Wilcom User Manual Supplement: 1. Introduction

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Combining Chenille and lockstitch designs

Posted by Lata Thursday, May 7, 2009 Labels: 1. Introduction

Chenille designs can be converted to any machine format, including lockstitch machines. This is useful when you wish to combine regular embroidery and Chenille embroidery in a single design. You can combine regular lockstitch embroidery and Chenille embroidery in a single design.

When using a machine that supports both lockstitch and ES Chenille, it is possible to change a lockstitch object into a chenille object by selecting it and clicking on a ES Chenille stitch tool e.g. Moss.

To combine Chenille and lockstitch designs

1. Plan your Chenille and lockstitch design.
2. Mark a reference point in the design.

There should be a common start point for both Chenille and lockstitch designs.

3. Digitize the Chenille part of the design.
4. Save two copies of the design.
5. Open the second copy.
6. Select Machine > Select Machine Format.
7. Select a lockstitch machine format.

The design is converted to the selected machine format. The Chenille specific functions, such as Chain, Moss and Needle Height, are preserved but they are ignored by the lockstitch machines.

8. Digitize the lockstitch parts.

For correct registration, make sure that the start point of the lockstitch part exactly match the start point of the Chenille part.

9. Save the combined design.
10. Delete the Chenille parts, and save the lockstitch part under a new name.

Now you have two designs, a Chenille and a lockstitch design with matching start and finish points.

11. Stitch the Chenille part first on a Chenille machine — Barudan, Melco or Tajima.

Which part you stitch may vary, depending on the design.

12. Stitch the lockstitch part on the same brand of machine.

As the hoops are standard within the same brand, you can remove the hoop from the first machine and insert it in the other. As they have matching start and finish points, the two designs will be perfectly aligned.

Note Tajima TMCE-600 is a combined Chenille and lockstitch embroidery machine. Combined Chenille and lockstitch design can be output to this machine from a single file.

Chenille toolbar

Posted by Lata Labels: 1. Introduction

If you have a Chenille option added to your lockstitch Wilcom ES system, you have a single design window for both Chenille and normal embroidery.

There is a special Chenille toolbar which contains special Chenille stitch types and machine functions, such as Straight, Coil, Perpendicular Fill, Compound Chenille, Chain, Moss, Needle Height. Compound Chenille allows you to generate Moss or Chain stitch run-arounds automatically for complex shapes.

Checking for Chain/Moss digitizing errors

The Chain/Moss display aids in the quick location of digitizing errors.

To check for Chain/Moss digitizing errors;

Activate the Chain/Moss display by selecting View > View Machine Functions > Chain/Moss.

Stitch length

Posted by Lata Labels: 1. Introduction

Stitch length should be constant for the same thread type throughout a design. If the stitch length varies, the height of the Moss loops and the width of the Chain loops will also vary, causing uneven embroidery. The Chenille machine pulls up the same length of yarn for each loop according to the current needle height setting.

If you intend to use loops of various height, adjust the needle height rather than the stitch length. Even though the stitch length affects the loop height, it is easier and more accurate to adjust the needle height. See Selecting explicit needle height for details.

Select a stitch length for a design according to the thickness of the yarn, the thickness of the fabric and the required density. Using inappropriate stitch length may cause yarn breakage, needle breakage and damage to the fabric.

Note If the yarns in use are of the same type, the lengths of the Chain and Moss stitch are different. The following table gives an indication of appropriate values.

Tip These values may vary depending on the fabric used. When you use a new thread and fabric combination, sew a test design first using the above values as an initial guideline.

Jumps

Posted by Lata Labels: 1. Introduction

Jump(M) functions cause frame movements without needle penetrations. The use of jumps is not recommended because the pulling effect on the fabric during a jump, may distort the design, especially if the fabric is thin.

To avoid long connecting stitches, plan carefully in which order you digitize the shapes and lines. Use Chain stitch rather than jumps when traveling across a shape filled with Moss stitching as the Chain stitch will be hidden under the Moss stitching.

Use Jump only if there is a significant contrast in colors, particularly if the current stitch is of a lighter color, when the yarn may show through.

