Embroidery is the craft of decorating fabric or other materials with designs stitched in strands of yarn or thread using a needle. Embroidery can also incorporate materials such as beads, metal strips, pearls, quills and sequins. It is classified according to its underlying foundation fabric and whether the design is stitched on top of or through the foundation fabric.
The world of embroidery today offers many opportunities for creativity, not just in the production of designs with walk stitches, regular fills, and columns, but also by utilizing special machines and techniques that companies, creative embroiderers and digitizers have developed over time.
Embroidery has also become a method of personalizing items such as towels, bathrobes, aprons, shirts, jackets and hats with the owner's initials or name. Licensed professional and college sports merchandise such as t-shirts, sweatshirts, and polo shirts often include embroidered team logos. Many companies have either a polo shirt or a baseball cap with their logo embroidered on it. Digitizing software has enabled machine embroiderers to design their own patterns and sew them, which has been the biggest boom in machine embroidery since the invention of the sewing machine.
