18. Wildcard week

This week I worked with E-textiles and automated sewing.

Individual Assignment: design and produce something with a digital fabrication process (incorporating computer-aided design and manufacturing) not covered in another assignment, documenting the requirements that your assignment meets, and including everything necessary to reproduce it.

This week has been one of the easiest and my favorite of FabAcademy. We got to work in my comfort zone, which is between fabric and threads.

Designing

For the sake of the assignment, I decided to design something easy; hence, the heart. First, I launched the Janome Digitizer V5 on one of the monitors in the E-textile room.

Then, I opened a new file using the new button from the ribbon menu.

Next choose the smallest hoop size from the drop-down menu that fits your design.

After that is done, the options are limitless. You could either insert a design or design it from the application itself.

For my design, I used a heart from Google. I would recommend downloading images that are .png for better quality. From the toolboxes menu on the side, under the “Artwork” menu, by clicking insert artwork you can browse for the picture and insert it to your workspace.

After editing the photo and placements, the next step is to digitize the designs so we could start the embroidery. Under the “Auto-Digitize” drop-down on the sidebar, I choose the click-to-fill option and then the png for it to turn into paths.

Finally, I save the file from File > Export design as > .JEF. I saved the file onto a flash drive and plugged it into the Janome Memory Craft 15000.

Preparation

The next step is to prepare the hoop for the embroidery. Based on the design, you find the hoop labeled with the size you chose. For this design I used the FA10.

I cut a piece of random fabric (black) but made sure it was a tad bigger than the hoop. I also cut out a piece of light tearible fabric - im not sure of the name - to act as the stabilizer - which is necessary to mantain a neat stitch.

Next, I place the stabilizer on the hoop making sure no wrinkles are formed. Then I place the fabric on top, and press the second part of the hoop into the first part to secure the piece of fabric.

Lastly, I secured the hoop into the Janome MC with the embroidery mode set on. After locking it in place, you are ready to start the embroidery.

Embroidery

To start the embroidery, I opened the file on the Janome using the import button.

I opened the design, and then, because I had an issue with the rotation of the design, I had to do one extra step.

With the design open, I went back to the main menu and with pressing the grid button, the design would get imported into the workspace. In that workspace, I rotated the design as I saw fit, and then pressed OK.

After the design was fully, done, I pressed the Start/Stop button and the embroidery started.

When embroidery was done, all that was left was to tear away the stabilizer, and the embroidery is done!