Satin (area) settings

Satin (area) sews a closed shape, such as a letter or a logo, as satin columns along its own strokes. Choose it for shapes made of strokes of fairly even width, up to about 7 mm: the letters of an outline font, monograms, logos drawn with lines. For a large area a fill sews better; for a single band you draw yourself, use a satin column. Satin (area) for lettering and logos is the guide to it; this page goes through its settings.

Select the shape and choose Satin (area) under Type. Its settings are under Stitch settings. The ones it shares with a satin column, from Spacing follows width and Density to the short stitches, Max stitch length and random width, work on each of its columns as the satin column settings describe. It has no Width, taper, Corners or Swap rails: its strokes decide those. Its own settings are under Advanced.

Each figure is the stitch engine's own plan: every line is a stitch, and the numbers under it are counted from those stitches.

How it chooses the columns

NextStitch reads the middle of each stroke from the shape's outline and lays a column along it, with its stitches across the stroke. Each stroke is sewn by its median width:

• wider than Fill strokes wider than (7 mm): filled with rows;

• thinner than Thinnest stroke kept as satin (0.6 mm): a running stitch along its middle;

• anything in between: satin.

Where a stroke's width changes, part of it can still be sewn another way. Within a satin stroke, a stretch wider than the fill limit is filled, such as the fan round a corner, and a stretch whose edges come closer than 0.3 mm is a running stitch. Within a thin stroke, a stretch wider than 1 mm, more than a running stitch covers, is satin.

Each connected part of the shape, a letter or an island, is sewn in one unbroken route through its strokes. Where the route has to pass a stroke twice, the first pass is a running stitch along its middle that the stroke's satin covers afterwards, so no thread crosses a gap. Between parts, the thread is tied off and trimmed; parts less than 1 mm apart are sewn over. Trim between pieces, under Advanced, switches the trims off.

When a stroke is filled or run, Problems shows Satin (area) partly filled. A shape whose strokes can't be read at all is filled whole, and Problems shows Satin (area) filled instead of satin.

The letter below is 20 mm tall with 3 mm strokes, sewn as a new Satin (area). It starts at its right foot: the edge walk under the right stem and the arch, then their satin. A running stitch goes down the lower half of the long stem to its foot, and the stem's edge walk and satin go up the whole stem over it, to its top.

Underlay and pull compensation

With Underlay on Automatic, Satin (area) measures its strokes once for the whole shape: the median width of all its satin, weighted by length. Every column then gets the layers a satin column of that width gets: none below 1 mm, a Center walk from 1 mm, an Edge walk from 1.5 mm, and an edge walk and a Zigzag from 4 mm. Automatic pull compensation widens every column by the same rule as a satin column, from that one width: 0.05 mm on each side for every millimetre, plus 0.08 mm, between 0.1 and 0.35 mm. Strokes it fills or runs don't count towards that width. Its zigzag underlay is always sewn there and back, so it doesn't offer One pass.

Whenever its underlay is on, Automatic or any layer under Custom, each filled stroke gets an underlay of its own before its rows: a layer of rows across them, three times as far apart (1.2 mm at the usual 0.4 mm rows), 0.4 mm inside the stroke's edge, then a run round its edge: the layer and edge run a new Auto-fill's underlay has, with the run sewn after the rows. With Automatic pull compensation the filled rows are also lengthened at both ends, by 0.1 to 0.3 mm depending on how long they are, as an Auto-fill's are. With Underlay set to None, filled strokes get neither.

Fill strokes wider than

Fill strokes wider than, under Advanced, is the widest stroke Satin (area) sews as satin; wider strokes are filled. The suggested value is 7 mm, because a satin much wider lies loose and snags. Lower it to fill bold strokes sooner: for big, bold lettering a fill, or a textured fill, often sews better. Raise it to keep wider strokes as satin; their stitches are then split at Max stitch length (7 mm in a new Satin (area)).

The figure's shape has a bar 3 mm thick and a block 8.5 mm wide, shown here without underlay. At 2.5 mm both are filled, at the suggested 7 mm the bar is satin and the block filled, and at 10 mm both are satin, the block's long stitches split. The orange stitches are the fill's travel from row to row.

Reset to suggested, under Advanced, takes this setting and Thinnest stroke kept as satin back to the suggested values. It removes your own values rather than writing the current suggestions, so later improvements to the suggestions reach the design too.

Thinnest stroke kept as satin

Thinnest stroke kept as satin, under Advanced, from 0.3 to 1.5 mm, is the thinnest stroke sewn as satin; a thinner one is a running stitch along its middle. The suggested value is 0.6 mm. Lower keeps more fine strokes as satin; higher turns more of them into lines.

Above 1 mm it changes less than the number suggests: a running stitch covers about 1 mm, so a stroke wider than that stays satin where it is that wide. In the figure, three strokes 1.2, 0.8 and 0.5 mm wide hang from a 3 mm bar: the 0.5 mm stroke becomes a line at 0.6 mm, the 0.8 mm stroke at 1 mm, and the 1.2 mm stroke is still satin at 1.5 mm.

Centre-line run

Centre-line run, under Advanced, sews every stroke as a triple run along its middle, with no satin and no fill: for letters too small for satin, below about 4–5 mm capital height, where the columns get too short and too close to keep their shape. NextStitch never switches it on by itself. Where it warns that a text is too small for its font, Sew as a triple run under Problems switches it on for every letter. While it is on, the satin settings don't apply, and the run uses Stitch length (mm) under Advanced, kept between 2 and 2.5 mm.

Where it starts and ends

Satin (area) starts where the needle already is, as an Auto-fill does:

• After another object, it starts at the end of its strokes nearest where that object's last stitch left the needle. It chooses only among the ends its route can start from without adding travel: a stroke's free tips, or any point of a closed ring such as an o, which it turns to start there. It never splits a stroke to start in its middle.

• When the next object lies within the design's Stitch-over gap (in Properties, 3 mm unless you change it), it ends at the end nearest that object.

• A filled stroke at the start begins its rows nearest the needle, and one at the end finishes them nearest the next object.

• In the Stitch view you can drag its start and end markers. It follows them wherever it is sewn, first in the design too: it starts at the allowed end nearest your start marker and finishes at the one nearest your end marker, as far as its strokes allow both, and an end marker you set replaces the aim at the next object. Object ▸ Auto start and end points places them next to the neighbouring objects for you.

• Between the letters of a text, Between letters decides how the thread goes on. The text's first letter starts by the rules above, nearest the needle, also when it is one piece and joined to the next letter; it then ends at that join as far as its start allows. The last letter ends by the rules above when it has two pieces or more; a last letter of one piece, such as an O, ends where its route from the join before it leads.

In the figure the letter starts at its right foot on its own. After a fill whose nearest edge is 2 mm from the top of the long stem, it starts at that top and ends at the right foot instead. Both are ends its route can start from.

Good starting values

• Leave both limits at their suggested values unless a stroke shows the problem: a loose, wide satin (lower Fill strokes wider than) or a hairline sewn as a ragged satin (raise Thinnest stroke kept as satin, up to 1 mm).

• Keep Automatic underlay and pull compensation: they follow the strokes and give filled strokes their own underlay.

• Text with a capital height under about 4–5 mm: Centre-line run, or a larger size.

• Big, bold shapes with mostly wide strokes: sew them as a fill instead.