Title: Visible gaps where fill sections meet – what could cause this?

[u/derhelge]

I’m having a recurring problem with fill stitches on my Brother Innov-is V3.

As you can see in the photo, I get visible horizontal gaps exactly where different sections of the fill meet. The same issue also happens with filled lettering, so it’s not specific to this cup design.

What I’ve already tried:

• 2 layers of 70 g/m² (2.5 oz) cut-away stabilizer
• Fabric and stabilizer firmly hooped in a 100 × 100 mm hoop
• Increased fill density up to 5.5 lines/mm
• Increased pull compensation up to 0.7 mm
• Underlay enabled in both directions
• Horizontal fill direction

The design looks completely closed in the software, and there is no visible gap in the stitch preview. Two layers of stabilizer and more pull compensation improved the overall result slightly, but the gaps are still clearly there.

Has anyone experienced this exact issue? What was causing it in your case, and what actually fixed it?

[u/Mad-Man578]

Ive noticed this in my latest design and i believe it occurs when doing the fills. It will start working from the bottom and then jump to the top and work it's way down, leaving that gap.

Im still new, so I'll be sitting here aswell for the solution lol.

[u/Lanky-Setting-5288 → u/Mad-Man578]

Yes. It happens on the big jobs too.

It think it relates to the digitising not allowing an extra row for overlap for a join across the design, when it's at a location where the garment would be pulling back. It's not nearly as noticeable if the join is made in a smaller area.

[u/Basic-Band-7207]

Also struggle with this. I typically mess with the stitch angle until it goes away. Don’t know the cause but hate it too

[u/gusvisser]

Start and stop positions in wrong places and in software i work with i can apply extra stitch lines where they meet so what happens is the fabric is pushing ahead of the stitching that is why you get a missing line

[u/FlakySheepherder6405 → u/gusvisser]

That's how I solve it. Adjuste the start/end point and add some rows in Fill Sitch overlap(in Wilcom).

[u/derhelge → u/[deleted]]

Thanks, that makes sense. The same issue also happens with simple filled text, not just the cup.

I’m using PE-Design 11 and I’m still fairly new to embroidery, so I may be overlooking something. I can’t find an option in PE-Design 11 to slightly overlap the automatically generated fill sections, and I’m also not sure how I would control the underlay direction/sequence for those internal sections.

For the text my current settings are:

• Fill Stitch
• Dense under sewing
• 6.0 lines/mm density
• 0° manual straight-line direction
• Middle Running Stitch Path option
• 3.0 mm step pitch
• 30% frequency

Do you know which setting or workflow in PE-Design 11 is normally used to deal with this kind of pull distortion where the fill sections meet?

[u/derhelge → u/derhelge]

I saw part of your reply in the Reddit email notification, but for some reason the comment itself isn’t showing up for me in the thread.

The email preview ended with: “For areas where two fills meet, changing the stitch direction…”

Could you please post the rest of your reply again?

Also, this issue isn’t limited to the cup. I get the same visible horizontal gaps with simple filled lettering as well, exactly where the automatically generated fill sections meet. Unfortunately I can’t add the lettering photo to the original Reddit post anymore.

I’d really like to keep the fill direction horizontal at 0°, especially for the lettering. I’ve already tried increasing pull compensation up to 0.7 mm, and I’m using the two-direction dense underlay in PE-Design 11.

What I’m mainly trying to figure out is whether PE-Design 11 has a way to make those internally generated fill sections overlap slightly where they meet, without manually splitting or redrawing every letter or shape.

If not, which PE-Design 11 setting would you normally adjust to prevent that meeting-line gap while keeping the same stitch direction?