# How does applique work on commercial machine?



## lizd (Jun 20, 2009)

I don't get how to do applique on my commercial (Tajima tmex) machine...how do I get the machine to stop in order to place fabric or to trim and then restart with next step? Is it in the digitizing or the machine setup? Thanks in advance to anyone willing to clue in this clueless girl


----------



## imeccentric (May 13, 2007)

You can do it either way. I usually make my die line a different color and don't program the machine for a needle change (leave it at 0) after the die line sews. It stops, I lay my fabric on the die line and hit sew again. Nothing to it. Or you can program a stop into the design as you make it. Or you can even just stop the machine after it sews the die line, put down your fabric and hit sew again. All three work fine. For me, if I have a shape that I want applique in, I insert that shape in my digitizing software. Then I convert to outline , add a column or applique outline to that, and delete the shape. Hope that makes sense. Then I also make a separate file with just the die line that I can send to my cutter. I can cut as many exact shapes as I want then and they will always turn out perfect. And they can also be very intricate.


----------



## Andy the Logo (Sep 1, 2009)

we just add a stop in the digitising as we make the design, nice simple.


----------



## tfalk (Apr 3, 2008)

Some machines will automatically stop if you program the same color sequentially since it thinks it's a color change... if you set the outline stitch and tackdown stitch as the same color, see if the machine will stop... that's how my SWF works...


----------



## lizd (Jun 20, 2009)

Thanks, everyone, for all the help. I tried some of the suggestions here and found that programming the number 0 when I want the machine to stop between colors works just perfectly for me. Never would've thought of that solution on my own (although I've wondered why the number 0 was in the color assignment options...). 

Liz


----------

