HOW DIGITAL PRINTING WILL IMPACT THE QUILTING COTTON MARKET Quilting with machine embroidery is an easy way to finish off the top of a quilt or be creative with quilt blocks. With the popularity of personal embroidery machines increasing, many quilters find it cost-effective to quilt their own projects instead of sending them to a professional. Also, for those who quilt by hand, this process can get the job done in a fraction of the time. Quilting With Machine Embroidery Basics While quilting with machine embroidery may sound cumbersome, it doesn't have to be if you follow the instructions and have the correct embroidery supplies. This style of machine quilting falls into two categories: Machine guided: This technique, which uses your machine's feed dogs, is for straight and slightly curved lines. It is used with a walking foot and sews about 12 stitches per inch. Free motion: This type of quilting, where the feed dogs are dropped or covered up, normally doesn't follow straight lines. You can use different feet with it, but a darning foot works well. This foot jumps up and down with the needle, allowing you to easily move the fabric. Supplies and Accessories Quilting and embroidery supplies and accessories vary depending on your machine and the type of quilt you want to design. Some of the basic tools needed are: Sewing or embroidery machine Embroidery patterns Needles Thread Bobbins Gloves or grippers Embroidery hoops (if they don't come with your machine) Spray adhesive Darning foot and other embroidery machine feet Quilting stencils Designs Available Online There are many helpful Web sites where you can buy or download for free many different printed quilting and embroidery designs. For example: Embroidery Online offers a wide choice of delicate and beautiful quilting designs for purchase. Erica's Embroidery Designs has both simple and complex designs. Splinters and Threads has some basic patterns for sports, feathers, and other miscellaneous designs. Golden Threads motto is, "Designs that make every embroidery quilt a work of art," and the ones listed on the Web site show just that. Everything from complete quilting packages to miniature designs is offered. Advantages and Disadvantages Some will find quilting with machine embroidery a breeze, while others won't like it all. Pros There are many advantages to embroidering a quilt in this fashion: It cuts back on time it would take to hand-embroider the item. It can be cost-effective because doing the microfiber printed quilting at home is cheaper than having a professional do it. Learning a new craft may be hard work, but it is fun. Cons While every quilting technique has an upside, it also can have a downside: Quilting with machine embroidery does not work with every style of quilt, like jacquard quilt. Making a mistake can be costly, especially if the machine snags, rips or puckers the fabric. If you are a novice quilter, a professional can embroider your quilt quicker and more efficiently. Tips for Quilting With Machine Embroidery If you are using a basic sewing machine, the easiest way to get the design onto your quilt is to trace it onto tissue or other lightweight paper. Pin the paper to the quilt and sew on the lines. Tear the paper away when you are done. Add a folding or cart table next to your sewing table to help support the heavy quilt. Practice on scraps pieces of fabric before quilting your final product. If you are a beginner, take a digital printed quilting class from your local craft store or community college. Michael Miller Fabrics will begin printing the majority of its quilting cottons digitally in 2019. The shift from screen printing to digital printing is one that Michael Steiner, the co-owner and company president, has been contemplating for a while. "We've been printing a small percentage of our quilting fabric digitally for three years now," Steiner said in a phone call from the Michael Miller warehouse earlier this week. "And all of our plush fabric is printed digitally. Digital printing is not the only path forward, but it's definitely a path that offers more flexibility for us." Until now manufacturers of premium quilting cottons, the kind of fabric sold through independent quilt shops which sell patchwork printed quilt, ultrasonic quilt, winter quilt, etc., have been printed with flat-bed screen printers through mills in Korea and Japan. Screens are engraved for each color in the design, then ink is pushed through a frame screen onto the fabric, like a stencil. The quality and colorfastness of the prints are high, but there are limitations. A screen can only hold about two dozen colors and the repeat can only be 24 inches wide, the size of the screen printing bed. The process creates dye and water waste. There's about an eight-month turnaround time from the time the designs are submitted to the time the fabric is in the warehouse. And the mills require an 800-1,000 yard minimum order for each colorway. There are also no high capacity flatbed screen printers for textiles left in the US. THE DIGITAL ALTERNATIVE For at least a decade digital fabric printing has been lurking as a possible alternative. The print-on-demand fabric company, Spoonflower, was founded 2008 giving consumers a taste of digitally printed fabrics. Today, most of the major manufacturers of quilting cotton have done some digitally printing fabric, at least on an experimental basis. But now, several of the major companies are going all in. (Watch the digital printing process in this video from Hoffman California Fabrics.) Last year Ken Gamache at QT Fabrics decided to shift all of the company's fabric to a digital printing plant in China. Gamache says the plant he's found can produce 18 million yards a year and has just invested in a second printer. The trade tariffs on Chinese goods that could be implemented in the coming months will impact QT in a way that they won't affect other quilting fabric companies, but Gamache feels the decision was likely the right one anyway because it affords him the ability to better control QT's inventory, plus he loves the quality of the designs digital printing can produce. CAPACITY AND PRICING Right now there are digital printing plants in China, Korea, Pakistan, Japan, Italy, and even in the US at Santee. The Korean mills haven't yet invested in the high-speed digital printers so their cost is still very high. Others can offer fair pricing, but can't produce the necessary volume, but they're getting there. THE CREATIGVE ADVANTAGES OF DIGITAL Hoffman California Fabrics has embraced digital printing, becoming known for their digitally printed fabric panels. "We can quite literally create anything and turn it into fabric without any limitations on color or problems with overlapping motifs," says Hailey Hoffman-Chisholm, Marketing and Sales Associate at the company. "We can capture thousands of colors and achieve photorealistic designs on cotton." Still, there are some color limitations. According to Steiner, digital printers can't print metallics or pigment white. Hoffman has gotten creative with product development, using limitless size for repeats to their advantage. They've designed large panels and now bolts that are two-yard panels with eight different fat quarter-sized prints. For Hoffman, the cleaner printing process is also a priority. "Textile manufacturing is not good for our planet, and the digital printing process is by far the most eco-friendly form of textile printing that has come about," Chisholm says. "We believe it is the right way to print and where textile manufacturing will go as a whole." LESS RISK FOR REPRINTS Digital printing allows fabric companies to be more nimble when it comes to reprints. The large minimums screen printing requires can make companies hesitant to reprint a design or collection, even if sales look promising. The four times a year release cycle that has become industry standard means companies can easily become saddled with excess inventory that ends up being sold at a loss in closeout sales. Digital printing, on the other hand, offers lower minimums. "Technically the minimum is 5 or 10 yards," Steiner at Michael Miller says, "But really we would produce 500 yards of each design." That level of investment is easier to make. Fabric that sells well and gets reprinted benefits designers, too, because they continue to earn royalties on the designs that have proved to be most successful. Steiner explains, "There's no benefit in producing something that's not going to sell. If we print 2,000 yards and sell 800, then closeout the rest, that doesn't benefit the designer." Digitally printed fabric continues to cost somewhat more to produce, at least for now, which leads to a higher wholesale price. This means designers will also see slightly more money per yard sold. WHERE WE'RE HEADED In the years to come the quilting industry will likely see more companies follow in QT and Michael Miller's footsteps, shifting the majority of their operations to digital. "I think it's good for the whole industry," says Steiner. "Less glut in the market, less excess fabric floating around clogging things up and inhibiting new product development."