A faux leather commonly made from a blend of cotton and polyurethane, which allows it to breathe and withstand dry cleaning. Available in a variety of textures, colors and weights.

Stitches in a design that are put down before the design stitches; used to stabilize the fabric or raise the design so that the fine detailing is not lost.

The name used for a stitch that is formed with a needle and bobbin thread. The needle thread is interlocked with the bobbin thread to form a stitch. On apparel sewing applications other than embroidery, a well-balanced lockstitch will use the same amount of needle thread as bobbin thread. On embroidery applications, this is not true because you never want to see the bobbin thread on the topside of the sewn product. Therefore the needle thread is held on the underneath side by the bobbin thread.

Result of the fabric being gathered by the stitches. Causes include incorrect density, loose hooping, insufficient backing, or incorrect thread tensions.

 A degree of distortion built into a design by the digitizer to compensate for the push or pull on the fabric caused by the embroidery stitches. This can help prevent a digitized circle from looking like an egg shape when sewn out. Generally, it is necessary to extend horizontal elements and reduce vertical elements.

Correct registration is achieved when all stitches and design elements line up correctly. Poor registration can occur when the product being embroidered had not been hooped properly, improper digitizing, and excessive flagging.

The up and down motion of the material with the needle that is caused by improper hooping, the presser foot not being properly adjusted (too much clearance with needle plate), and improper fabric stabilization (incorrect backing). Named because of its resemblance to a waving flag. Flagging generally causes improper needle loop formation that can lead to skipped stitches and thread breakage. Flagging can also negatively impact the appearance of the finished product resulting in poor design registration.

Produced from cocoons of wild tussah silkworms that eat oak and juniper leaves. It’s most commonly available in its natural color (a creamy tan) becuase it’s difficult to dye. Tussah works well for travel garments because it’s wrinkle resistant.

Barnabee, Sue. Creative Machine Embroidery, July/August, 2010, page 18.