Decoration on westernwear is one of the most common North American uses for chainstitch embroidery, also called chenille. The other place it’s traditionally used is (was) for names and logos on team shirts.
My 1930s Singer chainstitch machine came from Detroit. It belonged to a woman who worked as a seamstress in her home, which was in a post-war suburb surrounded by car plants. I also bought some of her patterns, packed in boxes that originally held 1960s golf-type shirts with knit collars.
So it seemed fitting when someone asked me to do some mostly Detroit-related lettering on shirts. It took some figuring out and a lot of practice.
I marked the letters with chalk and wax and used rayon machine embroidery thread. I have heard that designs used to be put on the fabric with “invisible” ink, and machine operators worked in black light with hoods over their heads. The single-line names were done free-hand. Here’s some vintage examples:
This picture of a name done (probably freehand) in heavier cotton thread is from an embroiderer’s sampler written about on this blog
In North America, manual chainstitching is obsolete and skilled operators rare. I just found this video by a Brooklyn company who do monograms using a Cornely machine and what appears to be black light:
I’ve seen a few websites that offer to do larger logos and names. People in India and Africa still use manual machines, often old ones bought in North America. Generally, though, any new, off-the-rack garment with chainstitching will have been done using a computerized and automated multi-head machine like this one from Made-in-China.com.
Here’s an ad for an automated machine that makes a chenille logo:
