Platinum Embroidery - Essential Elements

Embroiderers that don’t digitize have often heard about underlay, but may not have a complete understanding about its importance in a quality design. Hopefully this article will give you the opportunity to learn a bit more. Armed with this information, you can be assured that you are spending your hard earned money on quality designs.

Underlay is a critical element of the digitizing process. As an end customer you will find that “most” designs will require at least some underlay. There is an exception that will be noted at the end of this article.

Underlay is a series of stitches that lay underneath the top stitches of the design. It has 3 major functions.

First is that it sews the fabric and stabilizer together giving the design a base that will reduce the push and pull of the fabric during embroidery.
Second, underlay gives the top stitches something to grab onto, and sit on top of, providing a better stitch quality. Underlay helps to keep top stitches from sinking into the fabric.
Finally, underlay gives depth and texture to the top stitches. Proper use of underlay can help to give designs a more dimensional, life like appearance.

There are several types of underlay that digitizers use; the key is to know when to use which type. Then a digitizer carefully applies the appropriate parameters such as the correct density, stitch length, angle, and inset distance for the segment. Most digitizing software has automatic underlay options, but the terminology may be different.

Lattice – Used under fill stitches. These are a series of parallel lines set at an angle of 45 degrees to the direction of the top stitches. Full lattice also has a set of parallel lines set at 135 degrees from the direction of the top stitches. This is an example of lattice and full lattice underlay with top stitches running horizontally.

Perpendicular Run – Usually used under column (satin) stitches and lettering. These run stitches run at a 90 degree angle to the column.
Parallel Run – These run in the same direction as the top stitches. They can be used to increase density in a stitch segment. I am able to add a stitch angle to this type of underlay so that it can be used under fills where I want some underlay underneath the segment, but not as squared off as the lattice. I like to call it half zig-zag.
Contour Run – Also known at edge walk underlay. This is a run stitch that sits just inside the edge of a segment of top stitches. It’s especially helpful to keep the ends of a row of stitches from sinking into the fabric.
Zig-Zag – This type of underlay is used mainly under column (satin) stitches. It runs parallel to the column creating a criss-cross of stitches. Adding a little bit of an angle will help give the top satin stitches some loft.

All designers offer sample designs to test. I highly recommend testing a couple of designs from a digitizer before making a purchase. If a test design sews well, then it’s a good bet the rest of his/her designs will sew well also.

Before testing the design on fabric you can look at it on screen. You may be able to see problem areas before you start sewing. This can be done in your digitizing software or Embird if you have either.

Pulse Micro offers a free program called Ambassador which provides a sew simulator call the Stitch Draw Tool Bar. You can read more about it at Tajima Ambassador by Pulse Micro. The Stitch Draw Tool Bar opens with the icon along the top that looks like a white clock with red numbers.

The next question is how to know if a design has too little or too much underlay. The truth is that designs sew best on the strata they are digitized for. However quality stock designs (meaning anything not custom created for you and your project) are created so that they will sew well on most types of fabric.

Below I give examples of two methods used for digitizing underlay. I will use Ambassador for my examples because it is free and Pulse DG/ML is my digitizing software of choice.

Start Ambassador
Go to File>Open and browse to the design you want to open
Click on the Stitch Draw Icon
In the tool bar that opens click on the single arrow and the design will start “sewing” on screen. You can pause, rewind and move forward. The speed can be altered with the slider bar on the right.

Digitizers often use one of two methods for laying down underlay. The first is to lay down underlay for the complete design at the very beginning of the design. The other is to lay the underlay under each individual segment before it sews.

By watching the designs “sew” on screen you can see that these designs have adequate underlay for their applications. Although the rose has underlay it may not have enough to sew properly on fleece. This is a situation that really requires a test sew before using the design on anything of value. On the other hand, the shooting star has a lot of underlay because it was designed for fleece, but it may be a bit stiff on flat fabrics.

In general, designs with large areas of fill stitches will require some underlay in order to sew well. Small designs or small segments of a design do not always need underlay. In the Stitch Draw Toolbar you can see if a design has underlay. Experience sewing both good and bad designs will help to determine if the design has the proper type and amount of underlay for your project. If in doubt you can test sew a design on a scrap of the same type of material as your project. Be sure to stay with the machine, watching the design sew will teach you more about embroidery and digitizing than what can be seen on screen in a sew simulator.

When a design doesn’t have enough underlay there will be more push/pull distortion in the fabric as the design sews. Top stitches may sink into the fabric causing what looks like a gap in the design. Outlines will be out of registration and there will be gaps between the top stitches and the outline or the outline will sit inside the edge of the top stitches.

Designs with too much underlay will be stiff and “bullet proof” with too many stitches. They use more thread, machine wear and tear, and time than is necessary.

As I said at the beginning of this article there are noticeable exceptions to the case that all designs need underlay. The Caroselli’s from Balboa Threadworks, Inc. have developed a technique in which they use many layers of stitches running horizontally in lower densities to create the entire design. Using this technique, designs are sewn moving down, then up, then down again in one area. This is a specialized technique that only a few designers use on a full time basis.

A quality digitizer has the tools, education, and experience to know how to use underlay appropriately for each design. In addition to the types of underlay explained above, a good digitizer carefully plans the density, stitch length, inset distance, and angle for the underlay of each segment of a design. The digitizing process is a specialized field. Great designers have taken a great deal of time and effort to ensure that each design is digitized properly and sews well for your project.