15. Wildcard - Embroidery¶
For my wildcard week, I wanted to do embroidery. Luckily, we were given an emroidery machine by a staff member at our school so we were able to try it out using a Brother SE600.
Ink/Stitch¶
To embroider, I needed to create a file that the embroidery machine can read and use to create the stitches. I decided to use Ink/Stitch this week to create this file. Ink/Stitch is a free extension for InkScape, an open source graphics program. The first thing I did was download Ink/Stitch from their website which automatically installed the extension to Inkscape. The image I decided to go with for this week was the Fabacademy logo.
Bitmapping¶
I went into InkScape and imported the png. Before I could use Ink/Stitch, I needed to turn the png into an svg. To do this I used the Trace Bitmap tool. At first, I tried to do a multicolor bitmap. But I realized that the colors for the bitmap tool were not perfect and would create extra colors out of the image which would make it so that when I used Ink/Stitch, it would believe I was trying to use 30 or so different colors/threads.
Instead, I used the autotrace tool to create the bitmap.
Then I manually colored it in with the fill bucket tool to the colors I wanted.
Ink/Stitch Extension¶
I was following this tutorial on the Ink/Stitch website to create the file.
Now that my svg was ready, I went to the drop down tab Extensions where I fould Ink/Stitch then i hit Params. This opened a new tab where it gave a list of settings for how the stitches would be performed. The only setting I needed to use was the Auto Fill setting. Changing the settings would bring up a tab where a preview on how the stitches would be performed would show up.
Since everything looked good in the preview, I knew that I was good to export the file. So I hit ‘Apply and Quit’ then File>Save as Copy in the drop down bar. I made sure the save the file as a `.pes because that is what the Brother SE600 embroidery machine can read.
Embroidering¶
I copied the file onto a flashdrive so I could access it on the embroidery machine.
Before I started to embroider, I watched this video on how to wind the bobbins for the embroidery machine. Some of the bobbins were already made for me (such as the blue and green ones) but I needed to make the red bobbin so this video was very helpful. I also followed this video which gave a step by step process on how to prep and the machine and embroider.
Mistakes¶
Even though these videos were really good guides, I still had some trouble getting the machine to embroider correctly.
There were Four main problems. The first was that a screw that held the presser foot in place was loose which caused the needle to hit it while embroidering (luckily nothing broke) and I fixed it by simply screwing it in tighter. The second was that I wasn’t pulling the string all the way through the needle which made the start of the embroider look messy. The third was that I kept forgetting to lower the presser foot before I executed process 9 which made the string clump up and cause the embroider to fail. The last was that the video I watched on how to embroider didn’t explicitly say that I had to change the color of the bobbin, which led to this mistake.
Process¶
Once I had understood my problems and fixed them, the process went smoothly. I installed the bobbin and went through the steps to loop the thread through the machine and needle. Once this was done, I put my sheet into my embroidery hoop and tightened the screw to increase tension.
Then put it into the spot in the embroidery machine and now I was ready to start my file.
Once a color was done, I changed the bobbin and thread to the color that I needed at that point. Once I had gone through each color, I was done.
These were all the iterations I did while trying to make this one embroider.
Reflection¶
I believe that my embroider came out well. But, embroidery is a very precise skill, there are always ways to make your embroidery look better. I could spend months iterating different softwares and techniques to make the embroider better and better. But for the week, I think I made good progress understanding and utilizing embroidery.
Downloads¶
My downloads for this week can be found here