I couldn’t get the machine really work. The thread has been breaking at a random moments. Sometime it took 1h for the thread to break, sometime it were minutes. I replaced that old sewing machine with a modern one, but the problem persisted. Embroidery specialist I contacted told me that I have to try different threads, needles and settings, but I don’t like to play with sewing machine I like to play with CNC machines, so I dropped the project.
But adding the CNC functionality itself was really easy with some amount of 3d printing. Inkscape works like a charm and it is not that hard to transform a desing into the embroidery codes. You can work directly on the cloth you want. In case of stretchy fabrics you might want to use underlying fabric or just a piece of paper.
You might need to put some glue on the back if you are making a patch. In this case you might want to stabilize the border before cutting the patch out. Then you can sew it or glue it. But it seems easier to put emproidery directly to the cloth.
One spool is enough to “fill” about 2" x 2" or 5cm x 5cm area, but of course you can change the spool (might be a little bit tricky because you have to be careful to keep the position).
Not an easy project, but a lot of fun.
1 Like