C.H. Holderby - Industrial Sewing Machines

In 1990, C.H. Holderby presented an Embroidery Seminar in Newport Beach, California. Debbie Harris, owner of Custom Embroidery & Promotions in Seattle, WA, presented the following information on estimating the stitch count of embroidery designs.

On June 4th, 1999, Debbie Harris will be presenting a one day class in our Seattle office on pricing embroidery and estimating stitch counts. Don't miss this chance to learn more about embroiderers most common question – "How much should I charge?" See our Training page for details.

With her permission, we are pleased to share Debbie's formula. Custom Embroidery & Punching can be reached at (206) 782-6970.

First you will need to get a clear piece of plastic and have it printed into square centimeters. CEP works with centimeters because their machines are metric and they can estimate the design stitch count more precisely.

Take the design to be embroidered, make sure the art is sized at the desired sewn size, and lay the plastic grid over the art. Count the square centimeters of each type of stitch and total the stitch count. Multiply the total number of stitches by your charge for digitizing or sewing per 1,000 stitches.

Example:

Add up all the squares that have fill (ceeding) stitch, all that have satin stitches, and all that have running stitches.

Debbie uses these guidelines in determining how many stitches per square centimeter:

Debbie also shared the following averages for Satin Stitch Lettering. She recommends you add 20 stitches to each letter for serifs:

Werter Willis of Arc Digitizing (540)948-4061, suggests that those estimating stitch counts in house take the artwork, scan it in to their system, scale it to finished size and open a grid on screen that is in square centimeters.
You can then use the same method as described above to count the stitches in the design for an estimate of the finished product. Thanks Werter!