Recently, I needed to create an applique style satin stitch around one of my designs. It needed to be able to surround the design to create a 'patch' of a sort. The 'free-standing' design was planned to be attached to a pillow rather than the design being sewn on the pillow.
I looked at the designs on my Brother Innov'is embroidery machine and found a frame that I thought would work. I naturally assumed that the 'on board' pattern would work perfectly the first time. I had a severe time crunch and did not take the time to do a 'discovery sew' as I had done with the design. I am about 95% faithful in doing a 'discovery sew' and when I don't check it out in real life, I often have issues with those which I have not checked out carefully. Well, I did have a serious issue with this frame.
I did the initial sew out directly on my work in progress. I then spent 2 hours cleaning off the bad stitching. I could not use my "Peggy's Stitch Eraser" because the fabric was too delicate and needed to be carefully hand cut. I had to literally cut a few stitches at a time with my very best scissors. You may recall that I noted that the Karen K. Buckley's Scissors were excellent for most of my purposes. However, for this issue, the small scissor of the set exceeded my expectations. It cuts right to the tip of the blades and makes sharp, clean cuts. And, as a Valentine or 'no reason' gift, this is a useful and very appreciated gift to give.
Here is an example of the pre-digitized frame from my machine on the fabric in question.
It looks fairly well in the photo, but believe me, it is full of puckers and pulls (as in push/pull compensation, aka pull compensation).
Here are the left, top and bottom top lines, that are modestly puckered. In my original project, the top and bottom were fine, but the sides were very bad. In this case, three sides were puckered.
On the right side, I put glue on the stabilizer and the outcome was just fine. You need to do a 'discovery sew' to determine what if anything will work for your fabric/project. When I was first beginning my embroidery journey, I remember seeing people on the Internet say that it is a digitizing issue. I must say, that is seldom true.
That is an excellent example of 'pull compensation.' I thought I had my fabric snug enough in my hoop. But the real reason for the bad stitching wasn't a product of the Brother digitizer, it was the result of a fabric that was not suitable for that stitch pattern.
Since the design was on my machine, there was no way I could find to fix the pull compensation. I even tried placing multiple sheets of stabilizer on the fabric, 2 on top and 3 on the bottom. That only helped a very small amount.
There is no way for a digitizer to create pull compensation for all types of fabric and situations. When digitizing, the first component of the 'recipe' is "identify the fabric." There is a great deal of difference between silk and cotton duck.
Just a little note - I have lots of Newbie blogs and other interesting issues. Please check some of them out - http://bit.ly/taeann. I promise you will learn something. . .
My Valentine Freebie is still in the winter-time mode. Hope you enjoy it.
Tip: When placing wording or a design on top of another part of the embroidery, carefully select your colors and make the writing a significantly strong and different color from the rest of the project, including the fabric.