There are "rules" that one needs to be aware of when creating an embroidery design:
- An embroidery design may not sew out looking the way it does on a digitizing screen.
- The way embroidery looks on a digitizing screen may not look like the graphic image it is based on.
A graphic image is created in a flat media - paper, ink - and detail can be of minute size. Detail can be as small as one point.
Embroidery is created in the world of fabric and thread. The width of a needle may be greater than one point in a graphic image. Embroidery can only "suggest" detail, because it must be able to sew. Too much detail results in too many stitches in one area, which causes thread and needle breaks.
When embroidery sews on fabric, it causes the fabric to be pulled in or pushed out. Depending on the fill pattern, the type of fabric, the size of the design, the underlay, and the stabilization, fabric will be compressed or enlarged by embroidery. In fact, because of the way all embroidery machines are designed, you may have compression on one side of the design, and enlargement on the other!
The things we do to perfect embroidery design sewing are called compensation. When we use stabilization under the fabric, we are compensating for the push and pull. When we use underlay in the design, we are compensating, also. We are even compensating when we tighten a hoop so the fabric won't move.
We can digitize compensation into an embroidery design. For example, let's create a circle of fill.
Click the Parallel Fill: Circle icon.
Click on the design screen near the center. Drag the cursor to create a circle. When you lift your finger off the mouse button, the circle will be created.
Click the Select icon. The circle will be selected.
Click the Reshape icon.
The reshaping point in the center of the circle is used to move the circle. The reshaping points at the top and the right side are used to modify the shape of the circle.
The Start Point Indicator, which looks like a diamond, is positioned so that the fill pattern is diagonal. Diagonal fill patterns are used for compensation, because fabric will pull in less when fill is a low angle diagonal, and they are the default in Digitizer 10000.
However, there are times you need to sew your embroidery design with horizontal fill. To change the fill angle, you move the Start Point Indicator.
Slide your mouse cursor over the Start Point Indicator until it becomes a double arrow.
Click on the point.
Drag it to the top over the top reshaping point.
Press the Enter key.
Notice that the circle filled in with deeper color, indicating horizontal fill.
Now that it has horizontal fill, won't it pull in more when it is sewn? Most likely, yes. To compensate for the horizontal fill, we need to widen the circle so it becomes an oval! It will be an oval on the design screen, but it will sew a circle.
Click the reshape point at the right side of the circle.
Drag the circle into an oval shape.
Press Enter.
To stop reshaping, press the Esc keyor click the Stop icon.
Only you can determine how wide to make the oval. Depending on your fabric, the underlay you use, and how you stabilize, the oval may need to be wide or slight.
Suppose we needed to sew a border around the circle we just created. Do you think the border should be in the shape of an oval?
The border should be in the shape of the circle from which we originally digitized. On the screen, the border will have to be inside the circle. But, when it sews out, the border will sew where it was programmed to sew, around the compensated circle.
When we digitize, 50% of the work comes before the initial sew-out, and 50% comes after. It is in analyzing the design sew-out that determines modifications to the design. And those modifications may result in the embroidery design on the screen looking odd.
