Software improves embroidery on clothing seams with functional threads
StitchOver: Technical Embroidery on Seamed Fabrics
Human-Computer Interaction
Summary
Clothing made for special uses like sensing often needs embroidery with functional threads that conduct electricity. The authors found it is hard to sew these threads over seams in clothes because the threads can get caught or damaged. They created a computer tool that changes how stitches jump over seams to avoid problems. This method reduces defects from 70% to zero and still works well even when machines are not perfectly adjusted. This helps make smart clothes more reliable and easier to produce.
smart textilesmachine embroideryfunctional threadsconductive threadfabric seamsthread tensiondigitizing stitchessewing machine calibration
Authors
Zekun Chang, Tianhong Catherine Yu, Yixuan Gao, Thijs Roumen
Abstract
Smart textiles embed interactivity into everyday garments, supporting use cases like always-available sensing for medical applications or sports. Machine embroidery allows integrating functionalities into existing textiles. However, embroidering onto real-world textile goods remains challenging. Textile goods are rarely made of a single homogeneous substrate of fabric, and embroidery with functional materials such as conductive threads requires machines to be more tightly calibrated than for decorative embroidery. In particular, seams, which bring together different substrates, along with machine variability, cause shifts in tension and friction between the functional thread and the textile substrate that frequently lead to defects (70% of samples in our evaluation). We present a technique to reliably embroider on seamed fabric even when using functional threads. Our software tool automatically digitizes user-defined stitch patterns by introducing what we call "JumpStitches" to bypass seam interference. We evaluated our approach under varying machine states (under-tensioned, well-calibrated, and over-tensioned), and across multiple seam and pattern configurations. Our results show that the JumpStitch mechanism eliminates defects, while maintaining conductivity compared to 70% defects without JumpStitches, and even in poorly calibrated machine states continues to work well.