Here at shackspace we’ve had a Brother Innovis 90e embroidery machine for a while now. We’ve decided to go for this model because the colleagues of Mannheim’s hackerspace RaumZeitLabor are using the same and had a great experience with theirs.

For 29C3 the folks behind hgg decided they wanted their logo embroidered onto the collar of black business shirts.
However, we only have a medium size frame to hold fabric to be embroidered. This frame is too big to properly hold and support something as small as a shirt collar.
Of course there’s also very small frames made just for this but they come at a price: you cannot place your motive close to the edge of the collar because the edge has to be clamped into the frame.

So shackspace member ttb developed a technique explained in minute detail in the shackspace Wiki that enables us to embroider a shirt collar right to the edge using a medium size frame. He’s fixing the collar inside the frame to a piece of support fabric using a special water soluble glue. The glue will wash out easily and can be obtained from your local sewing supply store.

Here’s a video (German) where ttb is demonstrating the technique: