Aperture Laboratories Embroidery Design

As a fan of portal, I had to try my hand at an Aperture Laboratories embroidery design that would go on a shirt as I was unable to find one anywhere. This took roughly 4 hours to make and looks pretty good.



Obviously, you can use whatever thread color you want, but I think it looks good in black on a lighter colored shirt. I recommend trimming the jump between the last letter in 'Aperture' once the 'E' is sewn so that the 'Laboratories' won't sew over the jump.

You can download the embroidery file here.

Invader Zim embroidery design - GIR in disguise

Here is another design that I created of GIR from Invader Zim in disguise. I am learning to get around the limitations in the Embird design software, but it still took about 5 hours to do this simple design.



As you can see, I also did not compensate enough for the amount the cheap fabric would pull in the direction of the stitches. You can see a little of the fabric in the lower left of GIR's left eye and under his tongue. This appears to be more of an issue with the fabric. I fixed the design, and the 2nd one came out fine.

Invader Zim embroidery design - GIR

2 friends of mine is really into Invader Zim, so I wanted to embroider GIR onto something for them. Suprisingly, there are not that many designs out there. I found 2 at Needlework, but the site design worries me. So I decided to make my own design from scratch in Embird.

I had been playing with fonts in Embird, so I decided to try the digitizing software. It is nothing like I expected. I was expecting the digitizing software to import a design, and get 80% of the way to done automatically. I can even think of how the algorithm would work in my head, so I didn't even think that there was another option on how the software worked.

The software doesn't work anything like that. The steps to digitize a design are (at a high level) these:
1. Import a picture or design as a background image.
2. Draw objects on top of the background image.
3. Switch colors at strategic points.
4. Draw objects in next color
5. Draw the outline
6. Test the design using the sewing emulator
7. Save as whatever format your machine takes
8. Embroider on your machine.

There is absolutely no help in actually digitizing the design to stitches in the software, you have to draw it manually. There are different types of objects (circles, columns, fill patterns, etc) that help, so you are not controlling each stitch manually (though you can), but it is not fast to do. Again, the actual software itself is extremely esoteric and slows you down substantially.

It took roughly 8 hours to do the first design that I tried. It worked out pretty well and I learned a ton. The fact it took so darn long kind of explains why designs are so expensive. If this was a business and it takes 8 hours to do a design, then I need to sell at least 40 of the design itself at $5 to make up for the time spent making the design.



One of the big learnings is that the pull of the thread is substantial in the direction of the stitch. Looks to be roughly 0.5mm or so in the fabric I was using. This means the fill areas must be expanded to make up for the difference so you don't get unfilled areas. That can be compensated for in the design as long as you think ahead.

The other big learning (that I already knew really) is that the software doesn't do nearly as much as I would expect, especially for $450. I'm glad I am using the demo version. The Brother-PE software isn't much better, though it will do 1 color automatic digitizing. There is a ton of room for new players in the embroidery software space, mayhaps I will make my own open-source version that is much more user friendly.

Monogramming in Embird

About 2 weeks ago, I picked up a Brother sewing machine that does embroidery. Unfortunately, the built in fonts left much to be desired around lock stitches so that the thread doesn't unravel. I also wanted to do some of my own designs.

As for monogramming, I needed to do a bib for a baby shower. The mom hasn't decided on a name yet, so the group picked D'artagnan to refer to the baby. Before I got the machine, I decided to do a bib with D'artagnan on it. Can't get more cute than that.

However, since the fonts on the machine stunk out loud, I needed to do my own. So I looked around for software to build designs, and found Embird. There aren't really that many options in software, likely because the audience is so small. Embird works out to about $450 with the font engine; thankfully they have a demo version because the sewing machine was less than that.

The font engine works pretty well, but it has a pretty steep learning curve. It took me about 6 hours to make the first design I was happy with; something that I would think should take about 10 minutes. The tool is not designed with the user in mind, the program is very esoteric. The help actually takes over the program and shows you what to click to do certain things, but it takes forever to run.

What I was happy with is that the program allows you to simulate sewing, so you can see each stitch and where the jumps and locks will end up being. his allowed me to see (slowly) where I needed to modify the design without testing it on fabric.

After lots of tweaking and attempts, I ended up with a design that has 2,159 stitches. I hooked up the usb and transferred the design to the sewing machine, put in some thread, and let the machine so the work.



Not too shabby; I would consider it a success. Despite the shortcomings in Embird, the software gets the job done. The bad part is the insane price. If it was about $100, I would consider buying it, but at more than the machine, it isn't going to happen; demo it is. If I was doing this as a business, I would probably get it, but that isn't going to happen at this price. Embird should have 2 license options, one for personal and 1 for commercial, like lots of other programs.