When a boater finally selects the make and model of their dream boat, the next big step is choosing a name. In some ways, this decision defines the customer: Is the name playful or serious? Is the owner trying to use all the letters of their family members’ names?

I always enjoy the story of the name and often ask about the choice to learn more about my customer. The boat name is a very personal touch of boating, and what better way to showcase it than by customizing a pillow or cushion?

For many years, Onboard Interiors LLC of Marblehead, Mass., would sell customized pillows, cushions, sheets and more, and would subcontract the embroidery. However, even at a bulk discount rate, costs added up, as did the legwork to get it completed. As luck would have it, three years ago, we had a contact in the salvage industry who was selling a nice machine — a Baby Lock Valiant — at a deep discount. It was a win for us!

Because we aren’t a production shop, every project we do is custom, so every chance to curate a customer’s project or experience is important to us.

Learning the machine

There was a steep learning curve with the embroidery machine. We found a local vendor who can help as a repair shop, and they have a class you can take the learn the machine. We are fortunate Abbie Reeder, our lead sewer, mastered the machine with just a few online tutorials. Reeder manages the machine for us; she sets up the monogram, and someone else usually does the fabric cutting and hoop work. She also is handy enough to help when something goes awry.

The embroidery machine is pretty loud when it runs. This actually is useful because we notice when it turns off, and someone can load another piece of fabric to the hoop. We try to run the embroidery machine while we are working on other projects in the shop — we love multitasking! The embroidery machine also makes a horrible grating noise when a thread breaks or the bobbin is out. When that happens, we all come running to fix the noise.

Keeping our embroidery in-house allows us to keep up with customer pillows and holiday gifting, and we can add to our donations to charity. Over the years, we have been part of sailing-related charities, such as Sail Salem (a youth sailing program) and Women in Sailing, and events such as silent auctions in coastal towns. We might offer a package as a donation that includes a one-hour design consultation onboard your vessel (within a certain mile radius of our location) and a “Life is good Onboard…” pillow. We value it at $300, and we can claim it for tax purposes at the end of the year.

Embroidery with custom logos

We often have customers who love a specific font/lettering. We tell customers they can choose from our preloaded selection of fonts, or we can do some extra work (at an extra design rate) to match their desired font/lettering.

We recently worked on a Filippetti 55 yacht named “Freedom,” hailing out of Newport, R.I. The customer requested embroidered pillows for each stateroom and one for the exterior sun pad. The customer wanted the font and logo to match.

We requested the customer send us a photo of the transom of the boat. Reeder used Inkscape, a free software and an experimental drawing tool that uses the accelerometer on an Android device to move drawings made in 3D. Reeder used this to redraw the logo and convert it into a stitching file. That file went on a flash drive and was loaded onto the embroidery machine. We also used a fabric color-coordinated with the rest of the interior and bedding with black thread.

Another benefit of having our own machine is that when the customer wants to add more pillows in the future, we can just push a recall button and run another set. We save all projects on a flash drive, which we keep in a storage box near the machine so all the projects can be filed.

Subcontracting embroidery work

Not every shop needs to run out and buy an embroidery machine. In fact, for more than 15 years, we subcontracted our work to a few different local shops. We worked with larger shops, including a sports shop that does mostly bulk orders for athletics, and a mother working from home with nice machines in her basement. We worked with whomever was close by and could handle our orders — the quality of the work was most important to us.

On a few of our larger projects — such as on a large bench seating area for a marina — we hired Mainly Embroidery out of Maine. They can manage very large stitch counts and large pieces of fabric. One year, they monogrammed a dragon tail on a king-size stateroom bedspread that was a custom design for a Lord of the Rings-style onboard interior!

We feel that having our own machine at our fingertips is a real benefit to our business. In our very custom-serviced business, it is one more valued added touch. 

Krisha Plauché is the owner of Onboard Interiors & Hood Canvas LLC and has over 20 years of experience as a yacht designer. She is a licensed United States Coast Guard Captain and a contributing author to many industry publications. Plauché is a member of Marine Fabricators Association — she has spoken at the member group’s annual conference and judged for its annual excellence awards — and is a member of the American Society of Interior Designers.