15. Wild Card Week¶
Choosing Assignment¶
For wild card week, I chose to do embroidery, as this is an interesting, CAD related process which we have the necessary tools for at our lab.
Designing a Design¶
Ink/Stitch¶
To create a design for embroidering, I first tried the extension of Inkscape called Ink/Stitch. First, I had to uninstall and reinstall Inkscape so that I had a recent enough version. After getting all the files formatted correctly, I could now use features from Ink/Stitch by simply selecting extensions and selecting Ink/Stitch and selecting options from the dropdown menu. To start out, I wanted to just do a Fab Academy logo, as this would be relatively simple while still containing multiple colors. I downloaded an image from a Google search and uploaded it into Inkscape. At this point, however, my friend Collin Kanofsky, recommended I switch over to SewArt64, which is a lot easier to operate and uses a lot simpler of a process. This was what two options for the bitmap for my design was looking like before I abandoned Ink/Stitch next to the original photo:
SewArt64¶
I downloaded SewArt64, opened it, and uploaded my image using File>Open. I then simply selected Stitch Image on the top tool bar, and selected colors on the image (there were only 4 including the Fab Academy logo and text). After selecting everything, I selected OK which led to a few prompts to save this, the second one being the relevant one. I ensured it was saving as a .PES file, and uploaded this file to a USB.This is my image in SewArt64 with the Stitch Image tab on the right:
Using the Embroidering Machine¶
To learn how to operate this machine, I used this video and this video I acquired from Griffin Orsinger’s documentation. I then created a design as explained above. After spending a decent share of time messing around with the machine and fixing various things with both Collin Kanofsky (who eventually decided to work on his final project instead) and Landon Broadwell, Landon realized that we were using a sewing foot instead of a embroidering foot. Once we got these properly exchanged, and all other string was properly threaded, I was truly able to begin embroidering. This is a video of the machine working, where the first blue part went very well, but I neglected to change out the bobbin color when changing colors, resulting in the top of the second part being red, and the bottom being blue.
Upon trying again, I correctly exchanged the color of the thread for both the bobbin and the thread. After doing this for four colors, I had this Fab logo design:
I then did black for the text:
Week Reflection¶
This week I learned about creating designs on fabrics using an embroidery Brother SE600 machine, thus expanding my knowledge of 2D CAD designing oppurtunities. This week did not prove to have as many challenges as some previous weeks, however I also did not learn as much as some previous weeks. This was mostly due to the overwhelming amount of work I had for school this week, including multiple test, an AP exam, and projects.
File Downloads¶
The files involved in the processes included in this week’s documentation can be downloaded here.