Meet my Redline 1501. This is a 15-needle embroidery machine which is very much like the Tajima machine that one would find in a local embroidery shop (or they may just have the Redline instead! You never know). It stitches better and faster than a standard home machine. It comes with a nice collection of different sized embroidery hoops and a cap hoop (so you can embroider caps).
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| Hoops I used today: the "A" hoop (550mmx350mm ) and the "" hoop, a 120mm round hoop. |
Today, I put it to work stitching logos on 4 polo shirts and one woven made by me camp shirt for my husband who is a Patent Agent and has his own business. It's great advertising for his Patent business and for my embroidery business since some people ask him where he got his shirts printed and he send them to me.
I tend to do small runs of embroideries as opposed to most shops which typically have a minimum order amount. Since I don't sell caps or shirts, customers provide their own embroiderable items. An advantage is that this means a customer can prewash the garments - and discover whether or not it shrinks to a too small size - before embroidering. They can also try on the garment before embroidering to ensure it will fit properly.
How many times have you gotten a shirt from your company only to discover that the sizing for the shirts is atypical and you now have a shirt 2 sizes too small with your company's logo on it? I have experienced that too many times to count. The "women's" sizes are sometimes 2 or 3 sizes smaller than normal sizes such that the so-called XL is actually about the size of a regular man's size small, rendering it way too small for me, and even if it can stretch enough to fit me it would squeeze me like a sausage casing and isn't the look one wants for work.
Back to embroidery and fun machines:
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| Redline embroidering "That Patent Guy®" above the pocket (Yes, that's his registered trademark) |
 | Right side of the Redline on its stand. You can see the cap hoop and extra bobbins stored underneath on the stand. I added a mini shelf on the bottom so I could use the space to store tools and other items I'd need while using the machine. I think it needs one more shelf, but I can make do with what's there. |
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| Finished embroidery above pocket. Still hooped to show how it fits. Note how nicely the round hoops handle the fabric. Home machines often have square hoops that will result in wrinkled fabric near the corners. The wrinkles in the square hoops is what contributes to some registration errors that people experience with embroidering using home machines. Also, home machines don't always have free-arm embroidery - the Redline does what they call tube embroidery, which means a narrow tube is what the item to be embroidered has to fit over such that almost any fabric item can be embroidered without having to take it apart. |
 | Left side of the Redline on its stand. You can see the cap hooping device attached below the machine and stuff stored underneath on the stand. |
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| Fronts of the 5 shirts embroidered today. Each shirt is slightly different, so it's nice to see that the Redline managed to embroider all 5 fabrics without issues. The only issue I had was with the white thread, which I later determined was due to a needle that needed to be changed. As soon as I changed the needle for the white, I had no more thread breaks. |
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| Adjusting the Hoop holders from narrow setting for the "E" hoop to wide setting for the "A" hoop. The Redline hoops are held on both left and right sides, making the hoop more stable. Most home machines only hold the hoop from one side, which can result in bad stitching because the hoop isn't held steady from opposing sides. |
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| Bolts tightened and in place. |
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| Right side hoop holder being tightened using an allen wrench. Love the Warning stickers on this machine: you will die if you touch this in the wrong spot. |
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| Dialog on the control panel. Release embroidery to switch from chest logo to back logo |
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| Selecting the back logo |
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| "Confirm embroidery" to pull in back logo for use. |
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Back logo loaded.
Guess why I set this logo up to be embroidered upside down? |
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| Embroidering back logo. Note that I'm embroidering it upside down... hmmmmmm. |
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Yes, it ends up right side up... so why did I embroider it upside down?
Answer: because the opening at the bottom of the shirt is much wider than the opening at the neck. The hoop is slightly wider than the shoulder width of this XL shirt. Yes, that shirt is men's XL, and the hoop is wider than that, so to ensure that the machine can cleanly embroider the full width of the logo, I turned the design upside down so I could put it into the machine bottom first to ensure that it cleanly embroiders. |
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| View from behind the embroidery head as it's embroidering |
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| Operator's view of embroidering back logo |
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| Looking through the neck of the shirt. The bright square is the tube where the bobbin lives. You can see the partial embroidery at the top of the image. |
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The back logos of the five shirts. I folded down the tops of the shirts so that all 5 could fit into the photo. I I didn't fold them neatly so the shirts are crooked and wrinkled, but there they are.
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Guy was very pleased with the addition to his wardrobe given that several of his shirts have worn out and he needed more new ones. At least this time we have a wider variety of colors for him to choose among.
If you have been thinking about getting a multi needle embroidery machine, do consider purchasing a Redline. It's a great machine at an excellent price point and is certainly much better than a single needle machine.
Although all these designs are single color designs, the multi needle machines really shine when embroidering designs of many colors because the machine can change colors without user input.
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| A hat I embroidered. Digitized the design, too. |
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