Digitizing help

[Gini]

I have a large logo for a jacket back that I digitized myself- the first complicated design I have done. I am 75% pleased with the results- it sews out very nicely for the most part. However, the design has a fair amount of outlining that ends up going overtop of other layers of embroidery- usually 2 colors meet (with a slight overlap) and the outline has to go overtop of both layers. When it gets to this point in the sewout I get a lot of thread breaks. I need to babysit through this portion of the design and this extends the sewout time and plus its a pain. How should this be done? Could someone look at my design and offer some advice? I will be doing probably 75-100 jacket backs over the next few months and each takes several hours to sew, so the fewer thread breaks the better.

[signman]

without the design in front of me I can only guess or suggest..but here goes. Your 'outline' can be done in 'segments' instead of one continous line. So, where the outline goes over multi layers-stop the line-and create new line for that segment. Overlap your end point to the original line for continous sewing-but get rid of any underlayment where it goes over the 2 colors-and also increase density number-so there is 'less' density (if you have 4, for example, go to 4.5 to start with). Then start your outline again at the end of the 'overlap' and that line use the same settings as your 'original' line. Do this wherever necessary-and it should sew out as one continous line-but the density/underlayment will change so that the thread breaks will stop. Where it goes over other layers-those in effect become the underlayment-and you can decrease the density of the 'outline' because you are sewing on a compact layer-not the jacket alone. You have 'deleted' one extra layer (underlayment) and decreased the stitch count because of the other 2 layers-so it should still sew nice and compact. Might take a little tweaking but it works for me. I learned this by 'deconstructing' Dakota designs that did this to figure out how they managed it.
Test it out on scrap material-by creating a 'new' design and deleting everything except some of the problem area-so you dont' have a huge file to test each time-just the bad area.
Good luck!
Roland

[Aaron]

I'll take a look at it for you. Send to [email protected] and I can take a look in the morning.

[Gini]

I tried the suggestion from signman above and have just sewn out the design (150K stitches) with 2 thread breaks! I consider that amazing!! I removed the underlaymnt and lightened the density and voila! Thanks!!! I hope someday to know enough to answer some questions instead of just asking!