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    Embroidering an origami-style box for small things

    By Irina, in Machine embroidery materials and technology, , 0 comments, 3,300 views
    Original text by Marina Belova 
    I think that many people are familiar with origami — everybody I know had made paper fliers, pompoms, tulips, etc., in their childhood. Today I suggest to refresh our memory about this art and make the simplest possible box called "masu". 

    Of course, the biggest attraction of this project for me is that I won't have to sew. I'll just embroider the fabric and make a three-dimensional figure out of it. 
    So. I plan to embroider only 4 sides of the box. I drew this simple design and fitted it into a square: 

    It is very easy to calculate the measurements of a square piece of fabric and the position of the embroidery on it using this formula: 
    L=1.41х (S+2xH) 
    Where L is a square side length  S is bottom length  H is the box height  Why the diagonal position of the embroidery? Because I folded the paper to create a box, marked the sides where I wanted my embroidery and unfolded it back again. Then I did a drawing in Corel, based on the proportions I calculated using a formula above. 
    I digitized my drawing: 

    Hooped the fabric together with the stabilizer: 

    And embroidered the entire design: 

    Two red stitches on the right and on the left of the ornament are parts of the borderline of my future square visible in the frame. Tacks mark the centers of the sides of my square. According to them I'll draw the required square and cut it out. I didn't tear away the stabilizer from the wrong side. It is necessary for making the fabric coarse. 
    I extended the embroidered lines so that they formed a square: 

    Cut the square out: 

    Now it's time to make a box. I turn the fabric the wrong side up and fold it in two and then again to get proper creases. They will help me to make the box. 

    This way: 

    Then open the square up and fold the corners into the center: 

    You'll get an envelope: 

    After that I fold every edge into the center of the square and unfold them back again to make the sides of the box: 

    Like this: 

    Now it's time to assemble the box: For this, I need to unfold two corners diagonally: 

    And then form the sides by folding vertically along the creases: 

    This way: 

    Now I fold the fabric in along the creases and also fold the corners into the center of the bottom the box: 


    This is all, in a nutshell. The box is ready. It is harder to fold the fabric than paper but not impossible. Especially if you harden the fabric so as to make it coarse. 

    I put a piece of ordinary cardboard on the bottom of the box to cover the edges of the fabric. But, in my opinion, it is possible to turn this into an advantage, too. Fox example, to embroider on the heavyweight fabric and harden it with the interfacing material and then finish the edges to prevent fraying. 

    How to make puffs on your embroidery machine

    By Irina, in Machine embroidery materials and technology, , 1 comment, 4,051 views
    Original text by Olga Milovanova

    The word "puff" derives from the French verb "bouffer" – to puff up. Puffs are rows of pleats arranged in a certain way.

    The fabric for them is gathered manually.
    The puffs were especially popular in the 70s and 80s: so-called "waffles", a type of handmade puffs, were used then for dresses and blouses.

    Nowadays we witness the second wave of popularity. Modern designers use this type of decoration in their collections. Puffs are becoming a fashionable detail of the clothes.


    Thanks to the innovations, it became possible to make puffs and create embroidery designs with crashing on the embroidery machines. 
    Brother Innov-is XV embroidery machine has an unusual library of designs with 3–5 mm stitches, which are repeated 3–5 times. 
    These are crashing designs that imitate puffs. (Crashing effect is also called crinkle effect). 



    Madeira Smoking thread is used for that. After washing and ironing the threads on the wrong side gather and create wrinkles on the fabric. 

    These are what we can call «designs with crashing effect». 

    Let's play around! 
    Wind the Smocking thread on a spool, hoop the fabric, pick a crashing design from the library and start embroidering it. You won't need a stabilizer here. 
    After unhooping, the embroidery looks just like usual. Iron it. Set your iron at the maximum temperature for your fabric type and gently slide across its wrong side. No pressing down! The thread will gather about 30%. 

    The lighter is the fabric, the more pronounced will be the crashing effect. 
    I used a ready shirt as a test sample. 

    I aligned my future embroidery with the waistline. Framed the shirt, without a stabilizer, and embroidered it. 

    Set an iron at "Cotton" and "heated" the embroidery through, from the wrong side. This resulted in a "crashing" effect. 


