My First Monogrammed T-Shirt

Today I Monogrammed a simple White V-Neck T-shirt that I purchased at our local Wall Mart! This was a pretty easy project to do with my Brother PE500, step-by-step it only takes about 30mins to complete. 

The first thing you want to do is lay your t-shirt out flat on a table or even surface.

Next, you want to insert and tighten your hoop, because this is the first one I have done I am not quite positive about the spacing yet. I use stabilizer on both sides of the design, I have found that stabilizer on both sides make the design pop a little more as well as it is more stable. 

Because a T-shirt has a back and it is not flat, you must group the rest of the shirt around the hoop so that you do not embroider trough the back of the shirt! It will look like this...

After this is done you can go ahead and put your T-shirt on the machine. I suggest going through the back because there is less fabric to pull through that way. Make sure your hoop is secured on the machine.

You can complete this step before or after you import your design onto your machine. I create my designs using Embrilliance software. This is convenient because I am able to see what my designs will look like before they are embroidered. Once your design is imported it will show up in your machine, from here you can select and edit your design.

Thread your needle, and then lower your foot (the lever is in the back). The green light will come on and if you are satisfied with your design hit the green button. Let the machine do the rest of the work! 

When your machine is completely done embroidering it will stop and a message will appear that says "finished sewing", select OK and remove your hoop from the machine.

You need to make sure you cut the thread from the front and from the back of the deign, I find it is easier to do this while it is still on the hoop. Once you remove the T-shirt from the hoop you can remove the stabilizer from the front and back. 

Once you have removed all of the extra thread, the hoop and the stabilizer your project is complete! Since this was my first T-shirt my spacing was about half an inch off, the hoop needs to be placed with the right side lined up almost perfectly with the point of the "V" in the shirt. Overall, this was a great first T-shirt!

Most of these steps can be followed with almost all items that you want to monogram/embroider. Remember, use 2 pieces (top and bottom) of stabilizer when doing anything thin, or any type of towel, washcloth...etc. Please feel free to comment with questions or any other comments. I hope you enjoy your PE500!!