Fill settings

Auto-fill covers an area with straight rows sewn back and forth, the tatami fill of commercial embroidery. It gives the flattest, most even cover, so it is the type for any area wider than a satin can span: a background, a large letter, a badge. Choose a contour or circular fill when the rows should follow the shape instead, and a satin for narrow strokes and borders (Stitch types compares them). Fill and underlay explains how a fill is sewn; this page goes through its settings one by one.

Select a filled shape. In the Stitch view or Simulation, the bar above the canvas shows Row, Angle and Length. The gear beside Type, and Stitch settings in the right rail, hold every setting, the rarer ones under Advanced.

A small arrow beside a setting marks one you changed from what a new shape starts with; click it to put that value back. Reset stitch settings, at the top of the settings, puts them all back at once, and Presets above them applies a set you saved (New designs, Preferences and presets).

Each figure on this page is the stitch engine's own plan, mostly for a fill of 30 × 20 mm: every line is a stitch, sewn where NextStitch would sew it, and the numbers under a figure are counted from those stitches. Most figures leave the underlay out, so you see only the setting they are about.

Row spacing

Row in the bar, Row spacing (mm) under Stitch settings, is the distance between the fill's rows. A new shape starts at 0.4 mm. Closer rows cover the fabric better and take more stitches and more thread; wider rows let the fabric show. Move the slider to see the rows and the stitch count at each spacing.

End-row spacing (mm), under Advanced, lets the spacing change evenly across the shape, from Row at one side to this value at the other. While it shows the same value as Row, the rows stay evenly spaced.

To make the selection, or with nothing selected the whole design, lighter or denser in one step, choose Object ▸ Density…: it changes the fills' row spacing by a percentage (Stitch types).

Angle

Angle in the bar, Fill angle (deg) under Stitch settings, turns the rows. A new shape starts at 0°, its rows running left to right; at 90° they run top to bottom, and 180° is 0° again. Thread catches the light along its length, so two areas in the same thread read as two shades when their rows run at different angles.

To set the angle on the canvas, press Set angle beside Fill angle (deg), or the arrow button beside Angle in the bar, and drag across the shape the way the rows should run. Letting go sets the angle, in whole degrees; hold Shift to keep the drag to 15° steps, and press Esc to leave it unset. In the Stitch view each selected fill shows the way its rows run as an arrow. With several fills selected, the drag sets them all.

The stitch count changes a little with the angle: where the rows meet an edge at a slant, the step from one row to the next runs along that edge and is longer. The underlay turns with the fill: unless you give it an angle of its own, its rows lie across the fill's.

Stitch length

Length in the bar, Stitch length (mm) under Advanced, is how long the stitches within a row are. A new shape starts at 2.5 mm. Each row runs from edge to edge in stitches of this length. With a row offset, which every new shape has, no row ends in a stitch shorter than 0.5 mm: where the edge falls close to a needle point, the end stitch is joined with the one beside it.

Shorter stitches mean more needle points: more stitches, and a firmer, flatter surface. Longer stitches mean fewer: the fill sews faster, and each stitch lies looser on the fabric. The underlay's stitches are as long as the fill's unless you give the underlay a maximum of its own.

Row offset

Row offset, behind the gear beside Type in the bar or under Stitch settings, shifts each row's needle points against the row before. Even, the default, shifts them by a quarter stitch, so the holes of neighbouring rows never line up, and the pattern repeats every fourth row. Brick shifts them by half a stitch, and Off leaves them lined up, so the holes run across the fill in lines. The panels show the middle of the same fill.

Custom takes any other shift: type a share of the stitch length from 0 to 0.99 into Custom offset. 0.25 is Even, 0.5 Brick and 0 Off.

Random stitch length

Random stitch length, under Advanced, varies the length of the stitches, so the needle holes form no pattern at all. Length jitter (%) appears once it is on and says by how much: at the 10 % it starts at, the stitches are between 10 % shorter and 10 % longer than Length.