    I decided that I wanted more volume and made changes to the sewing pattern. 
    I cut the pattern for the back bodice along the princess line and the waistline. On the lower side of the back bodice, starting from the folding line, 5–10 cm were left for allowance. No allowance in the upper part; I cut it from the folding line. 

    Gathered the fabric with the basting stitch along the waistline, and pinned the lower and upper sides face-to-face. Stitched the upper and the lower parts of the back bodice. 

    Time to embroider! Frame the fabric so that the seam line runs parallel to the edge of the frame. Position the design in such a way that the design will cover the seam joining the two details. 


    Stitch several times to make it more expressive. 

    Unhoop the whole thing, iron it with a hot iron from the wrong side. The smocking thread will shrink 30%, gathering the fabric, and the allowance will add the volume. 

    Now sew up the item. 

    This is the ready item embroidered on the back. 

    The experimenting continues )

    Loosely woven fabrics

    By Irina, in Machine embroidery materials and technology, , 0 comments, 5,370 views
    Original text by Marina Belova 
    Several days ago I was thinking if there was a difference between machine embroidery on a net and on a loosely-woven fabric. Technically, both of these materials have enough of empty space for the design to have rather an unappealing look, because the stitches don't have much to hold on to. And the most important task is to achieve even borders instead of jagged ones. 
    When you come to think of it, you can embroider on anything at all and still get good results. You just need some effort. That is, choose the right stitch parameters and meet all technical requirements. 
    The technical requirements in our case are simple and widely covered in the variety of sources: 
    Stabilizer under + stabilizer on top. Obviously, these fabrics being semitransparent, an ordinary tear-away or cut-away stabilizer isn't suitable for them. That being so, there are not many options left – either semitransparent spunbond (no-show mesh) or water-soluble stabilizers (among them even the adhesive ones with a protective layer, such as Filmoplast) or, as I have already mentioned in my article about embroidery on knitwear, a piece of organza of a matching color. You need to additionally secure this "sandwich" with a thin water soluble film on top and hoop it to prevent wrinkles.  You can use the threads of any thickness and structure.  Loosen the upper thread tension.  Use the most ordinary needles matching the threads and the fabric in thickness. Needlepoint – sharp.  Lower the speed a little so that not to pull the loosely woven yarns.  In my opinion, following these rules allows us to embroider almost any kind of design except the ones with a large number of stitches. The fabric is a very flexible thing, and it is better not to play with it. 
    There are some special aspects of the machine embroidery on this kind of fabric: 
    It goes without saying that you should pay close attention to the basis of the embroidery – the underlay. Debora Jones, for instance, advises applying 2 layers of underlay, consisting of the edge run and zigzags for satins and the lattice at 90° under the finishing fills. But if you want my opinion, I wouldn't be so keen on strengthening the fabric under the thin satin outlines – better to leave just one underlay of the two.  Use a standard stitch density. Don't increase or reduce it.  It makes good sense to increase the pull compensation a bit. For example, I set pull compensation at minimum 0.5 mm on each side of this mosquito, plus the artificial shape distortion (the outlines widening) mentioned here.  No extra-long stitches on these fabrics; the length should be limited to 3-4.5 mm. Anything longer than that should be split. 
    Nevertheless, the amount of overlapping of the object and its outline (shape distortion + compensation) just barely avoided the appearance of gaps.  Based on this experience, I would exclude the running stitch outlines from the design and use only simplest fonts like Arial.  Also, the most important thing is to test everything.  I used organza as a stabilizer for my mosquito because a tear-away one would be visible through my fabric (it is like cross-stitch canvas, but not quite). On the right you can see the fabric with the stabilizer under it and on the left – without it: 

    While in this photo there is organza on the right, and you cannot really tell which is which: 

    I hooped the fabric together with the organza: 

    And put a piece of water-soluble film on top: 

    The ready embroidery: 

    After that, I removed the film from the front and trimmed the organza along the perimeter. 

    I am quite satisfied with the result, though it has been my first attempt at embroidery on this fabric and that I chose a design with borders and very thin outlines. 

