesn't mean we don't recommend it for certain applications.  Screen printing utilizes screens that have a design burned into them and specialized plastisol or water-based ink is squeezed through the screens and after it dries, it is stuck to the fabric. The washability of screen-printed items is very good and is recommended for heavy washed items.  Screen printing is highly economical when done in larger batches, but often not cost effective for orders of 10 or less items.  Costs also increase as you add colors to your designs.

Best use for:  large bulk orders