Welcome to the Ink/Stitch beginner tutorial series.
In this part we are going to have a closer look which stitch types Ink/Stitch is able to perform.
We will not explain the stitch types in general, but only how to create them in Ink/Stitch.
Ink/Stitch stitch types can be roughly divided into three sections: stroke, satin and fill.
Here is a complete list, so you can quickly navigate to the stitch type you are interested in.
This is the tutorial about fill stitches.
Fill stitch is used to fill big areas with a color.
Ink/Stitch comes with two fill stitch types: manual and auto-fill.
We will not show manual fill in this tutorial.
If you are interested in it, you can read more on our website.
Auto-fill is the default method for generating fill stitches.
Create a path with a fill color.
Shapes can also have holes, but should not consist of more than one section.
If you need to fill a shape like the one on the right side, hit Ctrl+Shift+K to treat it as two seperate shapes.
Open the params dialogue and enable "Automatically routed fill stitching".
Set the stitch angle, while 0 is horizontal. You can also use negative values.
Expand the shape before stitching. This compensates the pull effect and helps to avoid gaps between sections.
Define the maximum fill stitch length. Stitches may be shorter at the end or start of a row.
Set spacing between rows - and running stitch length.
With "Skip last stitch in each row" you will save a hugh amount of stitches.
The last stitch in each row is quite close to the first stitch in the next row.
Skipping it decreases stitch count and density.
Influence the output with the last setting;
where you define, how many rows apart stitches will fall into the same column position.
Fill stitch areas also need an underlay.
Switch to the "AutoFill Underlay" tab and enable "Underlay".
Here you will find the "Fill angle" setting again.
By default it will be shifted for + 90 deg to the fill stitch.
Prevent underlay from showing around the outside of the fill with "inset".
Define "max. stitch length" and "row spacing", wich defaults to 3x the spacing of the top layer.
In embroidery files you want to plan where stitching starts and ends.
You can control the start and end position of a fill with visual commands.
If you cannot follow the steps shown here, follow our visual commands tutorial.
We hope you enjoyed this tutorial.
You might also want to watch our videos about stroke type stitches and satin columns.