Thread breaks on outline

[emason6]

I know I am probably doing something wrong, but every time I try to use a digitized satin outline I break thread like crazy or have false bobbin breaks. It seems the only way I can do an outline without breaks is to do a walk stitch. This is not really what I need.

I use ARC poly thread, and the inside design sews just fine. Thank in advance for any help.

[Judy]

Dontcha just hate that? It drives me crazy. Try tightening up the tension on the bobbin and/or decreasing your material feed. When I get really frustrated with it, I float another layer of stabilizer under there, and sometimes add a layer of Solvy on top. My last ditch effort is to decrease the density of the satin stitch.

HTH,
Judy

[Rod or Sharon]

emason6,

Anytime you are dealing with satin columns, lettering or otherwise, always go into "Properties" and in the "Column" tab, change your "Minimum Column Width" to a minimum of 10pts or higher. This quite often has defaulted to 5pts which is just too narrow to sew well.

On narrow columns, make sure the "Short Stitches" box is not checked.

On narrow columns, click on the "Corners" tab in "Properties" and select either "Capped" or "Mitered" corners.

You did not say if you are using any underlay in the satin outlines, some narrow columns are just too complex in some areas to make this work well. In cases like this, digitizing the outline in sections will work better. Just going into "Change Element Type" and adding an automatic border does not always get the job done properly.

As Judy pointed out, Density can play a critical role too.

Adding pull comp by either the percentage or X,Y method is usually necessary. I like the X,Y, method for lettering better as it adds a consistent chosen width to both sides of non- uniform columns as found in script lettering.

But one of the more important items above is changing the "Column Width" to 10pts or above. While training someone, I like to point out that a 75/11 needle shaft is approximately .075 in diameter. If you measure a 5pt column, it will be just a little over .030 wide. This means that the holes being poked by the needle, are now overlaping and quite possibly can penetrate into the same hole it just left, pick up the bobbin thread, pull it up through the hole, never tieing off to any of the garment material and now you have a loose thread condition where a false break will occur.If this happens to several stitches in succesion, a thread break is sure to result.....there is more,like using 65/9 needles and 60 weight thread, etc, but enough for now...

Rod Springer
Melco Amaya Tech & Trainer