Making Embroidered Patches With an Embroidery Machine & Ink/Stitch

I've been learning to use Ink/Stitch to make designs for the Brother PE800 embroidery machine.

The purpose of this instructable is to document what kinds of things are easy to do and work well without much fiddling.

1. Embroidery machine with embroidery hoops (I'm using a Brother PE800)
2. Computer with Inkscape and Ink/Stitch installed, and a USB drive
3. Plain, sturdy fabric
4. Fabric stabilizer sheets
5. (optional) Iron-on adhesive sheets such as Heat n Bond Ultrahold

Fabric stabilizer comes in both iron-on and non-iron varieties. I'm using the non-iron type and just clipping it into the embroidery hoop with the fabric.

If you want to make patches that can be ironed on to a piece of clothing, you will need a sheet of double-sided iron-on adhesive. My local fabric store has this in the section with the interfacing, but you can also buy it online.

I'm not going to cover how to use the machine. Refer to your manual, or there's lots of tutorial videos online.

I'm also assuming you have some basic knowledge of Inkscape.

1. Use Inkscape version 1.3 or higher (previous versions will work but don't include the "Flatten" tool)
2. Install Ink/Stitch according to instructions on website
3. Draw a shape using the rectangle or circle tool.
4. Find Ink/Stitch under the Extensions menu.
5. Use "Visualise and Export -> Simulator / Realistic Preview" to see what your design will look like
6. "Save As" and then choose File Type ".pes"
7. Copy the .pes file to your USB drive and plug the USB drive into the embroidery machine. You can now view and embroider it through the machine's interface.
8. Try changing the shape from unfilled to filled or vice versa and check the preview again to see what it looks like.
9. Also try drawing a line with the pen tool and check the preview.
10. If you draw several shapes that overlap, they will be embroidered as several overlapping shapes. To avoid this, select the shapes in Inkscape and use the flatten tool to remove the overlaps. Again, you can try this and check the results in the simulator.

One thing I'll mention before going any further: the minimum stitch size in the Ink/Stitch settings is always either 1.5 or 2 mm. I'm not sure if that's the minimum stitch size supported by the PE800, but it's definitely the smallest Ink/Stitch will output. If you use a 1.5 mm stitch, you cannot draw anything smaller than 1.5 mm, and tiny circles or tight curves will not look right. I'll go into this more in a later step, for now just be aware that if you want to make a smallish patch (I'm sizing mine ~3 inches) there's a limit to how much detail or text you will be able to fit into that space, because the basic shapes have to be large enough to embroider correctly.

I want a nice solid border around my patch. You probably noticed that if you simply draw a line with the pen tool, you will get a thin line of stitches along that line. The technique for a wide line is called "satin stitch", and creating it in Ink/Stitch requires a few extra steps.

1. To make a satin line:
2. draw a line with the pen tool
3. use the style settings to set the line width to at least 1.5mm - 2 or 3 is probably better
4. use the line-> satin tool under the ink/stitch menu to convert it (see pictures)
5. verify that it looks right in the simulator
6. To make a closed border:
7. The satin tool needs a start point and end point, so
8. use one of the shape tools to draw an outline
9. use the style settings to set the line width as above
10. convert the shape to a path
11. select one of the nodes and "break" (see pictures)
12. then use line->satin

The Brother machine has 3 hoop sizes installed. I'm going to use the middle one, which has a working area of 4 inches by 4 inches. I've attached files with some borders that fit in this hoop. If you make your own, keep in mind that you'll need to check that the outer dimensions of the shape (including the line thickness) fit inside the 4 inch embroidery area.

1. Ink/Stitch -> Lettering gives you a library of fonts that are designed to work with the embroidery machine.
2. When you type in the window, it will give you a preview of the stitched letters (it takes a few seconds to open the preview, so be patient).
3. Some of the fonts don't look readable to me in the preview window.
4. Fonts that do look nice in the preview:
5. Auberge Marif
6. Baumans fl
7. Coronaviral
8. DinoMouse72
9. Emilio 20
10. Emilio 20 Simple
11. Espresso KOR
12. Paper Plie
13. Learning Curve
14. Manuskript Gothisch
15. Namskout
16. Sacramarif
17. Sortefax Medium Initials
18. TT Directors
19. TT Masters
20. Of these, DinoMouse72 is my favorite. It looks big in the list, but is actually fairly small.
21. When you select a font, it will give you some information about the intended size and the amount of scaling that will work with that font. (Remember that the minimum stitch length is ~2mm, so if your letters are too small they simply won't embroider correctly.)
22. Pictures show DinoMouse72, Coronoviral, and Learning Curve on fabric
23. If you are trying to fit multiple lines of text into a frame, you may find it helps to write each line as a separate object so you can adjust the spacing between lines.
24. Testing "Make all the things" (3 line text) in a 4x4 frame
25. TT Masters - "make all the things" just fits in 4x4 box, no border
26. Auberge Marif doesn't fit at all in 4x4
27. Baumans @ 80% just fits
28. DinoMouse72 fits nicely

1. Ink/Stitch doesn't understand normal fonts. You may be able to use text made with the normal text tool, but you must convert it to a path before saving to the embroidery file. ("Object to Path")
2. You will need to make the font size pretty big (~40) in order for it to embroider correctly.
3. I tried just writing some text in a basic font, but it was not readable at all when embroidered.
4. But this worked:
5. Used the font Snap ITC
6. Go to Fill and Stroke settings and turn off the fill
7. Ink/Stitch embroidered the outlines in running stitch and it looks pretty nice (see picture)
8. I expect this will work with many system fonts, but thin or complicated lettering may not work as well. Check in the simulator!

Here's where we use another Ink/Stitch feature, the Params window. You want to select an object and then open Params. It will offer you various settings that apply to the object (they can be different for different object types). It will also give you a simulator preview that updates as you change the settings.

Test: circles & squares

I wanted to see how small I could make a shape and have it look good, so I drew circles and squares in sizes 2mm, 3mm, 4mm, 5mm, 6mm, 7mm, and 8mm. (That's diameter for the circles.)

I found I got the best results by changing a specific setting.

1. With a circle selected, open Params and then click on "FillStitch", which is the second tab.
2. Reduce "spacing between rows" to 0.1

Even with this setting change, the 2mm circle didn't show up at all on the embroidered fabric. The rest of the circles look like circles, although none of them are perfectly round and several of them have small holes in the filling.

Every size of square looks solid, but they all look more rectangular than square, and there's a small gap between the outline stitches and the actual shape.

Test: freehand shape

I also tried drawing a freehand heart and filling it. Here's the settings I ended up using.

1. On the second tab, Set "spacing between rows" to 0.1
2. On the first tab (called "Stroke"), set the "Method" dropdown to "ZigZag Stitch". This changes the style of the outline stitches.

Test: robot sketch

Finally, I made a patch from a robot sketch that I drew. For the filled circles on the robot, I used the following:

1. Reduce "spacing between rows" to 0.1
2. Changed "fill method" to "circular fill"
3. Increased "number of repeats" to 2 (eye) or 3 (antenna)

This worked very well even though the ball on the antenna is just under 4mm. It does, however, result in a raised bump rather than a flat circle.

Once you have a design that you like, embroider it on fabric and cut it out.

You can sew it onto a piece of clothing or pin it on with safety pins.

If you prefer, follow the directions on the Heat n Bond or other adhesive sheet to attach it to your patch.

Plus, check out this collection of tutorials for more advanced techniques.