Ham radio operators often wear clothing or tags with their call signs. This helps them recognize other people that they've talked to on the radio, but might never have seen in person. A friend recently got her first ham radio license and I thought I would surprise her with a gift of a shirt with her own call sign on it.
I bought a simple solid color T-shirt. I was careful to choose one that wasn't quite as thin as some of the ones being sold -- the embroidery needs some kind of decent substrate and I'm sure the recipient would like to wear the shirt more than once or twice.
Step 1 is to design the embroidery. Since only simple letters are required, it would have been possible to just use my embroidery machine to do the design. However, I decided to use my Floriani Total Control software instead. using the software gives me a much larger choice of fonts. I chose simple block letters for the call sign, since that's the usual and customary choice. I opted for a more script look for her name.
Step 2 is to do the embroidery. I attended the International Quilt Show in Houston last month. There were thousands of vendors and some of them had products related to embroidery.
This tape claims to be just the thing when you are trying to keep parts of a garment away from the hoop and the needle, which can be a real challenge when dealing with T-shirts.
The tape proved to be noticeably stickier than painter's tape and to be capable of holding the shirt very well. It left no residue on the fabric. Overall, this new to me product met my expectations.
There you have it: a simple project, a review of a new product, and a happy ending.
Come back next week for a new fun project that involves a sewing machine!
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