Best Fonts for Appliqué Letters

Why thickness matters

The satin cover is centred on the letter’s edge, so half of its width sits inside the letter and half outside. With a 3.5 mm satin cover, about 1.75 mm of every stroke edge is already taken by the border on each side. A stroke has to be wide enough to leave a clear patch of fabric between the two borders.

As a rule of thumb, aim for strokes at least 3 mm wider than the satin cover, so about 6.5 mm or more for a 3.5 mm cover. At a letter height of 3 inches (76 mm), most bold sans-serif and slab fonts clear that easily. Thin strokes do not: the two borders crowd together, the gap between them closes up and the thread builds into a lumpy ridge.

Fonts that work well

• Heavy sans-serifs such as Anton, Archivo Black and Bebas Neue give clean, even strokes.
• Slab serifs such as Alfa Slab One and Bevan are sturdy and a classic varsity look.
• Rounded bold fonts such as Fredoka, Chewy, Luckiest Guy and Titan One are friendly and forgiving, good for kids’ items.
• Block display fonts such as Bungee suit team names and signs.

You can preview any of these in the appliqué tool, which shows the real stitches before you pay. The font list has more than 1,000 fonts, so the preview is the best way to judge a font.

Fonts to avoid, or to use with care

• Thin or hairline fonts and thin scripts. Strokes that are barely wider than the satin collapse. Make them larger, use a narrower satin cover, or choose a bolder font.
• Ornate swashes and blackletter. Fine serifs, hairline joins and curls turn into tiny spikes and blobs of thread.
• Very small counters. The hole in a small e, a or g can fill in. Use a larger size or a font with open letter shapes.
• Connected scripts. Letters that overlap each other will have borders running through their neighbours. Turn on Merge overlapping letters so the overlap becomes one outline, and check the preview.

Size makes a difference

The same font can fail at 2 inches and work at 4. If a font looks crowded, increase the letter height before you give up on it. Lowercase letters are only about 70% of the height of capitals, so lowercase words need a larger size than all-caps. See the appliqué size guide.

Rounded or sharp corners

The tool offers Sharp points, which keep every corner exactly as the font draws it, and Rounded corners, which soften them. Rounded corners are the safer choice for thin, spiky fonts and for puff or felt looks. Sharp points give a crisper result with bold fonts.