Embroidery Newsletter - StitchFun News

Outlines and Why They Misbehave

You spend an hour stitching a design and everything is going great until the very last color -- the outline. Suddenly, the outline leaves a gap or stitches on top of the fill or both. What went wrong?

If you have not test-stitched the design, then the problem may be with the design itself. When you examine the design in your embroidery software, does the outline appear to be in the right place? Depending upon your software, this might be a clue that the outline was incorrectly placed. Fill areas have a push-pull effect. Where the stitches reverse direction as they stitch back and forth, the embroidery pulls on the fabric. Where the rows of stitches lie next to each other, they push against each other. The result is that a perfect square filled with horizontal stitches will end up being a tad taller and a tad narrower than expected. This is the push-pull effect.

Most designers know about push-pull and will use underlayment stitches to stabilize the fill area. The underlayment is a light fill that stitches underneath. Even so, there will still be some push-pull, so the experienced designer will adjust the proportions of the fill to compensate. When you examine the design in your embroidery software, look for the underlayment.

The outline does not have the push-pull effect. To stitch properly, it needs to be placed just inside the fill area on the "pull" sides and just outside the fill area on the "push" sides. When you look at the design in your embroidery software, the outline should show these adjustments.

If the design appears to be crafted correctly, and if a test-stitching went smoothly, then the problem is not with the design.

Next issue: helping the outline to behave

from Mary Jane Allen of Perfect Little Stitches

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