Living in a Material World Embroidery Project

New digitizers spend most of their time and energy focused on learning how to use their software. In fact, so consumed are they with the computer, that they tend not to pay much attention to anything else about the embroidery digitizing process. The reality is that your software is a tool (and a very important one) for managing the process, but if you don’t fully understand the process to begin with, the software will not guarantee quality embroidery. Software shortcuts, improved automation, and advanced punching tools all have a positive impact on your work by providing more efficiency and plenty of speed for the punching process. But in the final scheme of things, if you give the worst digitizer in the world the best digitizing software in the world, he/she will only succeed in turning out poor quality work faster.

So what’s the point in all this? Digitizing software can’t think for itself. It requires input from you and thus, you must have a firm grasp of what you are dealing with and what you wish to accomplish with each new design that you tackle. Failure to do so will result inferior designs, poor production and loss of sales.

Digitizing for embroidery is not all that difficult; it’s the sewing part that’s so challenging. You are tasked with intertwining an intricate pattern of stitches with a piece of fabric and each material that you encounter has a wide assortment of variables including stability, bulk, and texture. Therefore, you must fully understand how the fabric characteristics affect the sewing so that you can digitize the design to deal with them.

To develop an understanding of how to deal with different materials you must first understand the physical sewing process.

By now you should already know that the stitch formation process involves joining the upper and lower threads together. Because the stitch process happens below the material, there is a slight downward pull of the upper thread, such that it is forced to lay securely on the top of the material. In addition, when the pantograph moves into position for the next needle penetration, there is slight tug on the upper thread, which is protruding up through the fabric from the last needle penetration. This tug pulls the fabric in the opposite direction from the pantograph movement.

These two forces act on the material throughout the sewing process. If the fabric is sturdy enough to resist these forces, they have little impact on the material and the resulting embroidery looks like what you created during the digitizing process.

On the other hand, some materials may be greatly affected by these forces such that they shift and/or distort, which in turn causes the resulting embroidery to come out different from what you thought you created. Thus, having a firm understanding of material characteristics in relationship to embroidery stitching is vital for creating quality designs.

There are three primary material characteristics that need to be considered in regards to embroidery: stability, bulk, and texture.

Stability

In general, knit garments such as t-shirts, fleece, are sweaters are defined as unstable, as they tend to be quite stretchy. Woven materials such as twill and denim are defined as stable as they have virtually no stretch and give.

Go back and think about the stitch formation process and try to picture in your mind’s eye what takes place during sewing and apply this to the stability characteristic. The force exerted by the movement of the pantograph (in conjunction with the thread protruding up through the fabric to the needle) pulls the fabric in the opposite direction of the pantograph movement. If you were sewing a satin stitch, which causes a well-defined zig-zag motion, on a knit fabric, you would see that the material is constantly pulled inward towards the center of the column. The end result would be narrower column than what was digitized. On the other hand, if you were sewing the same stitch segment on denim, the stable nature of the material would resist the inward pull and you would end up with the same column width that you digitized.

This phenomenon is referred to simply as PULL. As a digitizer, you will have to learn how to predict when PULL occurs and then apply PULL COMPENSATION techniques, such as making a satin column wider than normal, when dealing with unstable fabrics. In addition, underlay stitches can help minimize the effects of pull, as they can anchor the fabric when applied properly.

Bulk

Some fabrics are thin, whereas some are quite thick or bulky. Thicker fabrics tend to allow the stitches to sink down into material. The result can lead to gaps between stitches in satins and fills, loss of detail, and outlines that don’t line-up.

Again, picture the forces at work. In this case, the downward pull caused by the stitch formation process is forcing the stitches to be pulled down against the fabric, causing it to compress slightly as well as allowing the stitches to sink in. In this case, you lose some of your visual acuity, plus the stitches tend to be spread apart.

Increasing your density can reduce the gaps in satins and fills. Underlay can play a key role as well, as it not only anchors the fabric, but can be used to create a stable platform for the top stitches to rest on, thereby preventing them from sinking into the fabric.

Texture

A smooth, unbroken surface provides the perfect foundation for embroidery stitches to lie own. By contrast, a fabric that has a rough uneven surface will cause the embroidery stitches to lay down somewhat haphazardly. This may cause the embroidery to look uneven, jagged and even distorted. Corduroy, pique mesh, sculptured knits, etc. all have textured surfaces. Even twill, which may be thought of as a smooth fabric, has a certain degree of unevenness.

With textured surfaces, take a moment to visualize up close what the surface would look like if you were suddenly reduced to the size of a flea. Corduroy would look like mountains ands valleys for example. Now picture what happens to stitches as they are placed across this uneven surface. Some fall into the valleys, some land on the mountaintops, and some are skewed at crazy angles while trying to traverse multiple areas.

With uneven surfaces, underlay can once again become an important tool, as a heavy underlay can help flatten out textured areas and create a platform against which the top stitches can rest. Density can be a factor as well, since textured materials tend to separate the stitches in satin and fill segments.

A complete familiarization with material characteristics is essential to the digitizing process. As a quick test, choose some artwork and select a fabric to sew the finished design on. Carefully analyze the material and identify its characteristics in terms of stability, bulk, and texture. Now examine the artwork and determine the types of stitch segments that you will be using. Close your eyes and try to picture how those stitches will perform on the material at hand. Do they sink in, shrink or distort? Use this mental picture to determine the correct stitch types and stitch parameters for the job, based on how the fabric will respond.

As an illustration of this concept, take a look at the following figures which demonstrate how a desired shape might have to be digitized for different types of materials. The same concepts would be applied to any shape.

Figure 1 Figure 1 shows the desired shape, which is a circle composed of fill stitches.

Figure 2 Figure 2 shows how it might be digitized for a stable fabric such as denim or twill, assuming proper density and underlay are used.

Figure 3 Figure 3 shows how it might be digitized for an unstable fabric such as a knit, which has a tendency to stretch during sewing. In this case, the circle is digitized wider than desired with the expectation that it will “pull-in” during sewing such that the desired shape will be the end result. Notice that compensation is applied in proportion to the width of the area, such that there is more compensation at the widest point of the circle than at the narrowest points.

To sum it all up, a working knowledge of fabric characteristics and compensation techniques is essential to producing high-quality embroidery. As mentioned earlier, the act of digitizing is relatively simple-- it’s the engineering required to make the design sew properly on the given product that is so challenging. But by developing a clear understanding of material characteristics and the forces generated through the mechanics of the stitch formation process, you will be able to meet this challenge head-on and succeed.