Sew, when I go to my local fabric store, the girl that usually cuts the fabric knows me well and she always refers to me as ‘polyester queen’ (I didn’t pick that name, but I have a type when it comes to picking out fabrics).
First off, if you are scrolling through this post just to ‘find out what fleece settings are’, then you just will be your own downfall if results are not expected. No matter what, the golden rule for me is to know your material. Know that it is laser safe and then know what it actually is consistent of. If you know fleece then you know fleece is just a category.
This might be just me but my mind looks for patterns and so I am just going to try and communicate patterns.
Remember this ‘wool coat’ I posted?
Well this coat was 100% polyester and the setting I found to perfectly melted the poly was 550 speed, 22 power, and 270 LPI. I would recommend this setting for any heavyweight 100% polyester fabric. It was great.
So lets take a small step in blending the poly to look at the stuff where I engrave scuba suede:
This is the scuba suede I often used for things I engrave and sew myself. This suede is 92% polyester and 8% spandex. FYI, spandex is the key to making any fabric comfy. If you are shopping around at a department store and find something that you wonder about engraving it, well if it is comfy and stretchy, then it has spandex and that its own world.
Back to the post, this is a scuba suede (98% poly and 8% spandex) engraving I did:
The settings were 850 speed and 14 power… notice how different that is from 100% polyester (which was was 550 speed, 22 power)?
Not lets get to this ‘fleece’
First, I am crazy about Costco and so this is the jacket I am using and it is amazingly comfy
https://www.costco.com/32-degrees-ladies’-snap-arctic-fleece-pullover.product.100748734.html
the specs for this jacket are:
- 95% Polyester | 5% Spandex
- Midweight
- 330 GSM (fyi, this will become important)
I have posted before that I always work a test run in stuff. This was a low cost jacket and so for the fun, I decided to give a sample of what 100% polyester settings would result with:
^^^ yikes, that doesnt look good. The reason is first because it has spandex. So lets dial it back to the 92% poly and 8% spandex blend settings:
^^^ I guess its better but its still way to much. Why would that be if this fabric has less spandex? Well, its the weight. The weight of this fabric is much less then the scuba suede. Therefore, I dialed back things to 1000 speed, 8 power, and 270 LPI
So if you just want to know fleece settings, then sure, try 1000 speed and 8 power. But I have really found these settings to be good for 95% polyester, 5% spandex, and 330 GSM.