16. Wildcard week¶

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.

Embroidery¶

This week I decided to work on the digital embroidery machine in the fablab. The embroidery machine is a Brother Innovis Limited Edition

To prepare the file, we will use Inkscape and the Inkstitch extension.

Installation of Inkstitch extension¶

The first thing to do is to go to: https://inkstitch.org/.

Requirements

Ink/Stitch is an Inkscape extension. Download and install Inkscape Version 1.0.2 or higher before you install Ink/Stitch.

(install). Under linux (deb), you can install the .deb directly

Deb Packaging¶

Deb Package

Install deb package

Double click on the downloaded deb file and follow the installation process.

Script Installation¶

script install

Install with the installer script

Use this version if you are using the AppImage version of Inkscape or if you just want to install Ink/Stitch only for your own user. This script is also useful if your system doesn’t support deb or rpm packages.

Open your terminal and navigate to the folder where the downloaded script is located, e.g.

cd Downloads

Run the following command

sh inkstitch-2.1.2-linux.sh

Restart Inkscape

Design in Inkscape¶

Import your image and assign colours. (the colours are indicative because the embroidery machine does not detect the threads, so you could put a pink thread instead of blue for example)

I create a circle and put a thickness of 2 mm. Then I convert stroke to pah.

Before doing an embroidery treatment, you have to convert everything into a path

Inkstitch¶

We can start processing for the embroidery. In extension Ink/Stitch, clic on parameter.

A window opens with a simulator. The latter will give you at the same time the number of points for the achievement.

Save in PES¶

For the embroiderer we have to register in .pes

To see the result of the .pes file, you can open it with Inkscape and see the embroidery but also the thread cuts.

Embroiderer¶

Place the fabric in the frame and start the embroidery. I placed a stabilizer to prevent the fabric from stretching.

Here is a time-lapse video of the embroidery of the logo

Results¶

Files download¶

Stamp¶

Second job, I used The Great Wave of Kanagawa to make stamps. Constraint of the work, we don’t have any special ink but pen ink, a classic ink pad and Liquid Chalk.

Start Picture

Vectorise

link

After the image has been vectorised, it is engraved with a laser. In the first instance, on wood

Failure

Unsuccessful attempt. The wood sucks in the ink directly, so no transfer is possible.

Then on plexi.

Failure

Unsuccessful attempt. The plexiglass is too smooth and the transfer does not work properly

And finally, on rubber for special stamps.

With the specialised rubber, it works perfectly. The tests were done with liquid chalk (not ideal but it works), classic ink and finally with a stamp pad and the latter is validated. To make it easier to handle, we cut a small wooden support on which we glued the rubber.

With Liquid Chalk