Chevrons today are used everywhere. The time has passed when they were worn exclusively by the military. Now the stripes have acquired a secular character, and anyone can buy them in a sewing store. So how is chevron embroidery made?
Manufacturing process
Chevron production is standard routine for a machine embroidery designer. Every day comes a mass of orders for the manufacture of stripes. How are they made in small-scale production? The customer brings a picture of the future chevron machine embroidery. It must be of good quality so that the designer can understand what is painted on it.
Further, the customer says what needs to be changed in the original picture. If such changes are abundant, the embroidery designer draws a new sketch. Further, the picture is taken into development. Embroidery designers work in special programs. One of the most common in Russia is Tajima.
This program allows you to work with all available types of lines: satin, cross, even covering large areas of fabric, etc. The technology for embroidering chevrons after developing the program is as follows: the designer goes to test his sketch on a typewriter. If everything works out well, then the finished file with embroidery is given for production, but if there are any shortcomings in the end result, the artist corrects them and tests the drawing again.
Chevron Embroidery Designs
The image on the stripes comes up with embroidery artists. Or they can only adapt the finished drawing with which the customer came. Their main task is to draw a picture and letters with the help of decorative lines, and make it so that the text is readable, and the picture is understandable. This is a rather complicated process that requires a lot of experience. The artist must be able to compare the real sizes of embroidery and large-sized drawing on a computer.
The most common chevron designs:
- Military.
- Logos of state institutions: institutes, schools, hospitals, etc.
- Symbols of private institutions: security services, medical clinics, etc.
- Logos of music groups.
- Brand names of various brands.
- Decorative chevrons.
What embroidery machines use
The most popular companies manufacturing sewing equipment:
- Happy
- Toyota.
- Tajima.
- Brother.
- Janome.
Chevrons and stripes are made using
embroidery machines, which are divided into two types: professional and household. The latter is acquired by private users. They are easy to maintain, but their main disadvantage is frequent breakdowns. It’s difficult to set up such a machine on your own, for this you need to have a technical background and understand how its mechanisms work.
Most household machines are designed to work with a single spool of thread, which means that in order to make a color change, you will have to remove the hoop every time. In professional typewriters there is no such drawback. They are filled with 6 to 12 threads of different colors at the same time. But, like any equipment, a professional machine also breaks down. And when this happens, it is impossible to repair a complex mechanical structure on their own.
Is it possible to make a chevron at home?
Yes, if you have special equipment. The embroidery program is easy to buy in the online store. You can also order the development of an individual patch to specialists. But it is worth considering that the price of one design can be 600 rubles. and more, therefore, ordering a chevron in a single copy is extremely disadvantageous.
After acquiring a chevron embroidery program, you can begin the process of their manufacture. Good patches are obtained on dense fabric, such as fleece. There is no need to lay a non-woven fabric, as the fabric is dense, holds its shape well and does not “eat” threads.
The embroidery process is extremely simple: you need to load the program into the machine’s memory in the format dst, exp, or other suitable format. Next, you need to solder the fabric and check the embroidery area. After that, you can safely get to work.
How to draw a pattern for embroidery
Designing a chevron is not difficult, but as with any graphics editor, the Tajima program has its own difficulties. Its interface is similar to the well-known vector editor "Corel Draw". The difference is that many hotkeys have different meanings.
The main subtleties with working in any editor to create
designs for machine embroidery of chevrons and stripes:
- It is necessary to try to select the smallest number of colors, otherwise it will be difficult to make such a chevron on a household machine.
- It is imperative to observe symmetry in the drawings where this is required. Often the pictures that customers bring are symmetrical only in appearance. Nevertheless, the differences between the right and left parts are enormous, this should be clearly monitored.
- A chevron should always have two frame lines. One of them will be contour, and on the other it will be necessary to cut the patch itself.
- If the text in the chevron embroidery program will be typed in automatic font, then you must definitely increase the distance between the letters. It should be no more than 1.2 mm.
- If the patch will be embroidered with thin threads, then the satin stitch must be made deliberately thicker. If thick threads are used, then the seam must be made more rare. The same goes for filling large spaces.
And a couple of tips that will come in handy for you at work. Firstly, it is necessary to lay an underlay - a thin substrate, it adds volume to the embroidery and does not allow the fabric to be seen between the threads. Secondly, do not forget to make the initial and final fasteners, otherwise the whole picture is deformed.