    One more method of color blending

    By Irina, in Machine embroidery materials and technology, , 1 comment, 2,784 views
    Original text by Marina Belova 
    I've written on the subject of color blending in machine embroidery several times, covering the basic blending principles and also 2 methods of doing it. Today I'll add one more method to the aforementioned two. 
    You can see the examples of this technique in the works of at least 2 famous embroidery persons: Bonnie Nielsen of Madeira and Niamh and her team embroidery. I like the ingenuity and the expressiveness of this color blending style, its devil-may-carishness, and chaotic nature. 
    Its key point is to superimpose low-density layers of fill stitches (either flat or motif ones). The density, stitch direction, and texture of each layer may vary. And the most important thing – the design is not filled completely as it is custom in standard digitizing (from one outline to the other), but instead, the layers are put on top of each other in blots of a different shape. The next layer may or may not be of a different color or shade, they may all be of the same color, it's the density that creates the color depth. 
    I.e. you should get something like in the case: 

    In this case, not only the fabric but also its texture and color play an important role. All this is visible between the stitches and makes embroidery especially beautiful. I also like that registering of the outlines is not important here – it is a different digitizing style. 
    Of course, it is not applicable to any kind of embroidery, but for the works in a modern style, it is rather good. This style bewitches me. And I understand that I cannot use just like that, but at the first sight, it looks easy enough. 

    3D Puff on baseball caps. Open ends, push compensation. Oddities.

    By Irina, in Machine embroidery materials and technology, , 1 comment, 5,266 views
    Original text by Marina Belova 
    I've long wanted to raise a question of push compensation in theory and in practice but didn't get around to it until today. And last week I faced it head-on in connection with 3D Puff embroidery on baseball caps, so it would be utterly wrong to linger even more. 
    Well, about a week ago I received an order for a cap with puffy. Sounds like nothing unusual. It's only the 3D Puff, I've embroidered designs with 3D Puff before. But now it turned out that all the knowledge I have about adding volume to the embroidery is good for the flat surfaces, and not for the rounded and flexible one like a baseball cap. 
    I think it is common knowledge that the open ends of 3D Puff should, too, be penetrated by the needle (along the direction of the stitch). For this, you need to draw special "caps". Like the lavender ones in the photo below: 

    Also, stitches in the upper layer, according to several push compensation theories, should be shortened by a certain number of mm or stitches.
    See the example below (marked in the photo): 

    In this case, I removed the commonly suggested 5–9 stitches (~1mm). 
    I've always been confused by the fact that by using this technique we consciously create a non-penetrated segment on the open end, through which the puffy will undoubtedly peek: 

    Reality shows that 3D Puff does indeed stick out, and there is nothing you can do about it: 

    All this brings me to the upsetting conclusion: information that can be bought or read for free about digitizing for 3D Puff is not always correct and lacks many details for the fear of competition. 
    Oh well, any theory is good enough so long as you are able to analyze it and expand on the subject after digitizing. 
    In my opinion, according to the simplest laws of geometry, the aforementioned "caps" should have not one but at least three sides with lines of needle penetrations through 3D Puff, just in case. 
    But to me, the question of shape is not the main one related to the 3D embroidery on caps. I'm much more concerned by what remains unsaid about pull compensation. 
    Here's the example. In the photo below you can see one of the 3D elements with the canonical caps and shortening on the open edges in order to prevent the stitches from slipping off the edge and onto the cap surface. I painted the upper layer green so that to make it visible that I'd done everything according to the theory. That is, a capped corner + 1 mm off both edges: 

    What should look perfect really looks like this: 

    In the upper end the cap is insufficiently covered by the specified number of stitches, and at the lower end, they slip off the edge and onto the fabric. Starting and end points are to blame for that. In this case, I arranged them as follows: the starting point (green triangle) below and the end point (red triangle) above. 

    That means that the stitches always slip at the beginning of the embroidery and stay in place at the end of it. And this repeats every time I embroider something. Even if it is something of an ordinary density. Though in the latter case it is less pronounced, because there is less push in the direction opposite to the one in which the embroidery goes. 
    This contradicts all established theories on the push compensation, where an equal number of stitches should be spared on both ends. 
    I even counted the stitches that had slipped off the caps at the beginning of the upper satin layer – there was always 10–15 of them. This means that I should lop off additional 1–1.5 mm from the upper layer's starting point. And on the contrary, to add some at the opposite end so that the cap didn't look so bare. This is how the upper layer should be constructed in order for the embroidery to look neat and clean: 

