During the 15th anniversary at the local sewing shop we purchased an on sale Brother LB5000 sewing/embroidery machine. Liz was wanting a backup sewing machine for the MeowNuka Market Totes and Catnip Cat Kicker Pillows and I was curious how well putting an X/Y gantry on a sewing machine works. For software to create embroidery, the nice thing is that I use the Opensource graphics program Inkscape for all of my vector graphics and there is an Opensource extension called Ink/Stitch that you can use to turn your .svg files into Brother formatted .pes embroidery files.

The Ink/Stitch extension has various functions that turn the vector graphic into different parts of an embroidery that consist of:

• ‘fill’ is a solid field of dense stitches, for example the background color of a patch
• ‘satin column’ is a dense zig-zag stitch that forms a solid line and handles curves well
• ‘running stitch’ is a single stitch that is a thin line
• ‘jump stitch’ is the piece of thread from one object to another

The Brother LB5000 can embroider up to a 4in (101.6mm) x 4in (101.6mm) square. The LCD screen works well to select the file from the USB stick and align the placement on the embroidery hoop. As of this post it seems that Brother is updating firmware as there was a new minor release of the firmware available.

Lessons learned

Trim only works on thread color changes

Ink/Stitch allows you to add ‘trim’ points that will send a command to the automatic cutter on the machine. Sadly, the Brother LB5000 will only cut thread on color changes and ignore ‘trim’ commands.

This is why the above example has a bright green border, pink logo, blue lettering and a red dot on the ‘i’. I use white thread for the border, logo and text. I simulate thread color changes the get the machine to cut the thread and avoid having to hand trim some of the jump stitches. This only really works for large objects and should be done sparingly on small objects. I tried to alternate the color of the 8mm high ‘MeowFire’ text, but this caused a really bad knot under the embroidery. Also, a thread color change cut requires you to manually clear the thread from the fabric, trim it and press a button to continue.

Higher end Brother machines have ‘Jump Stitch Cut’ features and will have this icon in the setting for embroidery:

Jump stitches are easier to cut when you use a pair of sharp tiny curved scissors.

Only one setting for stitches per minute

Sadly, the Brother LB5000 has only one setting when it comes to stitch per minuet (SPM). Higher end machines allow you to increase the SPM in the settings menu.

Fabric, stabilizer, thread and time are your consumables

Time

Just like designing an object for a 3D printer, most of my time is spent designing, print test on paper, alter design, print test on paper again, once good sew the embroidery. The machine sews embroidery fairly quick, but you need to monitor the first few minutes of an embroidery job, as there is a lot that can go wrong. For example thread can bind up and jam, the fabric and backing is too loose in the hoop, a needle can break because the Q-foot is not on tight, run out of bobbin thread and many more issues.

Learning Ink/Stitch is not that hard. Getting the output to exactly what you want will most likely not happen on this home system, but it can get you pretty close.

Thread

Much like filament with 3D printing, thread can be expensive. We got a good deal on a 10 pack of 400yard (1200m) 40WT machine embroidery thread, which is thinner than normal thread, that came out to about $2.50 each. ‘Fill’ stitches use a lot of thread and take the most time, but make patches look much better.

Fabric

Remnants of heavy weight cotton canvas is pretty easy to find at fabric and thrift store. So this consumable ends up being the least expensive, though you end up using about 6x as much fabric to load the embroidery hoop. The nice thing is that you can go move around the fabric and stabilizing backing in the hoop to maximize usage.

Stabilizing Backing

The last consumable is the backing that stabilizes the fabric in the embroidery hoop for the needle to consistently and accurately make a stitch. There are many different types of stabilizing backing and prices range based on the type of stabilizer. For the tearaway stabilizer we use cost about $5 a yard.

Like fabric, you will end up using about 4x more stabilizer than you need to fill the embroidery hoop.

This is why I do a lot to testing by printing to an ink jet printer to verify the design and measurements. Paper and ink are much cheaper and quicker to test with.

Inkscape with Ink/Stitch has quirks

As with all software, there are some quirks with Inkscape using the Ink/Stitch extension. That being said, Ink/Stitch is Opensource and constantly updated, plus it is Free.

Ink/Stitch likes to crash

Inkscape would crash after a while of usage or walking away. It is best to layout your work as a .svg then save the file, and start to change objects to embroidery objects with Ink/Stitch.

You are unable to use Inkscape when you are using the Ink/Stitch params or simulator functions. These open in separate windows and make sure those windows are closed, as they will prevent usage of Inkscape.

Had to use Inkscape repo with Linux

The Ink/Stitch extension did not want to install on Inkscape version 1.2 that came default with the version of Ubuntu we are running. We installed the official Inkscape repo via their ppa and were able to installed the latest Ink/Stitch without any issues.

Lettering is a great start

Ink/Stitch has a great default set of fonts for lettering included, however you may find that you want other fonts and you will have to find/buy/create digitized fonts to install or trace letters and convert them into satin columns. Still for being free and Opensource, the number of fonts included is a great start.

You can scale the default lettering objects. In the example below I changed the way the letter ‘i’ looks and made the dot on the ‘i’ a little bit bigger by scaling just the letter ‘i’ object. You can also increase the spacing of a word by moving individual letters or just scaling the whole word.

Adjusting start and stop points

As you work with objects you will find that Ink/Stitch will not always place the start and stop points for an object in the most logical spot. You can adjust the start/stop point for an object by selecting the object and them selecting ‘Ink/Stitch->Commands->Attach Command to Selected Object’. Click the checkbox for Start and Stop points, then you can move the start and stop points until you get them where you want them.

Great on line resources

Documentation is great for Ink/Stitch is extensive and easy to read. I have found that when I needed examples, YouTube provides.