How to Use Tatami Stitch in Embroidery Digitizing

Tatami stitch is the best way to add textures, and it helps you digitize your artwork with colorful gradients, intricate shading, and color blending.

In this article, we will show how you can use tatami stitch for logo digitizing with advance filling techniques and unique textures.

Have you ever seen a woven tatami mat?

Yes, the tatami stitch looks and works the same as the weave of the woolen mat.

Because in tatami stitch, straight stitches are closely packed with the rows that work in a horizontal and vertical direction to create a woven-like texture.

To understand this better, look at this logo, in which we digitize the large embroidery area i: e, the upper part of the tree and the ground with tatami stitch.

Tatami back stitches are digitize on the back of the fill stitches, which helps you to create a solid fill and controls the appearance of the border of large areas of embroidery.

The Tatami backstitch has three types:

1. Standard Backstitch Tatami can use for high-density fills because it has fewer small stitches at the edge of the shape, which reduces the possibility of damaging the fabric.
2. Borderline Backstitch Tatami is ideal for lower-density fills because it creates a smooth, well-define edges that help you embroider the top stitches more smoothly.

3. Diagonal Backstitch Tatami is your best bet for uneven edges because it provides excellent results for the backward, diagonal rows that directly connect to the forward rows.

Here we used standard backstitch tatami in the upper part of the tree, because it has fewer small stitches at the edge of its shape and customer requires a high-density fill.

Stitch length: The minimum stitch length of tatami can’t be lower than 4 mm.
However, if you use shorter stitches, it will wrinkled after washing the fabric.

Density: Tatami stitches are closely packed together, making them suitable for filling large embroidery objects. The ideal density of tatami stitches is 0.4 mm.

In some cases, you can increase the stitch density for more open stitching for backgrounds or special effects.

Push & Pull Compensation: The push and pull compensation of tatami stitches varies with the fabric, size and the width of the columns of embroidery objects which you want to digitized, however ideally 0.2 – 0.3 mm pull compensation can be used for tatami stitches.

Letters & Fonts: Ideally, the letters are digitize with satin stitch, but if you want to make letters with tatami stitch so in this case the column width should be more than 0.30 – 0.32 mm and a narrow outline of satin stitch must be digitized around the tatami fill to make the letters even smooth after stitching.

Design and Logos: Tatami stitches are meant to cover large areas first.

Take this logo as an example – This logo contains letters and large areas, so the background with tatami fill digitized first, after that the letters will digitized on it for creating a perfect layering.

You can use the tatami stitch as an underlay & it is ideal for filling large and irregular shapes.
We broke down here some basic usage of tatami stitch.

1. Create smooth & even fills: you can use tatami stitch for creating smooth and even fills, especially for large embroidery objects such as backgrounds where a solid fill is require.

2. Add texture & depth: You can add texture and depth to embroidery designs by making minor changes in the stitch length & density.

3. Color Blending: Tatami stitches are arranged in parallel rows, which helps create a smooth transition between the colors and gives a perfect color blending effect.

To fill embroidery objects with different textures, all you need is to make some changes in offsets properties, stitch line, backstitch and spacing of tatami stitches.
Here we are using wilcom embroidery software e4.
Now, let’s see the four basic ways to fill embroidery objects with tatami stitches.

1. Even Stitching: Let’s say if you want to fill the object with even stitching, then set the both offset fields to 0.25 mm.

2. Strong Horizontal Lines: If you want to fill the object with strong horizontal line, then set both fields to 0.00 or 1.00 mm.

3. Light horizontal Lines: If you want to create a pattern with light horizontal lines, then set both fields to 0.5 mm.

4. Diagonal lines: To fill with diagonal lines, set both fields to any value other than 0.00, 0.50, and 1.00 mm.

The various patterns in the image above have been created by adjusting some basic settings in offsets properties, stitch line, backstitch and spacing of tatami stitches.

You can find them in Object Property Box of Wilcom Embroidery Software e4.

• Stitch Line & Back Stitch Line: Any embroidery object has two rows of stitches that is called Stitch Line & Back Stitch Line.
• Spacing: Spacing is the distance between the stitch lines and it is measure between two lines of stitching.
• Offset Properties: Offsets are the fractions of stitch length between the stitch lines.
• Underlay: Underlay are the basic stitches that serves as a foundation for the cover stitching.
• Density: The distance between each stitch.

Tatami stitch is use to fill large areas in embroidery designs and provide underlay for lettering or other design elements.

You can use a regular tatami stitch with simple rows for your embroidery projects, but you can make it even more creative by doing small experiments during embroidery digitizing.