    And not like this: 

    At the same time, if I remove 2–2.5 mm from the cap inside, it will enlarge the are where there are no needle penetrations. This will cause the cap, in its conventional form, to stop working completely. 
    The reality doesn't always conform to theoretical rules, at least my experience says so. 
    Here is the list of possible reasons: 
    I use the wrong settings while digitizing – density, for example – and, consequently, create faulty designs.  I don't stabilize properly.  My machine doesn't work quite the way the others do.  P.S. All 3D Puff embroidery theories work fine on a flat surface, at least this is my case. I consciously omit the method with the use of the parallel underlay, loved by many embroiderers, which makes design creation much easier, as it is not compatible with all fonts. It visibly distorts straight elements so that the letters begin to stretch diagonally and extend over the baseline. 

    Embroidery on velvet

    By Irina, in Machine embroidery materials and technology, , 0 comments, 9,827 views
    Original text by Marina Belova 
    Sometimes I think that it is strange to even ask how to embroider on velvet, for everything seems to be obvious here. This is because I have some experience of the embroidery on velvet and can share these simple rules with you. 

    The main (commonly recognized) rules of machine embroidery on velvet are as follows: 
    No hooping: the hoop flattens the pile and leaves visible traces. Use only a magnetic hoop or an adhesive.  There are different kinds of adhesives. You can use an adhesive stabilizer with a sticky side covered with a protection layer; it doesn't need to be pressed to the fabric with an iron – Filmoplast, for example. I, for one, don't like Filmoplast – it is hard to remove. Especially if you embroider a big design and leave it for a while – in that case, the pile will come off with it. But it secures the fabric well. 
    You can use an ordinary stabilizer, sprayed with temporary spray adhesive, and then stick the fabric to it. But with designs containing a large number of stitches you can only use this one at your own risk – the velvet will detach during the embroidery. 
    I've seen lots of recommendations on choosing a stabilizer. Some write that a heavy-weight cut-away should be used for chevrons, and some – that a tear-away middleweight one. I think that the suggestion to use a cut-away looks strange here. I use a tear-away one. Or nothing at all if the velvet itself is thick and stable so that it can withstand hooping. 
    There is also a very popular advice – to additionally secure the velvet already attached to the stabilizer with a basting stitch along the perimeter of the design. In my view, not every kind of velvet will endure the additional needle penetrations, and there will be leftovers after ripping the thread out. Better to test every time. 
    The velvet should be covered with a water soluble stabilizer (film) so that the pile doesn't peek between the stitches. This film should be removed after the embroidery. This may prove not to be the easiest task. There are the designs with the small details, you know. And the velvet shouldn't get wet, so you'll quite busy with it.  Besides, there exist contradictory opinions on when to remove the film. Some people write that it should be removed after embroidering the underlay and before the finishing layer of stitches. But the majority insist upon waiting until the embroidery is completed. I'm with the latter, because, to me, the first option only complicates the design. Also, you won't stop the machine just to tear off the film, will you? 
    Alternatively, a heat sensitive stabilizer is suggested in such cases, for instance, Thermogaze. That seems more than questionable to me, though. 
    The embroidery threads may vary greatly in composition and thickness.  The most standard needles like R or SES should be used. Their thickness should correspond to the thickness of the threads.  Velvet fabric may vary in composition – you can find silk, cotton, rayon, polyester velvets and so on. Some of these are very stable, and some very stretchy (knitted velvet). In the case when velvet is secured on a sticky base and not hooped, it does not matter. But if you are going to hoop your velvet, then its stability is of a great importance. 
    I think everybody knows that velvet is a piled fabric. The pile ranges from very short, almost invisible, to considerably high. I used to embroider on velvet with the pile about 5 mm high. Such velvet is very similar to the fake fur, yet it is velvet. 
    Besides its height, the pile may vary in direction (nap). It is very easy to know if the pile has any – just slide your hand across it in several directions. 
    How can this knowledge help or hinder you in machine embroidery? If you don't hoop your velvet but use the adhesive instead, it is no help. But if you do the hooping, it is very important to know how the pile is inclined. 
    No, I didn't mention hooping by mistake. A long time ago I, too, was surprised by the possibility. But, as the experience has shown, it can be done. But instead of the hoop, where we don't have any influence over the character and direction of the pressure applied, use the frame, as on the industrial embroidery machines. That is, the one that has special clamps. The clamps should be fastened in the direction of the pile. In this case, the damage to the pile will be minimal (provided that you use a Tajima-like frame). Also, of course, you should add a piece of soft fabric for protection – flannel, for instance. Clamps leave traces, too, but they are much less visible than the ones from the usual hoop. Besides, if you have a good steam-generator with a brush, you can put everything right. Yes, it requires a great deal of experience, no argument here. Nevertheless, it is possible. 
    Also, last year I encountered a cheap velvet, on which the hoop left no traces – what a pleasure it was to embroider. But to frame stretchy velvet instead of sticking it onto the paper is sheer agony. 
    While I was writing, one more way of securing velvet sprang to my mind – pinning it onto the hooped water soluble film. One hell of a task. But can be used for extremely delicate velvets. 
    There are no digitizing recommendations for the ordinary velvet except the following: 
    Avoid small details, especially the ones embroidered with the running stitches – remember that you'll need to remove the film from under them. Besides, they will sink in the pile because of their size.  Avoid big areas filled with lots of stitches – there is no stability in sticking the velvet to the paper, it will begin to detach, and the embroidery will be distorted as the consequence. This means that we'll need to substitute the fills for something else, such as an applique, which, by the way, looks fantastic on velvet.  The underlay should be of the most ordinary kind, corresponding to the size of the elements and stitch lengths. And to the desired effect, of course. Although, I've frequently seen the recommendation to place at least zigzag under the finishing layer of satin stitches and the lattice under the fills. But if you use film on top of the pile, even the ordinary designs will look good on velvet without any strengthening layer.  The density of the finishing fills is also standard – 0.4–0.45 mm. The main thing is to prevent the fabric from peeking through. 

