How to embroider on a visor

By Julie on November 23rd, 2020
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Monogramming a visor on my embroidery machine was not a project on my radar. In fact, it wasn’t even close to my radar until a friend of mine asked me if I could do it. I actually didn’t know. I had never even tried. But despite the fact that I had no idea how to embroider on a visor, I went ahead and ordered my supplies anyway. I figured I would give it a try.

But first…

Why a visor?

The idea to embroider on a visor has likely never occurred to me because I don’t even own one. Who even wears visors besides middle-aged golfers? For one, middle aged tennis players.

Ever since COVID hit, my friend’s sporadic tennis game has gotten a bit more serious. And it makes sense, it’s the ideal socially distanced sport. It allows you to get exercise and social interaction, but all at a safe distance of 6+ feet from one another.

But now that her tennis habit has evolved, so has her tennis wardrobe. The silly machine embroidered baseball caps I’ve made for her in the past are just not cutting it for her on the court. She’s officially moved on to visors which seems a bit ridiculous to me. What’s the difference? What can a visor do that a baseball cap can not?

Turns out, quite a bit.

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Visor benefits

I’m sure you’ve probably heard those statistics about how much of your body heat is lost through your head. Well, I’m not a scientist, but I suspect the reverse is true. On a hot day, we must gain a lot of heat through our head. And a baseball cap, especially one in a dark color, traps all that heat in, while a visor allows your head to breathe.

Another plus? A visor allows you to wear your hair in ways that a baseball cap does not. A high top knot or a ponytail doesn’t fit very well under a baseball cap, but a visor, on the other hand, frames that type of hairdo perfectly.

Plus, you’re not going to get hat head when you wear a visor. OK – you may get a little bit of band head but at least your hair won’t be all mashed down and stuck to your head.

Visors also offer a lot more variety. Baseball caps are pretty much all shaped the same. Sure, there are some with a more “trucker” style, but they are pretty much all the same. Visors can vary tremendously in brim size and shape, and there are actually styles which are fully adjustable.

And finally, visors are actually on trend. Who would have thought. Apparently after Rihanna started rocking visors, it showed up on all the runways. This caused me to wonder, is my tennis paying friend who lives in rural New Mexico more on the cutting edge of fashion than me??? Renew my subscription to Vogue! Stat!

Where to buy a visor

Since visors come in all shapes and styles, it’s no surprise that you can buy them from all sorts of retailers. But, since I had no idea how to embroider on a visor, I decided to go with the cheapest one possible. I ordered mine from Amazon where they offer a standard, simple visor in a rainbow of colors for under $7. However, even on Amazon, you can find quite the variety.

Another option is to make your own visor. You can find a variety of PDF patterns for making custom visors. Or you can try my own free sunhat / visor pattern. The beauty of making your own visor is that you can embroider on a flat piece of fabric as opposed to struggling with getting a pre-made visor on your embroidery hoop.

How to embroider on a visor

Before you start embroidering anything, you need to decide where you want to monogram your visor. If you go with the front, center of the visor – you are in for a challenge. (I did it on my single needle embroidery machine, but it was NOT EASY.) If you opt instead for embroidering on the side of the visor, you will have a lot easier time positioning the design where you want it and keeping the visor in place while embroidering. But since I’m a sucker for punishment, I decided to stitch the monogram front and center on the visor.

Since a visor would be quite challenging to secure inside of an embroidery hoop, I would recommend floating it instead. So, your first step should be hooping a piece of adhesive-backed stabilizer (shiny side up). Use a pin to score around the inside edge of the hoop to create a tear in the top paper. Peel away the paper to expose the sticky surface.

Preparing the stabilizer

Next – mark the enter of the hooped stabilizer using a disappearing ink pen. Extend the center lines to the outer edges of the hoop.

Preparing the visor

Locate the center of the visor brim and mark it with a pin. Measure the height of the visor band so that you can decide how big the monogram should be and where it should be centered vertically. You can see that the center of the visor band is about 2 1/2″. Therefore, I decided that the monogram should be about 1 3/4″ in height. Locate the intended center of the monogram and mark it with a disappearing ink pen.

Stick the visor band down on the hooped adhesive-backed stabilizer. At this point, the hoop should already be on the embroidery machine. Position the visor at the very end of the hooped stabilizer, lining up the center of the visor with the vertical center line you drew on the hooped stabilizer. Then, using the controls on your embroidery machine, move the design away from the center and down to the part of the hoop where you stuck the visor. Placing the visor near the end of the hoop will make it easier to tape it down (with blue painters tape) and hold it in place while the machine is stitching.

Before you start stitching, you might want to run through the entire design to make sure that the monogram will be stitched in your desired location on the visor.

Embroidering the visor

When the machine is done stitching, simply tear away the visor from the hoop. Snip up any connector strings and you are done!

Although I was sweating the entire time I was monogramming this visor, it actually did not turn out half-bad. I would have liked the monogram to be a little bit lower on the visor brand, but I’ll take it.