With random stitch length on, the row offset is not used: the random lengths decide where the needle points fall. Row offset is greyed out while it is on, with a line under it saying so, and keeps its choice for when you switch random stitch length off. The pattern is the same every time the design is sewn. New variation, beside it, gives the object a fresh one, and undo brings the last one back.

Travel

After each row the thread has to move on to where the next row starts. Travel, under Advanced, decides where it runs:

• Automatic, the default: on an open fill, its rows 1.2 mm or more apart, a move that would cut through the fill runs along the edge instead, 0.45 mm inside the outline, where the row ends cover it. A move that already runs along the outline keeps its way. When the rows are closer, the travel runs inside the fill, where the rows sewn after it cover it.

• Along the edge: every move along the edge, at any spacing.

• Through the fill: the travel runs inside the fill at any spacing, as it does on a dense fill.

The figure shows an L-shaped fill with its rows 2 mm apart. Through the fill, one move crosses the open rows of the bottom arm; Automatic takes the edge for that move only, and Along the edge takes it for every move.

Grid preset

Grid preset, under Stitch settings, turns an Auto-fill into an open grid in one click: rows 2.5 mm apart at the fill's angle, over a second layer across them at the same spacing. The second layer is the underlay, sewn first and reaching right to the edge, so Underlay turns to Custom. The rows are far enough apart that the travel keeps to the edge by itself.

Everything stays editable, and one undo takes the preset back. Change Angle to turn the whole grid: the underlay's rows stay across the fill's.

Overlap

Overlap (mm), under Stitch settings, grows the area outward all round before it is sewn, so it reaches under the shapes beside it. The fabric pulls every fill in a little as it is sewn, and two areas that only meet edge to edge then show a line of fabric between them; an overlap closes it. The figure shows two fills where they meet, the left one sewn first.

Shapes you draw start at 0; artwork you import, clean up with Make stitch-ready or trace starts at 0.2 mm, because its areas meet edge to edge. The field takes 0 to 2 mm. Auto-fill, contour, circular, guided and meander fills take an overlap, and their underlay stays on the shape as drawn. Where one shape lies on top of another, Remove overlaps cuts the hidden part away instead, and Fill and underlay compares the overlap with pull compensation.

Underlay and pull compensation

A new shape starts with Underlay on Automatic and Automatic pull compensation on, and NextStitch chooses both as it sews: the underlay by the shape's size, the pull compensation by the length of its rows. For this fill it sews an edge run and a layer of rows across the fill rows first, then the fill rows on top, each row lengthened a little at both ends. The orange stitches are travel, sewn along the edge from one row to the next. The fill rows begin with the row on the top edge, in its place, and the fill ends where its last row ends, at the bottom: no thread travels back along the edge after it.

Underlay and pull compensation explains what Automatic chooses, every setting under Custom, and the pull compensation in detail.

Where a fill starts and ends

The green triangle in the figure above is where the fill starts, the red square where it ends. On its own, a fill starts next to where the stitching before it ended, and ends near the shape sewn after it (Arranging and stitch order). In the Stitch view, a fill you select shows the same two markers: drag one to move it, and double-click it to go back to the default. The fill then starts and ends as near those points as its rows allow. The underlay begins at the start point, and the fill rows begin where the underlay ended.

Object ▸ Auto start and end points sets them for every fill in the design at once, each next to its neighbours, and writes them into the design, where they stay when the shapes around them change.

Good starting values

• Row 0.4 mm, Length 2.5 mm, Row offset Even: what every new shape starts with. Change them when a test sew-out asks for it.

• For a light, open fill, widen Row. From 1.2 mm on, Travel on Automatic keeps the thread off the open fill; Grid preset gives a ready-made grid.

• Give neighbouring areas in one thread different angles, so they stay apart.

• Leave Underlay and the pull compensation on Automatic unless a test sew-out tells you otherwise.

• Areas that meet edge to edge and sew with a gap between them: raise Overlap, 0.2 mm to start with.