16. Wildcard Week - Embroidery¶
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.
Introuction
This week I explored the usage of the Brother 6-Needle Home Embroidery Machine that is in the CLS FabLab. I explored the basic sewing process that is required on the embroidery machine in order to familiarize myself with the workflow for the embroidery machine. I also familiarized myself with a new software that is used for generating the .pes files that are used for stitching, SewArt, which is a software that is significatnly cheaper than Brother's proprietary software while still offering many of the same features that the software offers.
Week 16 Individual Assingment
Preparing My File
As our Brother embroidery machine only accepts its own unique filetype, specialized softwares that are capable of generating .PES files are required for the first step of designing an embroidery file. There is only one open-source option, Ink-Stitch, which is a free add-on for InkScape, though this software is clunky and difficult to use. SewArt, the software that I used this week, offers many of the same tools as Brother's official software and also offers a free one-month trial. I installed SewArt from this link. Fake download buttons are ubiquitous on this page, so be careful if you decide to download it.
SewArt offers a free 30-day trial with the stipulation that users are unable to generate files that use more than seven colors. This would not affect my workflow because of two key factors. First, my flie only has one color that needs to be embroidered. Second, the embroidery machine in our lab only has six needles, so every file that could possibly be used on our embroidery machine can be designed using the trial version of SewArt.
SewArt offers a relatively intuitive interface where files can be generated. I did not explore the software in too much depth, so I am sure there is a lot more to the software than the processes that will be outlined in my documentaiton.
I decided to embroider the Git logo in a small patch for my first design. As many of my peers were also planning on using the embroidery machine for wildcard week, I decided to design something simple to allow my peers access to our single embroidery machine in a timely manner, rather than consuming lots of machine time with a complicated design.
Creating My SewArt file
After downloading the Git logo to my PC, I imported it into SewArt. To import my image into SewArt, I first created a new file within the software and then navigated to the 'import' field and selected my .png file of the Git logo.
After importing my Git icon into SewArt, I first needed to use the 'convert to stiches' tool so that I could interact with the features of SewArt that allow for the generation of actual embroidery files. This task was very simple, as I simply needed to click on the 'convert to stitches' button within the interface of SewArt that is highlighted in the above image.
The result of my image conversion is pictured above.
SewArt offers a useful 'Auto-Sew Image' tool that allows sewing paths to be generated for an entire image without any user input. This feature made the process of preparing my file signifciantly faster, and it only took several minutes for the software to determine the most optimal paths for the stitching of my design. The tool can be found in the above image at the bottom right corner of the lowest row of tools.
After using the 'Auto-Sew Image' tool, my file was ready to be saved and exported to the embroidery machine. While all other machines in our lab are networked or connected to networked machines, the embroidery machine requires files to be placed on a USB drive and then uploaded to the machine. I saved my file in SewArt as a .PES file and placed it on the USB stick that we use for the machine.
As the Git logo only features a single color, I would only need to install a single-colored thread in my machine. Luckily, the color that best-reflected the actual color of the Git logo was already installed on the machine, so I did not need to install an additional spool of thread into the machine.
After verifying that the correctly-colored threads were installed in the machine, I needed to load my .pes file that I generated in SewArt onto the machine via USB. To do this, I connected the USB stick and clicked the USB icon on the machine's interface and then selected my file from the .pes filed that were rendered from the USB drive.
After verifying that the correct spool of orange thread was installed in the machine, I needed to configure the machine within its own software by telling the machine which needle contained the correct colored thread.
The numbers of the needles increment from the right side of the machine to the left. The orange color that was used in the stiching of my logo can be seen in the third needle from the left; therefore, it was addressed as this color within the Brother software.
After configuring all of the necessary fields within the Brother software, my file was ready to be embroidered. I decided to embroider the file on a 4x4" 'medium' embroidering area. The other size options are displayed in the image of Brother's operation manual for the machine above. The official operation manual for the machine can be downloaded here.
After ensuring that all of the settings were correct in the Brother software, I navigated through the startup procedure and began the embroidering process by pressing the start button that blinks green when the file is ready.
The embroidering process progressed smoothly for the entire 4 minutes of the file's machine time. After the file finished embroidering, I dismounted the frame from the machine and detached the now completed patch from the frame.
After the design was finished running on the machine, I was left with my final Git patch.
My final patch does contain one slight loose thread where the machine likely experienced a slight inaccuracy. However, after removing this loose thread with scissors the error is barely noticeable to the naked eye.
Conclusion
Following my exploration of embroidery during wildcard week, I acquainted myself with the workflow for the only machine in the CLS Fab Lab that I had not used prior to this point. I also learned how to use SewArt, which will allow me to create increasingly complex embroidery designs throughout my future endeavors in the lab. I am very excited to create designs with more colors and different stitching-patterns in the future!
Download this week’s files! (24 kB)