    In-The-Hoop. Embroidered passport cover

    By Irina, in Machine embroidery materials and technology, , 1 comment, 4,077 views
    Original text by Marina Belova 
    I got an idea of making a passport cover. Not a common one, with a thick satin border, but of a more elaborate kind, with all seams closed – like the ones made on a sewing machine. It all began when my daughter obtained a passport and bought a funny cover for it. The cover was clearly handmade, vivid color with a button. I turned it this way and that, feeling glad for the creator of this eye candy. Tonight it suddenly dawned on me how to make something like that on an embroidery machine, together with the embroidery. 
    I got this as the result: 


    The making process is very simple. Anyone who practices sewing can guess its structure. But let's begin with choosing of a design. Having measured the passport and left some fabric for the turn-ups, I dug up yet another free design on the Web and fitted it to the resulting pattern: 

    As always, the embroidery sequence contains several stops. The first stitch outlines the future design, and the second one stitches the cover.
    The line is not closed. I left an opening through which I'll later turn the cover the right side out. 
    The number of the stitches in the design is not high – about 9000. In my step-by-step demonstration, I'll use the test sample (you can see the final variant in the photo above). 
    The first step is to hoop the tear-away stabilizer: 

    Then I load the design and stitch the outline: 

    Place my fabric on top of the stabilizer, face up, and secure it with an adhesive. This is how the front side of the cover looks like: 

    I start the machine and embroider the entire design as planned. After that, stop. 

    This is where the things get interesting. I prepare the fabric for my eyelet. I chose a plain hair tie, the only elastic thing of the matching color I could find: 

    Away with the metal thingy on the hair tie – I won't need it: 

    I place the hair tie approximately in the middle of the embroidered side and secure it with paper painters tape: 

    Time to add the flaps (or how are these things called), which will hold my passport. While preparing for the embroidery, I cut out 2 square pieces of fabric: 

    I folded them in half and pressed them with an iron, face up: 

    What I need to do now is to secure them with an adhesive on the front side of my cover: 

    Add another layer of fabric, for the inner side, face down: 

    Stitch this "sandwich" with a running stitch along the perimeter. Unhoop the whole thing and turn the wrong side out: 

    Trim the extra fabric to the outline, which is the outermost stitch: Also, I cut the corners diagonally: 

    I decided against removing the stabilizer because I thought it would help the cover to maintain its shape. Time to see how the result looks like.
    This is the front side: 

    This is the inner side: 

    I sew up the opening by hand. Now I grasped how I should have done it. You can use the machine if you want. I sewed the button on, aligning it with the eyelet. 

