You Can't Win If You Don't Enter

Follow this guide to enter your best work in embroidery contests.
Sept 1, 2008

This multimedia rainbow T-shirt design by Barbara Stuemer, Tex Designs, Tornesch, Germany, won Third Place in the first embroidery contest she entered. In this case, the contest was sponsored by Eurostitch magazine.

I confess, I'm a competition junkie. I loved winning the 2007 Impressions Awards Grand Championship. The First Place, Second Place, Best of Show and Grand Championship ribbons, along with plaques and awards from various magazines, other organizations and EMB magazine, proudly adorn my office walls.

Competitors like me need one thing — other competitors. In preparing for this article, I've had numerous conversations with other contest entrants about what motivates them and the processes they go through to compete in various embroidery contests held throughout the year. I'm hoping some insight to our collective methods will encourage you to join in the fun.

The prizes aren't the motivation to participate in these events. It's the fact that you're being judged by your peers and having them say your work is outstanding — in some respect — that earns you the satisfaction of being in the contests. After all, most of us digitizers and embroiderers work in a vacuum of sorts and the contests let us find out how we are doing.

Contests usually have a variety of categories in which you can submit your entries. Generally speaking, these include Jacket Backs, Corporate Logos, Caps, Fashion, Miscellaneous Applications, Multimedia, Digitizing and Best Use of Stock Designs. It is a good idea to keep these categories in mind throughout the year because, as designs cross your desk daily, you can keep your eyes open for prospective designs to enter into contests. It also will make you approach all designs with the attitude of making each one the best that it can be just in case it will be a contest entry. Adopting this attitude makes all your designs better, as you will be striving for first place with each one.

When you are sent a particularly good piece of artwork from a customer for digitizing and you recognize it as a prospective contest entry, it's best to get a letter of permission immediately so you can enter it. This is a courtesy to your customers; should the entry win, pictures of your work often will be published and you don't want any surprises for your client. If you wait until the contest is announced, it can be hard to remember all the designs you thought you might enter, and you could end up doing nothing. If you print an extra run sheet, attach the permission letter and place them in a file labeled "Prospective Entries," you won't panic when the contest entry forms and submission dates are announced.

Pick Your Category
Contest entry forms are pretty simple, but still present some dilemmas, such as selecting the right category for your submission. For instance, an embroidered jacket back could be entered into any one of three categories — Jacket Back, Digitizing or Corporate Logo. You decide the category in which your submission belongs. Most contest sponsors will not switch your submission from one category to another, so think it through before filling out the entry form.

The contest entry forms will ask if you created the art from which the embroidered work was made. If you didn't, it will ask if you have permission to use the design. [Editor's note: For the Impressions Awards, this permission is required if you do not own the right to re-create the artwork, even if it is for contest purposes and not for resale. It's always better to be safe than sorry — you could risk contest disqualification if the copyright owner has not granted you permission to enter his work.] I always submit a copy of the permission letter with the contest entry form because that saves a lot of questions.

Also, use common sense when submitting your entries so they look their best when they arrive at the contest sponsor. For example, if you are sending a framed piece of art, take the glass out of the frame to avoid breakage when shipping your entry. I once submitted an embroidered cowboy hat and I made sure I had an appropriate hat box to send it in so it wouldn't get crushed.

Wowing the Judges
Your submissions will be judged — often blindly — by various embroidery experts, meaning they have no idea who created any of the entries. This makes judging fair for all entrants. These judges are looking for originality in the design's artwork, as well as in the digitizing techniques used to create the final design. Using special stitches, special threads and multimedia techniques will go a long way in making your entry a winner. Judges also look at the suitability of the embroidery to the garment that is submitted. Creative ideas are wonderful too.

In the mid-'90s, industry veteran Renee Brinks created an arrangement of free-standing flowers, with each flower's petals fully embroidered. It was amazing. I've also seen top honors awarded to embroidery on feathers, soap, toilet papers and other unusual substrates.

"I entered my first embroidery contest in 2006 and won for a piece that was a collaboration between myself and my digitizer, Artwork Source (artworksource.com, Tacoma, Wash.)," says Jane Swanzy of Swan Threads, Houston. "I had only been doing machine embroidery for four years — two of which were on a home machine (Bernina) — when we were awarded the first prize. Competitions are a great exercise in stretching my imagination and my abilities. And winning is a great ego boost and a big marketing opportunity for me."

Market Yourself
Justifying the time, expense and energy required to participate in these contests is something you can look at from a marketing standpoint as much as anything. When looking for contests to enter, I ask myself these questions: 1.) What's not been done before? 2.) What's going to catch the judges' eyes at first glance? 3.) What's going to create talk?

Even if I don't win the competition, just entering provides me with a marketing opportunity. I always send e-mails to my customers and friends saying, "Look what I've done now!" with a picture of the project attached.

Barbara Stuemer of Tex Designs in Tornesch, Germany, is a master at multimedia designs. Her Rainbow T-shirt design (p. 34) won Third Place in the first embroidery contest she entered — sponsored by Eurostitch magazine. The embroidery incorporates rayon, metallic and polyester threads, and the rest of the design is done with sublimation printing and hand-sewn sequins.

"Entering contests gives me an opportunity to try the special stitches, specialty threads and techniques I don't get a chance to use in my ordinary corporate work," she says.

Her winter jacket design (p. 36) took Third Place in a contest by another European industry magazine, TVP. She used flocked print, embroidery and sequins to create this outstanding design.

Stuemer showed her true competitive spirit when she traveled from Germany to Nashville, Tenn., in 2006 to be a team member in the Embroidery Olympics, which is an event held every four years at Embroidery Mart EAST, sponsored by the National Network of Embroidery Professionals (NNEP). In the contest, teams of three (a digitizer, machine operator and machine tech) compete for gold, silver and bronze awards in four events where they design, digitize and sew live during the competition.

Stuemer flew in from Germany to team up with industry veterans David Theissen and Andrea Bobu, and they won the Best Overall award in this "digitizing live" competition. I joined Anna Johnson's team — Anna's All Stars — at the Embroidery Olympics that same year and we took home the People's Choice award.

Win, lose or draw, contests deliver many other types of rewards — from simply having your work recognized, to the new relationships you form with talented peers, to the satisfaction of a job well done. All of that makes entering contests well worth the required time and effort.

Pat Williams of Image Embroidery in Sierra Vista, Ariz., is an award-winning digitizer with experience in accounting and small-business management. For more information or to comment on this article, e-mail Pat at Pwilliams22@cox.net or visit imageemb.com.

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