Posts Tagged ‘computer’

Designer Embroidered Jeans in 4D Part 6: Stitching Out

Saturday, August 2nd, 2008

At last! We’ve reached the final stage – stitching out the design. For me, this is the most nerve wracking part of the process. After all the work put into setting up a design, it’s exciting and often a bit scary when it comes time to actually stitch out the design.

Thankfully, there are some options for stitching out the design. If you are hesitant about your ability to do multiple hoopings of a design, you can always stitch the design onto a polyester (or similar synthetic) organza and then applique the embroidery onto the garment. Cut carefully around your embroidery motifs, and give a final touch up to eliminate and stray ‘hairs’ or similar with a hot knife (it melts any little frayed edges around the design – just be careful not to melt or burn your embroidery threads). You can then applique the embroidery design onto the garment or object being embellished. This is a good choice for very dense designs or embroidery for difficult fabrics, such as velvet. It’s also a great way to be able to decide your placement after stitch out, rather than before.

In the case of my jeans, I decided to go ahead and stitch directly onto the jeans themselves. I opened the inseam (it was not a flat-felled seam which made it easier) prior to embroidery. Now it was time to choose my stabilizer. I’ve had good results with Floriani Wet ‘n’ Stick for these types of projects, so that is what I chose to hoop. When I stitched these jeans, I did put another layer of stabilizer – cutaway – under the bottom part of the design. I accidentally omitted this layer (oops!) when stitching the upper, but luckily I found that my results were just as acceptable. But if I were stitching out a denser design I would want the support of another layer under the whole design.

So I dampened my Wet ‘n’ Stick stabilizer and placed my jeans leg. I used Precise Positioning to make sure that the bottom of my design was where I wanted it to align with my pant leg hem. I also checked (using Precise Positioning) to make sure that the strong vertical elements in my design ran parallel to my leg seam. When I was satisfied that my design was aligned correctly, I stitched out the first hoop of my design.

Now the more delicate step in the process: aligning the two designs. Thankfully, Design Aligner can and will (if options are selected – see previous posting) provide alignment stitches which help this process a great deal. In the photo you can see the alignment stitches (they make an ‘L’ shape) at the corner of the design. I use these reference marks as well as connecting points on the embroidery (the rose stems and other areas that flow from one hoop of the design into the other) to ensure my designs stitch out accurately. Many embroiderers use templates instead or in addition to this – whatever works best for you is the best technique! Before adhering my second hooping to the stabilizer, I use Precise Positioning to find the corresponding alignment stitches for the new section of embroidery. I make sure that my hoop is positioned with my needle at the ‘intersection’ (as shown above) and then sink the needle into my jeans at the intersection of the alignment stitches on the previous stitching as shown. Leaving the needle sunk into the fabric as a pivot point, I then adhere my project into the hooped stabilizer. I do my best to align it as straight as possible; any small adjustments to correct rotation can easily be done using Precise Positioning.

I cannot stress the importance of using Precise Positioning enough. It is a great tool! It is designed to ensure that your design is aligned perfectly. It will be your best friend when embroidering; it just takes a bit of practice. I highly recommend taking a class if you have not learned this tool yet. I use the magnification on the Precise Positioning screen to check any and all areas of the design to make sure that the needle is going to land where I want it to land. PpscreenYou can increase the magnification to over 1000% so that you can literally see every stitch. In this photo you can see the Precise Positioning screen. The magnification is set at 1250% so that I can clearly see the ends of the ‘stems’ in my design where the design will intersect with the previously hooped portion. You can see from the photo that I am at ‘step 1′ – determining where the first point of reference will be. I can move the point of reference (the red +) wherever I want using the stylus or the directional buttons in the big circle. You can also move your field of view around – that is what is happening in this screen – I can tell because of the ‘hand’ symbol that appears in the large circle as well as the fact that the hand button (located to the lower left of the big circle) is highlighted. The best way to learn how to use a tool like Precise Positioning is to simply practice. That is true of any embroidery technique.

And here it is – the finished product. Overall, I am very happy with my design and stitch out. The jeans have been through the washer/dryer cycle a few times so they’ve had a chance to be fully softened up.

What I’ve learned from this particular project (I always learn something): I actually like the upper part (where I forgot to put a layer of cutaway stabilizer under the hoop) a little better – it’s softer and more flexible and for a pair of jeans I don’t really care whether it lies perfectly smooth. Do I wish I’d done anything differently? Of course – I don’t think I’ve ever done a project where I don’t have a ‘learning experience’. In this case, what I wish I’d done differently was to omit the strong vertical element of my design from the upper half (the gold ‘trellis’). While I like the way it looks, I did not realize that my jeans were a bit boot cut, and therefore taper a bit toward the knee. As a result, when laying flat it looks like my trellis is ‘leaning’ a bit at the top. It’s not obvious when the jeans are worn, but it’s enough to cause me some mental irritation! If I had omitted the top of the trellis motif, I would have simply had a semi-random pattern of twining roses which would not have obviously been straight or crooked when stitched.

Hope you enjoyed the series! It’s a time consuming project but one that is a lot of fun to make and especially to wear.

–Katrina








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Designer Embroidered Jeans in 4D Part 3: Combining Designs

Friday, July 11th, 2008

I’ve mentioned in a previous posting how much I enjoy many of the new machine embroidery designs. There seems to be a trend developing away from ‘single motif’ embroidery toward more modular designs that can be combined in a number of ways to create many different looks.

It’s this ‘mix and match’ ability that makes the Fashion Roses design set from Anita Goodesign perfect for embellishing clothing, especially a long, narrow design such as a pant leg.

