Fun with Fan Fill in Thred (Part 2)

Create a Simple Flower

If you understand what Fan Fill is, (see Part 1 of Fun with Fan Fill) then you can go on to creating this flower.

Angle fill will be used to create the petals, and fan fill will surround the flower. Fan fill will also be used as the center of the flower.

CREATE A SIMPLE FLOWER STEP BY STEP

(Click image to see enlargement)

You can print this page or save it for work off-line. Please note that your stitch colors may be different from mine. I am using red as color 1 and dark blue as color2.

  1. Download Flower Bitmap.

  2. Open Thred. If it is already open, left click 'File' (menu bar), left click 'New'.

  3. Set your preferences to Default - left click 'View' (menu bar), left click 'Set', left click 'Default Preferences'.

  4. Set the size of the design - left click 'Pref' (menu bar), left click 'Hoop Size' and change to 'Custom', and change both Hoop Width and Hoop Height to 40mm. Change 'Fill Spacing' (density) to 0.20.

  5. Load Bitmap - Left click 'File' (menu bar) / Load Bitmap. Load the file 'cbfan2.bmp' that you downloaded in Step 1.

    If you do not see the bitmap, change your color settings - left click 'Edit' (menu bar) / 'Set' / 'Bitmap Color' or 'Background Color'. The Bitmap Color needs to be an 'opposite color to your background color so that you can see it (eg. black on white, dark green on pale pink, etc.)

  6. Create a Free Hand Form to outline the Section marked 'A'. Left click 'Form' (menu bar) / 'Free Hand'. Left click around the outline to make form points. When finished, right click.

  7. Now fill the form with angle fill. Right click a form point to select the form. Left click 'Fill' (menu bar) / 'Angle'. The form will fill with stitches at the last used angle. Now to change the angle - make sure the form is still selected, and press the 'F' key. The properties of the form will display. Change 'Fill Angle' to 75°.






  8. Now you will create a line that you will convert to be a fan fill. What? Don't panic, just take it Step by Step....

    Create a Form Line along the middle of section B. Left click 'Form' (menu bar) / 'Line'. Follow the line as indicated in the picture. Create quite a few form points along the line to give a nice curve.











  9. Now comes the fun part....

    To see what you are doing more easily, hide the bitmap - left click 'File' / 'Hide Bitmap'. You should be left with just the free hand form and your line form on your screen.
    Select the line form, and left click 'Edit' (menu bar) / 'Convert' / 'To Satin Ribbon'.
    Thred automatically takes your line form and converts it to a freehand form filled with fan, complete with a 'D' (Direction) Line for every place that you put a form point along your original line.
    This form is now an ordinary freehand form, and can be moved, points added, D lines added or removed, etc.


  10. Select the Form and change the color to the second color on the color bar. (Left click the left hand color on the color bar at the left hand side of your screen.)
    Now put the bitmap back on the screen. Press 'X' to zoom fully out, and left click 'File' (menu bar) / 'Load Bitmap'. Press 'Q' to make sure nothing is selected, Zoom in on Section B ('Z'), and drag the new form points to go around section B.
    Note that at the ends of the form you have a 'non-stick' line. You will not be able to make a point at the ends of the form because of these. Make the inner form points overlap the previous form stitches slightly.
    To make the edges more smooth you may need to add form points. Put the mouse cursor near a previous form point and press 'W'. Drag the new form point to where it should go.

  11. You can stitch this out to see what you've got before going on to the next step, if you wish.

  12. Now to create the other petals - Press 'X' to zoom out fully. Select the first form that you created and left click 'Edit' (menu bar) / 'Rotate' / 'And Duplicate'. Use 72° as the angle. (You are going to create 5 petals, so 360° / 5 = 72°.)
    Move the new form, to the left hand petal position next to the first.
    Keeping the new form selected, left click 'Edit' / 'Rotate' / 'And Duplicate Again'. (Thred remembers the angle of 72°.) Move this new petal into position. Repeat until you have all the petals.






  13. Change the angle of fill for each petal - select the petal form to the left of the first form. Press the 'F' key for the form properties. Change the fill angle to 147° (75° for the first one plus the 72° rotation angle). Continuing anti-clockwise change the angles to 219°, 291° and 3°.
    Press Shift F3 (to sort - same as 'Edit' / 'Sort' / 'By Form'), and run the movie to see the stitchout (key 'I').
    You may find you have unsightly jump stitches between the forms. The forms should just go straight into each other, but depending on how you have created these forms, you may have to delete the extra stitches that Thred has made to reach the start of the next form. To do this, select a form, press ']' to find the last stitch of the form and use the right arrow key to see where the stitches go. Then delete the stitch points using the 'Del' key.

  14. Do the same rotations for the fan-filled petal edges using the same rotation angles. The angle of stitching will automatically change due to these forms having the 'D' (Direction) lines in them. Zoom in on each petal, and fine-tune the positions of the form points. (My drawing has the 'natural' unsymmetrical look!)

  15. You will probably have a lot of jump stitches now.
    In my design I changed the form numbers, as I had gone the wrong way around the petal. To do this, use the '/' key and put in what the form number should be. For example, the form at Section B should be number 5 (numbering starts from zero, so the inner petals will be 0,1,2,3,4). So select this form, and use the '/' key to change it to 5. Go clockwise around the flower changing form numbers. Then press Shift F3 to sort by form within color.





  16. Now for the central flower. Create a new form - left click 'Form' (menu bar) / 'Regular Polygnn'. Enter 32 sides. This will create a perfect circle. Place it in the middle of the flower.
    Select the new form and left click 'Fill' (menu bar) / 'Fan'. Make this color number 3 by left clicking the appropriate color number on the color bar.

  17. Set knots - Press 'Q' to unselect everything, left click 'Edit' (menu bar) / 'Set' / 'Knots'. Thred will create knots for all jumps over 9mm long. If you have 'View' (menu bar) / 'Knots' / 'On', you will see indications of where the knots have been set.

  18. A small note on underlay. The fan fill looks best with an underlay. I have changed the density of the outside fan fill on my flower to 0.10. This gives a richer finish, but with an underlay I would not have had to do that. (If you have very close tight stitches the fabric will pull.) To get a simple underlay you can create a smaller, less dense fan fill to go underneath, or an angle fill at the opposite angle of the top stitching. On the purple flower that you can download below, I have gone overboard on the underlay, having a fan fill, a satin stitch line, and a stitch line underneath the top fan. The top fan layer looks very rich, though.


Flowers using Fan Fill to Download in Thred format

Click on the image to download


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