I’ve made your post a wiki so folks can edit 
Embroidery machine - Pledge Drive
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Ta - still learning Discourse
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Hello not a member yet but would be very interested in pledging £20 this sounds great !
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Hi all
I don’t remember if I spotted this thread earlier in the year, but as it happens, I replaced my sewing machine a few months back, and took the opportunity to get one that has an embroidery module. I won a Bernina 630 on eBay for £480, which was actually a great deal considering how much they can go for. (It’s about 10 years old, but Berninas always seem to retain 2nd hand value more than other brands.)
So; apologies if this is hijacking this thread, but perhaps this could be … useful? (Please feel free to move this post to another thread or topic, or even the recycling bin…)
Some things I have learned:
- Different machines use different file formats for embroidery. You can convert between formats for different machines using software.
- Design files can be found online, but vary greatly in quality, and whilst some are free, many seem to be paid for.
- You can design your own, but software for designing files can get expensive. (Bernina in particular!)
- There is a free Inkscape plugin called “Ink / Stitch” which adds stitch patterns to Inkscape designs and then lets you export embroidery files in a wide variety of formats. It is a bit fiddly to use, and a bit confusing to learn, although nothing like as complicated as other applications “widely found in the makerspace” (ahem, looking at you, Fusion360)
- Having a semi-automatic or automatic needle threader is a must. Threads do break when embroidering, and thread quality is important. Switching colours throughout the process rapidly becomes boring. (Monochromatic designs for-the-win!)
- Perhaps I’m just highly critical of my own work, perhaps my machine needs a service / calibration, but it’s hard to achieve the level of quality that you would get from a professional/commercial embroidery service that makes embroidered badges, for example.
- Machines come with different hoops in different sizes. A variety is good to have, otherwise you are more constrained in terms of projects. (Mine only came with a large hoop, and buying the others separately would cost me several hundred pounds. Yay Bernina!)
- Designs can take a while to embroider. Don’t expect to go into business making and selling patches on Etsy, using a machine like these. Even if a machine is capable of sewing rapidly, once you get into the embroidery realm then the speed drops down a little.
Example:
T’other half wanted a “Mr Robot” / “FSociety” embroidered hoodie.
I did the following:
- found a logo online in PNG format,
- imported it into Illustrator,
- traced the bitmap into a vector,
- tidied up the design
- exported it to SVG
- imported it into Inkscape
- used ink/stitch plugin to automatically add the stitch design to the artwork
- exported the stitch design file to a USB stick
- embroidered the design on the machine, which took ~35 minutes for 17,119 stitches, plus another ~2-3 minutes for changing thread / stitch colour, and another ~5 minutes to rethread a number of times (when one of the thread colours was breaking repeatedly, see above comment on thread quality!)
Note that it really is worth getting to know how to use Ink/Stitch properly, so that you can tweak the design parameters to get the best quality output. When I decided to make this patch the other day, I had about an hour to get it done before he came home, so I didn’t have time to do this. The results were, as such, not as good as I had hoped for! I ended up sewing a tight zigzag around the border to make it neater. I should have spent time on the design to put a nice satin column around the border, which would look far neater. Similarly, I should have done things like control how the fill stitches worked, and “manually” designed the typeface.
What I did end up doing was sewing it onto a patch and then sewing that patch onto the hoodie, rather than embroidering the garment directly. (I’ve also warned that I’ll be tweaking and upgrading the design, and swapping out the patch for a better one at some point! 
)
NB: the final patch is slightly less wonky than it looks in this photo… the garment wasn’t laying flat… but you can see how there’s room for improvement with the design! The fill is a bit patchy in places, the jump stitches are visible in others, and there’s some loose threads hanging around. So - a work in progress, but I’m happy with this as an interim, and he would be happy with this as the final result… but I’m not permitting that yet!
I’d be happy to go over how Ink / Stitch works, and to chat about embroidery in more detail. It’s quite fun once you start to get ideas flowing. (Hmm… maybe I should make a Makerspace logo patch?! 
)
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This is really useful - thanks so much.
If we get a machine for the space - would love to experiement together to see what our new toy clears throat i mean tool can do.
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Thanks @Martyn_Thomas - such useful advice. 
I will admit I know next to nothing about embroidery machines and so would love to pick your brains on this when we are buying & using the machine. I see a future Textiles/Crafts night topic for early next year!
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I’ll pledge 20£ for it
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Thanks to everyone who has pledged you’re all amazing!
Myself and the wonderful @TracyD from the TextileTech are currently shopping around and getting our ducks in the row.
The next step is having the money in hand so we can pounce when we find a suitable machine.
I have setup a Paypal Fundraise Pool to collected money, if you’d like to donate to the pledge drive - please go to:
Thanks again for everyone’s generosity
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In John Lewis on Oxford St and they have a Brother M230e for £350, down from £501.20(?!)
Sounds like a good value!
What!? - I’m going be there in an hour for other reason…I’ll have a look…and might swoop!
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So I’ve pounced. It’s the same (or very similar) to model that we’ve been looking at for £450 and is a one-off deal (due to damaged packaging).
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Amazing! Looks good!! Thanks for taking the plunge!
Oh yes, man!
oh
my
god
what a treat, sending money rn
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This makes me very happy! (although, ahem, I didn’t join the drive because I have an embroidery machine already 
)
That said… If you all fancy it, I could bring mine down too and we could do a session on figuring things out together. I can show the Ink/Stitch software, although perhaps Brother provide free software with their machines?
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One more thing… found this PDF via the John Lewis website for the machine; an overview of the embroidery capabilities. It’s quite interesting seeing how many patterns are pre-programmed into the machine - quite cool! https://johnlewis.scene7.com/is/content/JohnLewis/237256796mnlpdf?
I’ve got all the PDFs downloaded to nerd over.
Tracy and I will sit down this week or next (depending on availability) to give it a test and sort out what needs to be done to make David (yes I’ve named it, it you’re fault after all 
) an official bit of LSMS kit
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Oh my good g*d 
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