Corners

Posted by Lata Labels: 1. Introduction

Avoid corners with an angle smaller than 60o it can cause a machine fault or loop stitches may be changed to chain stitches. ES Designer automatically adds an extra stitch to avoid sharp corners within objects, including manual stitch objects. If you round off sharp corners in run and complex fills, you can avoid both sharp angles and small stitches.

However sometimes an extra stitch causes chain stitches to swell, giving a poor finish.

Use Smart Corners to achieve smooth, even placement of stitches, and eliminate gaps in your design. Smart Corners can be used with Straight stitch and Coil for Input C objects. See Smart Corners in the Wilcom ES User Manual for details.

Jumps

Posted by Lata Labels: 1. Introduction

Trims

Posted by Lata Labels: 1. Introduction

Few Chenille machines have an automatic thread trim mechanism as the connecting threads are under the fabric and are not visible. In this case, digitize all the shapes and lines of the same color in one session to minimize the number of manual trims. This will reduce the time required to stitch the design.

Be careful how you connect from one spot to another. Avoid long connecting stitches which may pull the previous stitching and may need to be trimmed.

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Scaleability

Posted by Lata Labels: 1. Introduction

As with lock stitch designs, any Chenille design created in ES Designer will be scaled from the outlines. But because parallel offset runs are used so frequently, Chenille users have to apply some thought and some special techniques to their digitizing.

Object-based embroidery means that when designs are scaled, the stitches are automatically recalculated from the object outlines. Densities are preserved and there are no gaps or heavy over-stitching. Even the Chain and Moss boundary runs of Complex Fill areas are recalculated with the same offsets. Object outlines can be reshaped and the stitches are again recalculated to the new shape.

As far as possible, Chenille designs and alphabets should be planned to use Complex Fill input with Compound Chenille to generate the offset runs.

The offset runs can be generated in different colors.

When an old Chenille design is read from expanded data (e.g. Melco EXP, Tajima or Barudan disk), the Stitch Processor in ES Designer converts the stitching into objects. It does not fully recognise Coil and straight stitching, so will be converted to a series of Run stitch objects. This limits the scaleability of these old designs to ± 5-10%. However, old designs can be
readily stitch edited and sections re-digitized if required.

Scaleability

Posted by Lata Labels: 1. Introduction

Chain/Moss view

Posted by Lata Wednesday, May 6, 2009 Labels: 1. Introduction

Chenille embroidery objects can be viewed in a special mode allowing easy identification of Chain and Moss design elements. A design displays using the first three colors in the color palette, which identify lockstitch embroidery objects in green, Chenille chain elements in blue and Chenille moss elements in red.

TrueView™ does not display Chain and Moss stitching. However, it can still be useful to give an impression of the design when viewed at a small zoom factor (less than 1:1).

Needle height

Posted by Lata Labels: 1. Introduction

On some machines the needle height can be set in the design to control the height of the loop formed by the Chenille machine when it is sewing a Moss stitch, and the width of the Chain stitch.

Moss can use different needle heights. You may use different needle heights for different color areas. You may also use different needle heights for filled areas and borders. Needle height has much less effect on Chain stitches.

Compound chenille

Posted by Lata Labels: 1. Introduction

Compound Chenille is used with Complex Fill is used to automatically digitize objects with offset borders. Automatic offsets consist of 1-3 chain runs around the shape, 1-3 moss runs of a lower height and a fill of Island Coil, Perpendicular Fill or Straight stitch.

Note Input A, B and C do not produce automatic borders for Chenille objects so they need to be added manually but these manual objects cannot be scaled to a large extent, because the gap between the borders will change.

Use Complex Fill for large irregular shapes.

Fill stitch types

Posted by Lata Labels: 1. Introduction

There are four fill stitch types available — Coil, Straight, Perpendicular Fill and Island Coil. The stitch type you use depends on the input tool used as well as the object shape, size and the effect you want to achieve. See Fill stitch types for details.

Coil fill stitch

Coil fill is suited to stitching narrow shapes or ‘columns’, where each stitch traverses the width of the column. Coil fill can be used in objects created with Input A, B and C digitizing tools. The coils generate consistent stitch length even over different widths and provides a way to fill an area with Moss stitches. The stitches are generated along curved lines. Coil produces a smooth finish that does not unravel easily.

