I'd like to start embroidering on the front and back of sweatshirts. Can you walk me thru all the important steps? What type of stabilizer to use? Stabilizer on bottom AND on top? Any hints or shortcuts?

Use a permanent stabilizer on bottom and a tear away stabilizer such as Solvy on top. Use a Ball Point needle. The bottom stabilizer can be an iron on or cutaway. The iron on will keep the sweat shirt fabric stable but you have to use a piece large enough to fit your hoop. So that means a lot of the stabilizer will remain on the fabric. With cutaway, you can trim close after stitching. I have used both.

HTH

good info nanmoms. i would not have thought of all of that.

Thank you so much! I am going to do exactly what you suggested!

emblibrary.com has tutorials on embroidering on sweatshirts and very recently featured designs.

I do lots of sweatshirts. I always use a fusible cutaway on the bottom. If you are doing a heavy design (something that I frequently do on sweatshirts), use a second layer if you choose to use a polymesh stabilizer like I usually do. A single layer of polymesh only holds about 8000 stitches per 4 or 5 square inches, and most of my sweatshirts have more than that number of stitches. I do not use a topper, but some do. If you do, don't use a traditional tearaway but instead use a washaway topper. The tearaway won't all come away!

Pam (getting ready to embroider a Halloween sweatshirt with the word "Don't make me get my flying monkeys!")

Go to emlibrary.com; they have projects that walk you thru this along with designs to use. The project sheets are free