Creating impressive designs crafted from thread and a needle, embroidery has been part of human history since the late Paleolithic era. It’s a very cool bit of information, but you’d hardly want your custom embroidered T-shirts to seem like they came from that time. Keep your design looking great with these seven tips to take excellent care of your tees.
- Shirt care instructions are different from embroidery care.
Your T-shirt tag might say machine wash warm, but your stitched logo or artwork is what you need to pay careful attention to. Wash embroidered tees in cold water with a mild detergent on a delicate cycle to protect those soft threads. Better yet, hand wash the garment in your sink or a container that hasn’t held other residues or cleaners. If you use a washing machine, turn the shirt inside out and place it in a mesh laundry bag first.
- Wash embroidered garments alone.
Leave out jeans with metal buttons, zippered clothes and any other apparel that might have abrasive elements that can damage yarn or thread. A laundry bag is a good precaution, but you should care for clothes with embroidery on their own as well.
- Keep chlorine bleach or brightening products away.
Non-chlorine bleach is okay to use with embroidery cleaning, as long as your garment’s care instructions say it’s alright. Treat stains on the stitching with a mild remover and only let the agent sit for ten minutes.
- Do not wring or scrub.
On the subject of stain removal, you should never scrub at the decorative threads in your T-shirt. Brushes will tear at the fibers and give them a fuzzy look. Friction from scrubbing at it by hand will have the same effect. Any rubbing that’s necessary to clean out a stain should be done on the back of the fabric instead. Wringing out a wet tee with embroidery can stretch and distort the fibers, affecting the shape and neatness of your design. Roll your shirt in a towel to get excess water out.
- Never leave embroidered shirts to soak or sit in the washer while wet.
Sitting in water for more than 10 minutes will damage your artfully customized tees. Worse, being piled up in your washer can also distort the threads that make up your embroidery shirt design. It’s important to remove your tee from the washer the moment it’s done.
- Air dry your customized garments.
Avoid shrinkage, friction, stretching and fuzzy threads from the dryer. Ideally, you’d dry your embroidered tops on a flat surface. Line drying your shirts is acceptable if you don’t have the space to keep the tee flat.
- Iron carefully.
Direct heat damages these sewn stitches, so you always want to iron on a low setting and on the back of the garment. You can add more protection by ironing between two other clothing items. However you want to go about this, make sure your shirt is dry before you begin to iron. A sudden increase in heat can damage or misshape the threads.