Images Magazine December 2016

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44 IMAGES DECEMBER 2016
TIPS & TECHNIQUES KB
one-third of the stitch (1 mm) and then this is repeated, so the fourth
row would look like the first row, and so on. It’s a bit like building a
brick wall. You don’t really see the 33% pattern in embroidery, you
just see the colour.
“With this design, however, we’ve created a zigzag fill in one space
invader, a basket weave pattern that has a wicker basket type ef-
fect in another, then there are diagonals in another, like a quilt, and
circles... When you see the entry point of the stitches in the pattern,
your eye picks up on that as being textured.”
The software Steve used, Wings XP 6, has around two or three
hundred different pattern options of varying difficulty build into it.
The simple ones tend to be most effective, he reports, which is ideal
on small characters as seen on the Quadra bag.
The design was produced on a Ricoma RCM-1501TC-7S embroidery
machine. “What’s special about the Ricoma RCM-1501TC-7S is that
it has a high definition true colour 7” touch screen which a lot of
the other models can’t offer,” says Steve. “Cap frames, networking
software and on board lettering are included so this machine is ideal
for someone that wants a quick and complete set up. The production
specs include a maximum speed of 1200 stitches per minute covering
an embroidery area of 560mm x 350mm. Notable software features
include thread break detection, wi-fi and networkable capabilities and
an enormous storage size of 20,000,000 stitches.”
w w
Beechfield Brands and Your Embroidery Services (YES) team up to create a show-stopping Space Invaders
design on a Quadra despatch bag
Quadra’s Vintage Canvas Despatch Bag (QD610) is a covet-
able item even without any decoration, but it’s fair to say
that since YES got its needles on the bag, the Images team
has been in a constant battle over who gets to keep it.
The light grey Vintage Canvas Despatch Bag is made of washed can-
vas, has a zippered main compartment and dual rear pouch pockets.
It also features a Rip-Strip closure, has gunmetal fittings and measures
40 x 30 x 12 cm with a 14-litre capacity.
The stylish bag was despatched by Beechfield Brands to Richard
Croft, the graphics and marketing administrator at YES, along with
the EPS file of the Images logo. His inspired design saw different
coloured space invaders being placed around the Images logo, which
was then passed to embroidery technician Steve Gilbert for digitising.
“Because the artwork is of a high quality, the vector lines are already
there and so the software already knows half the information,” ex-
plains Steve. “It knows the boundaries of what needs to be created,
and the colours, but what it doesn’t know is the type of stitch you
want to use. I made it a little bit more interesting by putting in some
alternative fill patterns within the little characters.
“With any embroidered image, you’re not just talking about shape
and colour, you’re talking about texture as well. Texture in embroidery
is very, very important. The angle of the stitches when they go in will
cast the light in different ways. It puts a direction and a flow into the
embroidery that you don’t normally get with flat images. It isn’t a
printed shape, it has texture and it catches the light, and the glossy
thread shows this up nicely.
“The particular shapes in this design are fairly blocky. If you used a
standard flat fill, they would look quite similar, just with slightly differ-
ent shapes and colours. By putting texture in, you’re putting some-
thing in there that you can’t do in print.
“For 99% of all commercial embroidery - logos and the like - you
want a flat shape. With something like this, you can be a bit more
adventurous. For a standard logo, we’d normally choose a fill pattern
which gives us the most obvious texture in embroidery, and that is
what’s known as a 33% repeat pattern. With a 3 mm stitch, as we
used in this design, after the first row, the second row is offset by
FACTS AND FIGURES
• The design used 12 shades of FuFu polyester thread:
black, burgundy, light blue, dark purple, light green, dark gold,
bright yellow, dark green, light purple, aqua blue, dark blue and
dark red
• The embroidery frame measured 260 mm by 260 mm
• The design measured 250 mm (width) by 216 mm (height)
• There were around 29,000 stitches in the design
• It took approximately 33 minutes to embroider the design
The embroidered
Quadra bag
i
Getting creative with
textured fills