3D Embroidery with Puffy Foam

Puffy Foam Embroidery takes regular designs and gives them the 3D pizazz your customers will love!

Puffy Foam Embroidery brings modest, flat designs to life!

Are you willing to add a little “puff” to your embroidery?

A simple touch of plush backing for flats or caps transforms a two-dimensional image into a three-dimensional impression that is one of the hottest fashion designs.

From team logo hats and monogrammed jackets to shirts with geometric or floral designs, puff embroidery can be a welcome addition to the product line of any embroidery machine shop.

Puffy Foam Embroidery Simplified

Most shops shy away from puffy embroidery, thinking it is extremely difficult or labor-intensive. That is simply not true! Customers are demanding increasingly creative designs, and will seek you out when they know you provide this service.

Since puff embroidery builds around technique, labor and inexpensive materials such as foam backing, you can easily move the finished designs at a premium price. Puffy foam embroidery works extremely well on caps and hats, often high-profit items to begin with. Buying basic materials from an embroidery supplier will ensure you are always ready for a quick one-off or special production run.

From Stump to Puffy

Puff embroidery developed as a type of stump work. Stump work is an embroidery technique where figures are raised from the base of the material, giving a three dimensional appearance. There are several ways to create a 3D effect.

The most popular feature of stump work is embroidered designs stitched on base cloth and then attached to the garment or other material. A prime example is of an embroidered patch. The method makes it seem as though the design is 3D, but it is an optical illusion. The most designs in stump work are flowers, petals and logos. A few stump work designs are on wire frames sewn onto the base cloth.

Everyone Loves 3D

Puff embroidery takes stump work further, by actually raising the design off the base fabric.

Mastering the art of puffy embroidery can make your shop sought-after and highly profitable. Almost any design can take on a new excitement when you add an extra dimension with foam underneath the design.

Sold in a wide range of colors, foam backing is easy to match to embroidery thread color. Choose the right color to help the foam blend with the thread if some should show through.

Enclosed designs are best suited for puffy foam embroidery. Look for circles or shapes that taper to a point. Designs should have satin stitch areas large enough to hold the foam.

It’s All About Layering

• In creating puff embroidery, the top layers of the design should be denser than base layers. This will be almost double the average density. Adjust your commercial embroidery machine software to manage stitch density, increase the concentration of underlay stitches, keeping them closer together. Then put a thick layer of satin stitches on top.
• If your system does not have the ability to adapt density values, you can sew the satin areas twice.
• Stitch fill areas that precede the satin areas you want to puff. Before stitching any satin areas, put a piece of the foam in the area of the design. You can try a small amount of embroidery spray adhesive to keep it in place.
• Stitch the underlay, or a base of satin stitches. After the under layer is finished, carefully pull off the excess foam. Stitch the final layer to encase the foam.
• During the process, perforate the foam enough so it will be easy to remove, at the same time securely encase the foam under the satin stitches.
• Remove any stray hairs of foam by placing a pressing cloth over the finished design, pressing gently with an iron by hand. The little foam bits will shrink up and disappear.

Puffy embroidery is an easy and exciting way of giving depth and texture to a variety of items. Using it can add a touch of style to flat 2D designs, making them more attractive to your customers. Add some puff to a cap, and watch them fly out the door!

To learn more about making puffy foam embroidery a part of your product lineup, contact ColDesi.com or call 877-793-3278.

Do you have any tips for innovative designs with puff embroidery? Let us know in the comments!