    Removed the jump stitches and ironed the embroidery: 

    The cover is ready for the passport. 

    This is how it looks like with the passport in it: 

    Nevertheless, I didn't like the sample. So I decided to choose another fabric, add one more cm for the allowance and modify the pattern. 
    The design didn't change much, but the embroidery became way easier: I added the marks for the flaps. See the small vertical ticks that mark their position: 

    I align my flaps with them, and I also stitch them before the fabric for the inner side: 

    The whole thing takes about an hour. But the result sure is cool enough. Find out how to make a cover for a school diary by using a similar technique. 

    Embroidery on organza

    By Irina, in Machine embroidery materials and technology, , 7 comments, 12,807 views
    Original text by Marina Belova 
    Yesterday I was embroidering a basket for the Easter egg on organza and, while creating a file, thinking if there were some digitizing peculiarities for this type of fabric or you could do the same as with other fabrics like calico or denim that don't pose any problems. 
    In the end, I used the standard density and underlay settings. I didn't notice any embroidery defects except the yarn slippage inherent to this fabric. 

    Today I set out to look up the recommendations for digitizing for organza. As usual in the machine embroidery field, there is an information shortage on the subject. That's notwithstanding the fact that the whole world and his wife embroiders on organza. This is a perfect fabric for the interior decoration, you know. 
    Organza is a semitransparent plain weave fabric. It can be made of silk, polyester, nylon or blended, depending on the manufacturer. According to Deborah Jones and other machine embroidery masters, the fiber characteristics (their strongness and thickness) call for the careful choice of needles, simpler designs, looser upper thread tension and invisible stabilizer. 
    Almost every recommendation I've found hold that a design for organza should be as simple as possible: no understitching except jumping stitches, and much less density. The reason for dropping an underlay is clear: it will be visible through the light finishing fill, which will, in turn, have a damaging effect on the look. 
    That is, the embroidery should be very light and semitransparent; as for the "heavy" techniques, they should be replaced by the "lighter" ones, such as the use of sequins, sparkles, open-work, various types of appliqué, simple stitches, low-density satins with and without splits. To all appearance, it is necessary to avoid ruining the pliability of the fabric, reduce the level of pulling and also for economy reasons. 
    But it turned out there are many examples of non-transparent and even multiple-colored embroidery on organza. This means that all you have to do is to test the digitized design and not be scared to experiment. 
    General recommendations on light machine embroidery on organza: 
    Needle — the thinner, the better (#65–75 is optimal). Needlepoint — sharp (K, R SPI). The choice depends on the type of organza.  The fabric should be hooped with extreme care so that not to skew the transverse or longitudinal fibers and to prevent the appearance of the loose stitches (see the photo below): 
    The defects of this kind may be the result of turning the hoop screw too tight or pulling the organza in the hoop to optimize the tension. You can also wrap your hoop so that to avoid traces and to keep the fabric in the hoop. Read more about it here. 
    Use either water soluble film or other water soluble stabilizer. Hoop it together with the organza if there is just one layer of it. In case there are multiple layers, you can drop the stabilizer.  Loosen the upper thread tension until you get 2/5 + 1/5 + 2/5 (upper/lower/upper) on the wrong side.  Thread – rayon or cotton one; they are the softest.  Density values should start at approximately 0.6–0.7 mm. But you should still do a test sample. I set the density at 0.44 mm, and nothing bad happened. But my basket maintains its shape thanks to the number of stitches.  The stitches shouldn't be longer than 5 mm.  Underlay should be removed, even on edges (the edge run).  Of course, you'll still have to test every design and select the parameters suitable for it alone. 
     