Straight fill stitch

Straight is similar to the Tatami used in regular embroidery and is suitable for narrow objects digitized with Input A, B or C and filled with Chain. You can fill areas diagonally, or on the horizontal and vertical. It is recommended for Complex Fill input method to fill areas with Moss. All the stitches generated along a row are of same length. However, some shorter stitches are generated where the shape is narrow and between rows of stitching.

Island Coil fill stitch

Island Coil is used to fill large Complex Fill objects. This technique allows complex shapes to be filled with concentric rows of coil stitching, simulating the circular motion of hand-chenille embroidery. Chain and Moss offset runs can be added automatically using Compound Chenille.

Perpendicular Fill stitch

Perpendicular Fill is the most common fill stitch used. It .is suitable for large objects digitized with Complex Fill and filled with Moss. It is made up of two layers of Straight stitch. Typically, the second layer of fill is perpendicular to the original fill, with 45° and 135° used.

Chenille stitch types

Posted by Lata Labels: 1. Introduction

The two basic stitches created by chenille embroidery machines are moss and chain stitch. The looped pile look on letter jackets is created with the moss stitch which can vary from low, compact stitches to high, plush stitches producing different effects. The chain stitch is a flat stitch traditionally used as a border or outline for moss stitches.

Moss and Chain are machine functions and are treated as object properties in Wilcom ES, in the same way as color. You can use both Moss and Chain stitch for outlines or fills. The Moss and Chain tools set the fill only.

Moss stitch

Moss stitch is a looped stitch which give a dense cover. This stitch produces the typical Chenille raised stitching. It works best with simple shapes. Moss stitch is used to fill in areas and create depth. Moss can be stitched using different needle heights: lower for run around and higher for fill.

Chain stitch

Chain stitch is a decorative style of stitching which looks like the links of a Chain. It is used for outlining and bordering designs as well as in monograms. It can be used to produce a more delicate look.

In conjunction with Chain stitches, the design builds up in height from the edges to the middle.

Chenille Run stitch

Chenille Run stitches are similar to Run lockstitches except that the stitch length is constant. To stitch single lines use Run with Chain or Moss. One or two offset run-arounds with Chain and Moss provide a clear edge for filled areas. You can also use Double Run and Backtrack to produce outlines.

Note Needle points do not have to be forced on sharp corners for compound chenille area fill because sharp corners are defined by the offset runs.

Chenille terms and concepts

Posted by Lata Labels: 1. Introduction

The word ‘Chenille’ is French, meaning caterpillar. Historically chenille has had many uses in fashion and furnishings, from delicate work of lace to the bold look of school mascots. In North America chenille is most commonly recognized as the emblems and letters sewn on athletic jackets.

A French engineer introduced the first chenille embroidery machine in 1866. Chenille machines, use a single, thicker, yarn instead of top thread and bobbin thread together. The machine leaves loops of thread on the top of the backing, usually felt, creating a dimensional look.

The look is bolder than for traditional lockstitch embroidery, and the thread is heavier, so chenille machines cannot not generate small intricate designs. Chenille embroidery objects consist of a fill with one or more offset runs.

The run border is needed to hold the fill stitches inside the shape. Lockstitch and chenille designs can be combined if the embroidery machine supports both lockstitch and chenille embroidery.

Key issues for Chenille digitizers

Posted by Lata Labels: 1. Introduction

The key issues for Chenille digitizers are as follows:

1. It is important to map out the design so as to minimize the number of needle ups, as you would with traditional embroidery.
2. To prevent one color showing through another, it is critical to know which colors hide or cover other colors t. While this problem occurs in traditional embroidery, it is even more critical when dealing with chenille.
3. Another concern the artist/digitizer must take into consideration when designing is the difference between automated and manual machines.

With manual machines, for example, you can almost come to a stop when making sharp turns, whereas with computer-generated machines, you may need to add points to force the machine to slow down.

