Embroidering customer-supplied garments: the policy, the price, and when to say no

Yes, I embroider garments customers bring me, and the customer agrees in writing before I start that a garment I did not buy is one I cannot replace if something goes wrong. That sentence is the whole policy. Everything else in this guide is how to price the job, how to lower the odds of something going wrong, and how to say all of it without sounding like a shop that expects to ruin things.

Customer-supplied work is normal. Most of the people who message me want their own thing stitched: the jacket from a trip, the robe they were given, the sweatshirt they like the fit of. Turning all of that away costs real orders. Taking it without a policy costs you a garment you have to pay for the first time a needle finds a flaw in the fabric.

What to charge

Charge your full stitching price, hooping, and digitizing exactly as you would on a blank you supplied. The only line that disappears is the blank itself. A customer's jacket does not make the machine run faster or the hooping easier, so nothing else on the quote drops.

I do not add a difficulty charge just because the garment is the customer's. Complexity on my quotes is about the work: a cap, a sleeve, a tricky placement. Ownership of the garment is not difficulty. What ownership changes is risk, and risk is handled by the agreement below, not by a surcharge nobody can explain. If you want a surcharge, that is your call, but pick a number, write it on your price sheet, and charge it every time; a fee that appears on some quotes and not others is the kind of thing that ends up in a review. Some larger shops go the other way and offer to carry the risk for a fee: Qualified Apparel publishes an optional 3% per-item premium that transfers the risk to them if the customer asks for it before production.

Payment before stitching applies the same as on any other order. My deposit and payment policy does not change because the garment came from the customer's closet.

What the agreement has to say

Nearly every shop that publishes terms says the same thing about customer-supplied items: the shop does not replace or reimburse a garment it did not sell if it is damaged during decoration. Print'em All states it plainly, AJ's Stitchin' Time and The Daisy Patch use a signed waiver, and Poole's Embroidery posts a disclaimer on the site. The reason is not that damage is common. It is that an embroidery machine can, on rare occasions, snag, pull, or punch through a fabric it has never met, and the shop has no way to buy a second copy of a garment it did not source.

Mine says this, in the quote the customer accepts:

Because this piece is yours and I can't replace it, I'll take the same care I take with everything I stitch, but if the garment is damaged during embroidery I'm not able to replace it or refund its value. Please make sure it's been washed once before you drop it off.

Put it where the customer has to see it, and have them agree to it as part of accepting the quote rather than in a message they may never scroll back to. I put those sentences in the quote itself in Broidry, so accepting the quote is agreeing to them, and the accepted quote stays attached to the order. A paper waiver at drop-off does the same job. What does not do the job is a policy that lives only on your website.

Wash it first

The line about washing is not a nicety. Unwashed cotton and waffle knits shrink on the first wash, and embroidery does not shrink with them, so a design stitched on a new garment can pucker after the customer washes it. Embroidery Library's guide to waffle weave recommends washing and drying before stitching for exactly this reason, and the advice holds for any untreated cotton. Tell the customer to wash it once before drop-off, and if they forgot, wash it yourself before you hoop it. It is one cycle and it prevents the most common "it looked fine when I picked it up" complaint.

Test the fabric before you stitch the piece

You cannot test-stitch the customer's only jacket. You can test the fabric type. Before I run a fabric I have not stitched, I sew the design on the closest scrap I have with the same stabilizer, needle, and thread I plan to use on the real piece. Embroidery N Sewing's test stitch-out guide makes the same point: a test only tells you something if every variable matches. The test shows you whether the design's density is right for the fabric, whether the stabilizer is enough, and whether the needle is marking the material.

On stabilizer: a knit or anything with stretch gets cutaway, and a light or thin knit gets no-show mesh so the backing does not shadow through. The cutaway and no-show mesh guides cover the argument in detail. A stable woven can take tearaway, but on a customer's own garment I default to cutaway anyway, because the cost of a tearaway that was not quite enough is a garment I cannot replace.

On needles: use the smallest needle that runs clean. MaggieFrame's size chart guide puts it simply: if you see large holes or loose stitches, size down; if the thread breaks or threading is hard, size up. A 75/11 is my starting point on most garments. Anything with a coating, a membrane, or a tight weave gets a sharp rather than a ballpoint, and the scrap test tells me whether the holes will show.

Check the inside of the garment where the design will sit before you hoop. Seams, pockets, zippers, and linings that you cannot see from the outside are what actually cause problems, because they change the thickness under the needle partway through the design.

Ask for extras on a batch

When someone brings twelve of anything, ask for one or two extra. A spoilage allowance of one piece or 2 percent, whichever is more, is a common convention on customer-supplied batches, and Print'em All asks for two to three spares on larger customer-supplied orders. The extra piece is also your test garment, which solves the problem from the previous section outright. If the customer cannot supply an extra, say so in the quote: "Without a spare, I'll stitch the first one and send you a photo before I run the rest."

The short list of things I turn down

A few items are not worth the risk at any price, and it is easier to say no from a list than to decide on the spot:

• Anything irreplaceable with sentimental value: a late relative's jacket, a wedding garment, a signed jersey. The customer says they understand the risk. They do not, and neither would I.
• Garments with no seam allowance or access to the placement area: a fully lined jacket where the design would sit over the lining with no way to open it, or a bag with a stiff board behind the panel.
• Leather, real or faux, and coated fabrics unless I have stitched that exact material before. Every needle hole is permanent and the scrap test cannot be done on the piece itself.
• Garments already decorated in the placement area. Stitching over a print or an old embroidery rarely goes well and there is no clean way back.
• Anything that arrives with a stain, a hole, or wear at the placement. Photograph it at drop-off and say what you see, so the condition of the garment at pickup is not a surprise to either of you.

Saying no is a short message: "I'm going to pass on this piece, because it's not something I could replace if anything went wrong during stitching. If you'd like, I can order the same style in a blank and stitch that instead." Most people take the blank.

Keep the drop-off record

Photograph every customer-supplied garment when it arrives, front and back, close enough to see the fabric. Note the brand, size, and color on the order. Half of this is protecting yourself. The other half is that the same customer will come back next year wanting the same thing on a second jacket, and knowing what you stitched, on what, with which thread, is what makes the reorder a two-minute job. The photos and the notes live on the order in Broidry, next to the accepted quote, so I never have to look for them.

The short version

Take the work. Charge full price minus the blank. Have the customer agree in writing, before you start, that a garment you did not buy is one you cannot replace. Have them wash it first. Test the fabric on a scrap with the same stabilizer, needle, and thread. Ask for a spare on any batch. Keep a short list of items you turn down and say no in one warm sentence. And photograph everything at drop-off, because you will want that record for the reorder as much as for the rare problem.