Complex fill problem

[RHOLLID]

I am hoping someone can help with with this cituation tht i seem to always have when doing a complex fill on a design..it stitches out fine but when comes to the end the stitches do not overlap to close off,,i have tried changing directions,,my entry and exit placements and some times it works and some times it doesn't. if someone could give me some tip or ideas of what i am doing it would be great, i included a pic to show what it has done

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/view?q=giants+embroidery&psc=G&filter=1#5514233515711449186

[debndukes]

1st ... make sure there is plenty of underlay. Secondly, not sure of the DS version you are using but there should be something that says Fill Overlap or something close to that. Change the level from 0 to 5 or so and try that.

[HERB]

Are you saying there are no "lock stitches"?

[gcannon]

What fabric are you stitching? If it is knit, you may need to use the pull compensation to help take care of this.

[RHOLLID]

thank you for your suggestions,,,debndukes thanks i look in my design shop pro 4 and i do have an overlay box that i have never touched so always had been set to 0,,so i will be giving that a try.
gcannon,,thankyou,,i have been sewing on towels and i have been adjusting the pull comp and sometimes it has helped..once i give it a try i will let you guys know how it goes thank you for the help

[Laughing Palm]

Hi Rhollid,

After looking at your picture, it appears that your concern stems from the fact that either the fill stitching doesn't completely fill an element, or that the material being stitched bunches together between rows of stitching.

The problem you are having is a function of quite a few factors, which will vary based on the situation at hand - that's why you may be able to overcome it one time, but not another time.

Here are the factors to consider:
The material being stitched
The density of the fill stitches
The underlay of the area in question
The stitch entry & exit points
Any overlapping stitch lines
The direction/angles of stitching
Your hooping procedures
The backing materials you are using
The stitch lengths being used
(and probably some other things that don't come to mind right away)

Interestingly enough, push/pull compensation isn't really going to solve your problem here since it affects the stitching in a completely different direction, and isn't really the cause of the bunching of material.

If you will watch carefully when this happens, what you will see is that in a large fill area that is stitched with a standard tatami fill, one side may start to get filled in first, then the stitching will move to another side of that area and start filling it in going BACK towards the area that has already been stitched. When this happens, it's not uncommon to see the material you are working on being "pushed" along by the stitching...essentially stretched a bit...sort of like riding ahead of a wave! At some point, you're going to have some "pushed" material slightly raised up in front of your lines of stitches. Now, when the direction of the stitching changes and comes back the other way, the same thing will happen, and now you've got TWO sets of "pushed" material meeting each other! Hence the "gap" you see in your fill area. And the denser the stitching is, the more it pushes your material.

OK, so now that you hopefully realize that your base material is being pushed around by your stitch lines, it's time to figure out how to avoid that situation...

The first thing to consider is "How stretchy is my garment?" The more your material stretches, the more you have to work at overcoming that movement of material. To do that, the first thing most folks would tell you is to use appropriate backing, and to hoop accordingly. For example, if your material is a very thin knit, then you need to make darn sure your backing can compensate for the lack of stability in the knit. Use a heavier piece of backing, or something very stable (depending upon the circumstances) - you may even need to use several pieces of tear-away, or even use a topping material (which is common for looped terry and other materials with dimensionality).

Also, make sure you have hooped your material so that it doesn't have any looseness in it (is "looseness" a real word?). If you hoop your materials loosely, you're just asking for that type of "bunching" trouble since nothing is going to stop it from moving in front of your stitch lines.

Now, we have to consider underlay...which is going to be a big, BIG factor in something like this. It's usually better to have more underlay and less top stitching - that helps to avoid "bullet-proof" embroidery. The underlay will really help stabilize the material to your backing and not allow your garment material to move as much. Play around with the density of your underlay, the direction of your underlay, the number of underlays you are using, the stitch lengths of your underlay, and the direction/order in which your underlays are stitched...all of these factors are important to how well your material will behave! And also how well your final stitching will look.

It's usually best to have your underlays at contrasting angles to your top stitching. That allows the thread to lay on TOP of the underlay stitches instead of falling between the lines of underlay thread. I'm not sure I'm very clear here, so let me give you an example:

I have a circle to fill in. (Think of a round clock face.)
Let's say that my stitch angle for my top fill is going to be straight up and down (90-degrees).
I want the top tatami fill stitching to go left to right, which means that it will start at the 9 o'clock position, and end up finishing at the 3 o'clock position of the circle. These start and end positions are important since I don't want my stitching to end up in the middle of the circle and end up "pushing" material towards the center.
My underlay is most likely going to be one of two types. Either a single underlay that stitches at a horizontal angle (0-degrees) so that it's exactly 90-degrees opposite my fill stitching), or a double underlay that has the first underlay stitch angle at 45-degrees, and the second underlay at 135-degrees (notice that it's 90-degrees opposite the first underlay), which would allow my top stitching to sit nicely atop the underlay(s).

If you had your underlay at 90-degrees, and you top stitched at 90-degrees, your fill stitches would fall right alongside the underlay, and the underlay would not work very well - not to mention that the stitching would probably look ugly and uneven.

Be careful not to use underlay stitches that are too short, since you want your top stitches to have plenty of thread to lay on top of! Also, be careful not to make your underlays too dense, otherwise you will have the same problem with your underlays that you are having with your top stitching - that 'bunching" issue.

Also, it's usually best to have all of your stitching (top stitches AND underlays) go straight across a fill area without having to back-track to meet a previously stitched fill area. It helps flatten your material and is usually critical in digitizing for caps (which is almost always done in a BOTTOM-UP/CENTER-OUT method to avoid bunching).

This is why entry and exit points for both underlay and fills is so important to keep in mind when digitizing. If you use your software's automatic fill capability, be aware of how it stitches out, and if you can't get it to do it like you want (this is usually the case with the underlays), then try creating more than one of the same element, and "manually" use that method to create an underlay that works like you want.

One item you apparently learned about is the overlap feature of a fill. This is basically a question that asks you: "How many lines of stitches do you want to overlap when a fill area has to come back towards a previously filled section of that same area?" This helps to cover up any small bunched sections that may have occurred because of material movement. If you have properly accounted for the factors I have already covered, then this number should typically be quite small...1 or 2 is generally sufficient. If you have lines of stitches that get stitched over others, sometimes you can really notice it in the final product because you now have 2 layers of stitches, which will look a bit raised up, so be careful with this feature.

I hope this info helps. If not, don't worry...just delete it! LOL

Best,

Jim

[Rod or Sharon]

Now ....that...is a good explanation...thanks for the explanationto the group Jim...

Rod Springer
Amaya Tech & Trainer