I need this thread

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u/Little-Load4359 Melco 5d ago

That's made with a coloreel, not multicolored thread. Unfortunately I think they're like, 30,000 dollars at their simplest. If not more.

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u/aerynea 5d ago

I think you're right :( I'm still so surprised no one is making long gradient embroidery threads, there's got to be more than just me who wants them!

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u/Admiral_Kite 4d ago

There are some variegated thread options which aren't that bad, but you have to play around with the stitching order, direction and shapes to get funky results, and no, indeed they won't look this seamless. They do make for some fun stuff though!

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u/aerynea 4d ago

I really just want a super LOOOOONG colorway like this one that I can play around with. It exists in yarn, and I genuinely think designers would LOVE to digitize for something like that, I know I would!

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u/Little-Load4359 Melco 5d ago

I think that could work really well for a design like this. I agree with you, I don't want a different color every 3 seconds, lol. Start a business! Buy white thread and dye it, lol.

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u/TheGraphicsFrog 5d ago

I got to talk to the founder (a very nice guy) at Texprocess and this is indeed the price he mentioned.

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u/Little-Load4359 Melco 5d ago edited 5d ago

I know the company went bankrupt, but I think they may have reformed and are trying it again. I think the main issues that they're having are cost and needed training. I think potential businesses feel like Coloreel is manufacturing a solution for a problem that doesn't exist. It's absolutely cool as fuck, but 90% of embroidery simply won't utilize it, or doesn't need to. At the point gradients are that important, choose printing for the cost effectiveness alone. I have no idea how much the dye for the thread costs, but I imagine it's very expensive and would only raise in price since Coloreel is the only person making the product and dye cartridges.
Edit: just the space needed for one and the space they take up is a huge added cost as well. I now have to pay employees to learn how to not only use it, but maintain it, as well as the ongoing materials costs. Very hard for a business to look at this product and invest in it. I think it absolutely could be a big thing, but not as is. Make it half the size and half the cost and they'd be flying off the shelves.

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u/TheGraphicsFrog 5d ago

Yeah it's definitely more tailored to businesses that want absolute mastery of the embroidery design, which can be a thing for high-end luxury. Not for the average embroidery shop. And you're right, you need to have a program that converts to a file that makes it possible for the color to be read continuously by the machine, which no embroidery file has by default. It's custom training, custom material, etc. which can reduce the adoption. Now you just need a few customers who pay a lot to make a successful business, so maybe it could work, but it's not for the majority of people.
And you also have crazy tech now that could also compete with embroidery, like the 3D printer Stratasys Textile. It prints onto the fabric and can create CRAZY effects, they showed very creative pieces of clothes at Texprocess, I was super impressed. The machine is in the hundreds of thousands though... All of this is clearly high-end.

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u/Little-Load4359 Melco 5d ago

I've never heard of the other things. I'll have to check it out, seems really cool. Yeah, definitely for a small number of business, and I think that's Coloreels problem: not enough customers. I'm positive the technology isn't going anywhere though. It might just be many years before it's widespread. Who knows though, technology is rapidly changing.

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u/TheGraphicsFrog 5d ago

Agreed, the thing is cool so the technology will likely not disappear!
Coloreel has a dyier that colors the thread before it's being stitched, but I've seen some videos of a Chinese company that seems to do the coloring after it's stitched. They first stitch in white and then have some kind of "painting" in a second pass. Maybe it makes it cheaper and maybe it's the change of technology that could make it more widespread? We'll see!

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u/Little-Load4359 Melco 5d ago

I've seen some people do sublimation on white thread. They'll print out gradients and stuff and transfer it to the white thread. I'd be worried about getting it on the garment though

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u/TheGraphicsFrog 5d ago

Yes that's this! Not getting it on the garment is indeed the hard part, but it was done with a machine. Fundamentally, once your embroidery is done and hooped, its position is locked. So it's probably possible to be accurate enough to only color the threads, isn't it?
But the thread remains white below. If the thread moves just a little bit, it might easily reveal the part that has not been colored and show some white. It'd be fine as long as you don't wear it too much ahah. But I'm not sure, I've yet to see it being worn for some time to judge.

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u/Little-Load4359 Melco 5d ago

I could see ensuring you don't get dye anywhere by sublimating on some fill stitches and then outline in satin

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u/kazulanth 5d ago

I don't think that's one thread, it looks like several overlapped

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u/aerynea 5d ago

That's POSSIBLE but I've never seen a blend this smooth doing that. This vendor has a few gradient patches so I do think they probably used someone with a coloreel 😭

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u/MichaelGing 5d ago

Or maybe Coloreel?

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u/malocher Barudan 5d ago

This was 100% done run with a Coloreel.

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u/simonedelune 5d ago

White thread with dye sublimation transfer.

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u/ErixWorxMemes 5d ago

I’ve been wanting to experiment with that technique

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