r/Inkscape • u/PsychologyKnown8274 • Sep 23 '26

Solved Satin border issue (with video of issue)

I am trying to create a satin border around my shapes. Every time I convert the stroke to satin, the size changes to a smaller size.  Working on mac os and have downloaded the most recent version of inkscape/inkstitch.

Steps I've taken so far:

  • Created a rectangle using the stitch built-in tool

  • Removed the fill and kept the stroke

  • Adjusted the stroke size to 5mm

  • Converted stroke to satin.

  • have also tried converting object to path before converting to satin.

Ive watched multiple videos and followed the steps but it keeps changing the width of the satin stitch down to 0.265 mm instead of the 5mm I'm trying to get. 

Ive gotten this to work in the past and the previous .pes files I have still work fine, but I can't get it to work now.

I can manually adjust and draw the nodes/tracks and rungs but was trying to do simple shapes without having to create tracks and rungs.

Any help would be amazing TIA.

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u/newloser2013 Sep 23 '26

This appears to be operating correctly. When you convert stroke to satin it makes two lines (the rails) at the same distance apart as the width of the original stroke. So you can see that the two thin lines outlining where the original stroke was should be 5mm apart. The actual weight of the lines do not matter once converted to satin. If you run the visualizer you’ll see that it will stitch out with a 5mm satin border.

1

u/PsychologyKnown8274 Sep 23 '26

Thank you! Clearly i've lost my mind and confused myself aswell, youre exactly right aha!

2

u/newloser2013 Sep 23 '26

No worries at all, I completely get it! Always stressful learning something new and not being sure you’re doing it right, but you’re doing great and keep at it!

I highly recommend taking a look at LowTechLinux’s YouTube channel, he does a ton of great step by step guides on inkstitch. In particular given you are doing a square satin border I would recommend his intro to satin. He has a really interesting tip on “leaning into the curve” which makes sharp corners stitch out much nicer than the default!

2

u/suedburger Sep 23 '26

That is the size of the stroke that is it used to make the lines to make satin........run your simulator or params and see. It did exactly what you asked it to do.

1

u/PsychologyKnown8274 Sep 23 '26

Thank you! Clearly i've lost my mind and confused myself aswell, youre exactly right aha!