To begin, I go to the File menu and select ‘Open’. I open the file which contains the designs and, using the Ctrl key, select a number of designs I think I might want to mix and match into my overall design. Using the custom sized hoop mentioned in Part 1, I begin the process of combining designs.

When combining these design motifs, I like to play around with various combinations. I use the Rotate, Mirror, and Resize tools quite a bit to try out different combinations. If I’m doing a lot of resizing or other types of editing of a motif, I will often select the design, copy and paste a duplicate before beginning any major alterations. That way I have an unaltered copy of the motif on the screen for reference or use without having to use ‘Open’ to fetch another one.

I also cut designs apart when needed. Sometimes, such as working with a floral like the Designer Roses, there will be leaf or bud that lands where I don’t want it. When this happens, I simply edit it out. To do this, I first select the motif that I want to edit. Then I go to the Edit tab at the lower right hand of the screen, which gives me a view such as in the illustration. As shown, I will select (by checking only the boxes containing the colors I am editing) the color(s) of the stitches I want to edit. In this case, I am only editing out a one-color tendril, which is easy to do. I use the Lasso tool (Freehand Select, under the Select tools), and circle around the area to be deleted. Once that is selected, I hit the Delete key and voila, the tendril disappears.

When you are truly happy with your combined design, select ‘Combine’. This will merge the designs together and eliminate any overlapping stitches. Remember that you will not be able to work with individual pieces of the design after this point. Save the design, and then select ColorSort. I will go into more detail about optimizing your design in the next part of the series.

Have fun with the design process. For me, this is definitely ‘the fun part’. When you are combining motifs, consider some of the following:

Does the design have good flow? Does your eye move around the design easily or does it get ‘stuck’ in places? A good design is harmonious and has good ‘rhythm’.

Is the design in proportion to the size and scale of the area to be stitched? When doing jean designs I have a tendency to go a little overboard. Fortunately, I am ‘large scale’ myself, but you don’t want to overwhelm your garment.

Have fun! Next week – Optimizing your design for stitch out.

–Katrina


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Designer Embroidered Jeans in 4D Part 2: Choosing a Design

Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008

Now comes the fun part – choosing the design!

I purchased my first embroidery machine 10 years ago, and as a result, I likely own more embroidery designs than I will ever stitch out in my lifetime! And I am very certain that I will continue to collect designs that capture my interest.

That being said, I think we are living in a golden age of machine embroidery, especially with more and more designers/design companies producing what I think of as ‘modular designs’. That is, design collections that contain multiple design components that are made to be combined into larger overall designs. These are just perfect for incorporating into a pair of designer jeans!

For example, here is a vest made from a former pair of jeans that I embroidered (this is the ‘Pant Leg Vest’ from the book Denim by Design). The designs are from ‘Bella Fiori’ by Jenny Haskins. I saw this design stitched out on a pair of jeans at a Sew Fun a year and a half ago. I liked it so much I bought the design, went home and created my own version. Now that the the jeans had worn out, they were recycled into another Sew Fun project. Talk about a life cycle!

But I digress. In 4D it is especially fun to combine designs, as the software will remove any overlap in embroidery designs. Plus you can use the Stitch Density tool and the Design Optimizer tools in the 4D Stitch Editor to help tame some of the denser designs.

So what should you consider when choosing a design?

First of all, consider density. Denim weights vary, but even the heaviest denim can tend to pucker around designs if the embroidery is dense. The denser the design, the more stabilizer is required. Consider what type and thickness of stabilizer you are willing to live with on the inside of your jeans.


Here is an example of a very dense design on denim.

These are a pair of my jeans embroidered with the ‘Roses for Mary’ design by Jenny Haskins. I love this design; I think the roses are incredible (and I am very, very fond of roses!). However these designs are very dense – sometimes I jokingly call these my ‘Tin Man’ or ‘bulletproof’ jeans! They are very stiff. I found that using Wet and Stick stabilizer did a good job, but I still had a fair amount of puckering around the design due to the sheer volume of thread being pushed into the fabric (the yarns in the denim fabric get displaced by the embroidery threads thus causing distortion). But I still love them. I just wish I’d used some No Show Fusible Mesh or similar afterward to make the back side a little softer against the skin. The stiffness of the jeans leg combined with the thread and stabilizer makes for a less comfortable jean.

Here are some important things to consider when choosing a design for your designer embroidered jeans:

1. How do I envision my design? A design collection that already has elements that are made to be interchangeable makes creating big designs much easier.

2. What is the scale of my embroidery design? If you need to size up or down more than 20% in order to create the scale you envision, you should probably reconsider using it. Also consider the scale of your body. I am tall, so large, bold designs are in proportion to my larger scaled body, and it is not unusual for me to increase the size of a design. If I were petite, I could still use the same designs, but I would likely decrease the size proportionately. Some of the Anita Goodesign fashion collections (for example) feature the same motifs in different sizes.

3. How dense are the designs? As I mentioned above, the density of the designs affects the amount and density of stabilizer required for a clean, smooth stitchout. In the vest at left, an old pair of jeans were cut up to make the ‘Shawl Collar Vest’ from the book Denim by Design. I had interfaced the denim with a medium weight fusible interfacing to give the denim more body. These designs – ‘Louise’ by Angie Spong – are of average to light density so they did not require much more in the way of stabilizer to stitch out without fabric distortion.

For my new pair of jeans, I’ve decided I’m going to use designs from the ‘Fashion Roses’ design collection by Anita Goodesign. As I said, I’m very partial to roses! They are my other obsession – apart from textiles and fiber arts! Stay tuned next week for the next installment – Design layout!

Have a safe and wonderful 4th of July holiday!

–Katrina


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