Meander Fill

What it is

Meander fill has its origins in quilting techniques. A beautiful patterned effect results for machine embroidery. Large areas can be filled with relatively few stitches.

How to Create

• Create a closed path with a fill color. This shape may have holes.
• Open the params dialog (Extensions > Ink/Stitch > Params) and select Meander Fill as the fill method. There are many meander fill patterns you can choose from. Influence the look by adapting scale, smoothness, stitch length and tolerance values.

Set Start and End Point

Set start and end points for autofill objects with Visual commands.

Params

Run Extensions > Ink/Stitch > Params to tweak the settings to your needs.

Settings		Description
Automatically routed fill stitching	☑	Must be enabled for these settings to take effect.
Fill method	Meander Fill	Meander Fill must be selected.
Meander Pattern		Various patterns to choose from
Meander pattern scale		Scale the pattern (%)
Expand		Expand the shape before stitching, to compensate for gaps between shapes.
Smoothness		Smooth the stitch path. Smoothness linits how far the smoothed stitch path is allowed to deviate from the original path. Try low numbers like 0.2. Hint: a lower running stitch tolerance may be needed too.
Clip path		Constrain stitching to the shape. Useful when smoothing and expand are used.
Running stitch length		For meander fill this is the overall stitch length.
Running stitch tolerance		All stitches must be within this distance from a path. A lower tolerance means stitches will be closer together. A higher tolerance means sharp corner may be rounded.
Repeats		◦ Defines how many times to run down and back along the path ◦ Default: 1 (traveling once from the start to the end of the path) ◦ Odd number: stitches will end at the end of the path ◦ Even number: stitching will return to the start of the path
Bean stitch number of repeats		◦ Enable Bean Stitch Mode ◦ Backtrack each stitch this many times. ◦ A value of 1 would triple each stitch (forward, back, forward). ◦ A value of 2 would quintuple each stitch, etc. ◦ It is possible to define a repeat pattern by entering multiple values separated by a space.
Allow lock stitches		Enables lock stitches in only desired positions
Force lock stitches		Sew lock stitches after sewing this element, even if the distance to the next object is smaller than defined in the collapse length value value in the Ink/Stitch preferences.
Tack stitch		Chose your favorite style
Lock stitch		Chose your favorite style
Trim After		Trim the thread after sewing this object.
Stop After		Stop the machine after sewing this object. Before stopping it will jump to the stop position (frame out) if defined.

Underlay

Underlay in Guided Fill doesn’t follow the guide line, but uses the fill angle which can be defined in the underlay params.

Samples Files Including Meander Fill Stitches

Writing with meander fill

Writing using Meander Fill

Learn more