ImagesMagUK_July_2021

www.images-magazine.com JULY 2021 images 33 TIPS & TECHNIQUES Dominic Bunce of embroidery digitiser David Sharp shows you how to achieve light, fluffy designs on denim E mbroidering on denim is always a pleasure – it is a great fabric base that you can work wonders with, whether it’s a simple concept or something extravagant. This simple piece was produced for Amaya Sales UK, using a Melco EMT16X embroidery machine, as a test piece to demonstrate to a customer the machine’s efficiencies in a modular production environment. The pocket labradoodle design, part of a collection of dog breeds making their way into production, was created using a mixture of tatami fills in order to achieve the intentionally ‘shabby’-style embroidery. We used a random tatami fill effect of 75% for the fur-like finish. We made the light-brown highlight stitches on the fur approximately half as dense as normal, meaning that for every millimetre there was half the normal number of stitches, resulting in this light and fluffy look. Normal stitch spacing is 0.4mm or thereabouts, while the stitch spacing we used here is 0.8mm. By keeping the densities light, we ensured there was no puckering of the denim fabric during the embroidery process. It also gives a lightweight finish to the garment without compromising the quality. Always remember to let your digitiser know what type of material your design is being applied to as this will ensure the optimum design settings are used for the base material. The garment used here was the Lucy Denim Shirt (SD045) from So Denim by AWDis. We used a 75/11 sharp needle, Madeira Polyneon thread and 42gsm tearaway backing. Digitised using Wilcom e4.5, the stitch count was 17,800 and the 115mm by 55mm design took 20 minutes to run. www.davidsharp.co.uk Digitising for denim Reducing the density by half results in a lightweight design that won’t pucker the fabric The pocket labradoodle was embroidered onto the Lucy Denim Shirt from So Denim by AWDis