Chenille digitizing

Digitizing Chenille designs in ES Chenille is very similar to digitizing Multihead designs. The major differences are:

1. Small and empty (non-data) stitches are not suitable for Chenille because the Chenille yarn is usually thick. They may cause yarn breakage or holes in the fabric. Avoid pointed objects as they produce small stitches.
2. Chain stitches should be used for tie in and tie off stitching.
3. Overlocking is used to prevent Chain stitches unraveling. You need to manually insert a Chain for Barudan and Melco Chenille machines. Tajima machines can change automatically from Moss to Chain if the machine has this option enabled.
4. Overlappng sections are not recommended in designs as chenille yarn is thicker than normal embroidery thread.
5. Chenille embroidery is limited in its ability to achieve intricate detail, but, it is possible to achieve elaborate designs using color, texture and dimension.
6. Chenille embroidery primarily “pushes” or expands, unlike the “push and
pull” factor in traditional embroidery, and large designs require a
cutaway backing to compensate for this.
7. Chenille yarn is thicker than traditional embroidery thread, so it is critical to prevent yarn pile-up caused by too many stitches crossing over each other, particularly chain stitches.
8. Chenille yarn is thicker than the lines in your digitized file so you need to recognise and compensate for this difference.

You should first become familiar with general ES Designer usage before
studying the Chenille-specific usage. ES Designer has a certain philosophy
but once you understand the logic of the software, similarities between
individual functions become obvious. See the Wilcom ES User Manual for
details.

Chapter 1 - Introduction

Posted by Lata Tuesday, May 5, 2009 Labels: 1. Introduction

Welcome to Wilcom ES Chenille. This product has been developed to support
a wide range of chenille work including:

! constant stitch length in all objects for consistent smooth appearance.
! ability to control shortcut stitches
! variable width Coil stitches for Input A and B input methods
! gaps at the ends of columns filled automatically with Coil stitches
! small sections handled by Complex Fill
! multiple offset runs can be generated from one boundary, with or
without a Perpendicular Fill.

This chapter provides an overview of the chenille terms and concepts
associated with ES Chenille software. It explains the basic issues to do with
handling and programming Schiffli machines as they relate to ES Chenille.
Note For an essential introduction to ES Designer software concepts, refer
to the Wilcom ES User Manual.

ES Chenille support in the Wilcom ES product range
There are several product models of the software, some of which have
optional extra capabilities. The ES Chenille capabilities can be purchased as
options — standard and advanced — for the standard lockstitch Wilcom ES
digitizing systems. You must have standard before you can purchase
advanced.

The ES Chenille options add special chenille embroidery features to a
lockstitch embroidery digitizing system. These features include the ES
Chenille embroidery machine formats, ES Chenille stitch types and effects,
and ES Chenille object properties. The lettering and digitizing tools for ES
Chenille are the same as those provided by the base lockstitch system. The
advanced option includes a special chenille stitch called Island Coil.
There are three major areas where ES Chenille can be used:

ES Chenille

Posted by Lata Labels: 1. Introduction

ES Chenille Option Version 9
User Manual Supplement

Copyright 1990-2004 by Wilcom International Pty Ltd. All rights reserved.
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written permission of:

Wilcom International Pty Ltd. (A.B.N. 62 062 621 943)
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New South Wales, 2015, Australia
PO Box 581, Alexandria, 1435
Phone: +61 2 9578 5100
Fax: +61 2 9578 5108
Email: wilcom@wilcom.com.au
Web: http://www.wilcom.com.au
The Stitch Processor (SP) portion of this product is protected by the following patents:
US Patent Nº 4,821,662
European Patent Nº 0221163
Japanese Patent Nº 2029491

Curve Line Fill Stitching in this product is protected by US Patent No. 6,587,745.
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Subject to any warranties implied by law which are incapable of limitation or exclusion,
the software is purchased ‘as is’ without any warranty as to its performance, accuracy,
freedom from error or to any results generated through its use and without any implied
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interruption or error.

P/N W2969 Rev 1 Jan 2004

Wilcom User Manual Supplement

Other Categories

Combining Chenille and lockstitch designs

Chenille toolbar

Stitch length

Jumps

Corners

Jumps

Trims

Scaleability

Scaleability

Chain/Moss view

Needle height

Compound chenille

Fill stitch types

Chenille stitch types

Chenille terms and concepts

Key issues for Chenille digitizers

Chapter 1 - Introduction

ES Chenille

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