Turning satin, direction lines, travel under fills and the sewing order

Three things separate a clean stitch-out from a merely correct one: satin that turns with the shape, fills that don't leave trims and thread tails between their sections, and a sewing order that doesn't change thread more often than needed. This tutorial walks through all three with the Banner and initial template. Everything you see here is also available to scripts through the threadsmith-digitize and threadsmith-sequence-optimizer tools, which use the same engine.

1. Open the template

Open the start screen, pick Banner and initial and switch to the Stitches view (key 2). The design has an arched gold banner, a teal letter E, two gold stars and a red ribbon. The status bar shows 1,829 stitches, 5 colours and a sewing time of 4 min 18 s.

2. Turning satin along the centreline

Click Arched banner in the object list. In Properties the stitch type is Satin and Satin mode is Turning satin along the centreline. Threadsmith finds the band's centreline (its medial axis), uses the outer and inner edge as the two rails of a satin column and lays every stitch across the band — like the spokes of a wheel instead of one fixed angle. Density is measured on the outer edge, so the outside of the curve doesn't open up.

Try the other modes to compare: Fill across the shape sews the whole arch at one angle, which looks flat on a curve; switch back afterwards (or press Ctrl+Z).

3. Direction lines

Under Direction lines the banner already has three lines: one across each flat end and a slanted one at the top. Where a line crosses the column the stitches are parallel to it, and between two lines the angle turns gradually. In the design view the lines are drawn dashed and numbered; drag their round ends to change them.

Without a mouse, use the fields: each line has Start X, Start Y, End X and End Y, the buttons Turn direction line 2 by 15° clockwise / anticlockwise, and Remove direction line 2. Add direction line adds one on the stitch nearest to the middle of the object, along its current angle; right-click the band → Add direction line here adds one on the stitch where you clicked. A line that does not cross both edges is ignored, and the design check tells you so.

4. Satin between two rails

Select Ribbon. It is one path with two open lines, and Satin mode is Between the two lines (rails): the lines are the two edges of a single satin column, so you control the width everywhere by drawing the edges. Direction lines work here too.

5. Travel under the fill

Select Initial. In its tatami settings Travel under the fill is ticked. At 45° the E falls apart into several sections; instead of a trim between them, the needle travels inside the letter through area that is still to be sewn, so the travel stitches disappear under the fill.

Open Stats → Travel under fills: 8 travel runs, 67.3 mm of travel, 83 % covered by later stitches. Press Compare with travel switched off: the design would need one more trim — "Travel under fills saves 1 trim and 2 s of sewing time."

6. Optimise the sewing order

The template is sewn in object-list order: gold, teal, gold, red, gold — 4 colour changes. In Stats → Sewing order press Optimise sewing order. The table shows Before 4 colour changes, 5 trims, 5 jumps and After 2 colour changes, 5 trims, 5 jumps; the object list now starts with the three gold objects, and the sewing time drops to 3 min 36 s.

Objects whose stitches overlap always keep their original order, so nothing that was on top ends up underneath. The optimiser only changes the order when colour changes, trims and jumps all stay the same or go down; otherwise it says "The current sewing order is already the best found." Undo (Ctrl+Z) restores the old order.

7. Check and export

The Job estimate in the same tab now uses the shorter sewing time. Export with Export as usual. For files you already have, the threadsmith-sequence-optimizer tool reorders the stitch segments of a DST, PES, JEF or EXP file in the same way and keeps every stitch.