    Appliqué with low-dense fill on top

    By Irina, in Machine embroidery materials and technology, , 0 comments, 4,656 views
    Original text by Marina Belova 
    As I wrote in my article about different types of appliqué in machine embroidery, there is a rare kind of appliqué covered with a low-density fill for the purpose of shading or saving of the stitches. 
    The making process is rather simple, being an exact replica of the one of the traditional patched appliqué: 
    First, you embroider an outline that will show where to place the appliqué fabric. Then the machine makes a stop and the hoop comes out for the fabric.  The appliqué fabric is secured with running stitches or zigzags. Then the machine makes a stop and the hoop comes out for trimming of the excessive fabric right in the hoop.  After trimming your embroider the fill on top of the appliqué fabric and the finishing border that covers the edge.  Digitizing is also simple and differs from the ordinary appliqué only in the creation of an additional fill:  First, we create an outline that will show where to place the fabric and digitize it with the running stitches (for economy reasons).  Then insert a stop and the hoop coming out for the fabric.  After that, we create an outline for the appliqué fabric.  Then insert a stop and the hoop coming out for trimming.  Now we add a low-density fill, through which the stitches will show. Remove about 30–50% of our standard density and also all of the underlay.  Having done that, we create a finishing column.  Everything is very simple and can be achieved in any embroidery editor. 
    I've long scratched my head over the possible use of this technique, and the only thing I came with was creating flowers: 

    Today it dawned on me, where I could use an appliqué of this kind, with the lightweight fill on top of it. It's rather obvious – such fills will be good for saving the stitches in big objects with gradients and also for reproducing color gradations with the help of two- and three-color gradients. 
    So I immediately decided to embroider this helicopter to see how it works: 

    As you can judge from the image, it only contains very simple shapes. But one wants to give zest to it. So I decided to replace the helicopter rotor with a button (pinched the idea from the Smartneedle designs). I put an appliqué on the background and filled the areas with density gradients in order to make the sole-colored fabric more interesting: 

    This 13.1x10.5 cm design has about 8000 stitches, which is not much for the design of this size. 
    In the end, it turns out that such a design doesn't require too much effort, but the result is quite good, especially if you bear in mind the fact that the fabric changes its look under different kinds of stitches (compare the windows and the cockpit). 
    P.S. My husband says that helicopters do not have rotors in that place. But it's too late now. I'll just let it be. 

    3D appliqué step by step

    By Irina, in Machine embroidery materials and technology, , 0 comments, 5,415 views
    Original text by Marina Belova 
    Let me tell you how I made my first free-standing appliqué. I never had any reason to do such a thing, so, having perused several sources of information on the subject, I decided to give it a try. Curiosity, you know. 
    It took me some time to choose a design, and in the end, I opted for a free one from one of the Western websites. I don't remember which one.
    This is the original design: 

    As I needed to create an insect, I settled on organza leftovers as a fabric for my appliqué. Gray for the back side of the wings and milk-white for the front. I thought it would make the appliqué look better. 
    A separate 2-stage file was created for the wings. 
    I outlined the wings with satin stitches of the constant width. 

    Separated the wings from each other and placed them in a row so that it would be easy to cut the fabric near the border. 

    I decided against satins in the areas covered with mosquito's body in order to avoid excessive density. In the original design, the wings were superimposed, and 2 layers of satin borders would result in a bump under the element on top of them. Therefore, in the lower part of the wings, I replaced them with running stitches. 
    After that, I created the main file with the rest of the design: 

    This is where the machine goes in. 
    For the wings, I hooped 2 layers of organza without any stabilizer whatsoever. 

    Embroidered them: 

    Trimmed carefully along the satin border. I left a margin in the lower part of the wings that was to be covered with mosquito's body. I reasoned in this way: better to leave a margin and be sure that everything would be firmly attached. It could be carefully trimmed and the leftovers singed afterward: 

    After that, I hooped my basic fabric and began to embroider the rest of the design. When digitizing, I placed all the background elements first in the line: 

    This instantly showed me where to place the wings on a mosquito's body in order for them to be properly covered: a small empty wedge under the head. I tried to arrange the wings inside this wedge, securing them with pins. It would be much more convenient to attach them with the help of temporary spray adhesive, but it wouldn't hold organza in place. So I made do with what little I had: 

    After that, the machine did a tacking stitch that attached the wings to the chosen place. Right after an appliqué was topped with an element that was supposed to cover its edges. I had to trim the organza margin, after all, to prevent it from sticking out. 
    Then the embroidery proceeded to its end. 
    Here's the mosquito I got as the result: It has some weak points, but overall looks impressive. Thanks to the wings, of course. 

    The embroidery process when employing this technique is rather demanding and requires diligence. But the effect is worth it and, besides, it only takes 7500 stitches. 
     

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