Help with converting vector to "stitch" format?

[johnnygriswold]

Thanks in advance for any help or insight...

Below is a custom logo that I created for my band and I'd like to create a custom embroidered crest to place on a hockey jersey. A friend of mine knows someone who embroiders who says that they will do the embroidery for cheap as long as I can get my vector image digitized (or something like that).

Is there a way I can convert this vector in Illustrator to give the embroiderer what they need? I'm certainly not a cheapskate, but if I can cut some costs by doing things myself, I'd rather do that.

Of course, as a graphic designer, I'm always open to trade services.

Liberty Design Industries - Graphic Design

[Crimson]

When I had a run of customs done with full embroidery/twill crest, the vendor just asked for color separation and they took it from there.

[akteon]

Here's basically what I was told when I asked a buddy who owned a embroidery shop to do some patches for my former college hockey team.

Digitizing is the act of taking an image that is either raster (JPEG) or vector (EPS) and converting it into stitching commands for a commercial embroidery machine. Most times with doing custom embroidery, the digitizing cost is the most expensive item - far more expensive than the actual stitching itself for small runs. Digitizing software is fairly expensive ($15k per license for some) and it's not as simple as a plugin for Illustrator or Photoshop or anything like that. There are overseas digitizing "farms" if you will that you can contact online to get cheap digitizing done. Pricing is normally per 1k stitches. A small logo for a golf shirt or hat estimate was $30-50 depending on where you outsource it.

[CryWolf]

Thanks in advance for any help or insight...

Below is a custom logo that I created for my band and I'd like to create a custom embroidered crest to place on a hockey jersey. A friend of mine knows someone who embroiders who says that they will do the embroidery for cheap as long as I can get my vector image digitized (or something like that).

Is there a way I can convert this vector in Illustrator to give the embroiderer what they need? I'm certainly not a cheapskate, but if I can cut some costs by doing things myself, I'd rather do that.

Of course, as a graphic designer, I'm always open to trade services.

I would recommend that you avoid doing a full embroidered logo for a full size hockey crest. It will be quite expensive, and won't look so great, and will also likely start to come apart. You should be doing a combination twill/embroidered crest, which is what is used generally for hockey jerseys. It will still be fairly expensive for a small run, but will look much better and will be more durable. If you are looking to do a small run and want to keep the costs down, you can also do a screen print to a twill crest, and then sew that to the jersey (a much nicer option than direct screen printing to the jersey, as it looks more like a real crest).

Nonetheless, we could help out with either option and can also produce the whole jersey for you if you were interested, depending on how many you want to produce. You can send an email to teamsales@icejerseys.com with your requirements and we will let you know what we can do.