Process

From a drawing to a needle path to a finished back. Every step below is either something we did or something the machine did, in order.

The embroidery

The rose is embroidered, not printed. Thread is pulled through the cloth and locked on the other side, so the artwork has depth you can feel with your thumb. A print is a layer laid on the surface instead.

Two rose leaves drawn from the stitch file at high magnification on cream: khaki fill stitches crossed by black shading stitches, each stitch separate. — PLATE 01 Two leaves from the file, drawn stitch by stitch. Khaki fill under black shading.

The digitising

A drawing cannot be sewn as it is. It has to be digitised: every petal, leaf and highlight redrawn as a stitch type, a direction and an order of work. That decision set is what makes the rose read as a rose from six metres away.

The Red Rose embroidery rendered from the production stitch file: a red rose on a long stem with olive leaves, every stitch visible. — PLATE 02 The file rendered stitch by stitch, before any cloth.

The file

The finished file counts 73,525 stitches over 164.6 by 305.2 millimetres, with six thread colours and a fixed order of colour changes. It was signed off on the production sheet dated 21 December 2024.

The Red Rose drawn from the stitch file in colour on cream: a red bloom on a long stem with six leaves in khaki and black, LOOMÉ in white below. — PLATE 03 The three maps the renderer reads, drawn from the stitch file: colour, where every stitch takes the colour of its block; height, where white is high, so the render knows the thread stands above the cloth; and direction, which tells the light which way each stitch faces.

The same rose as a height map, white on black, where the brightest stitches are the ones standing highest above the cloth. — PLATE 03 The three maps the renderer reads, drawn from the stitch file: colour, where every stitch takes the colour of its block; height, where white is high, so the render knows the thread stands above the cloth; and direction, which tells the light which way each stitch faces.

73,525 stitches

The needle path

The file, drawn in the order the machine sews it. Khaki leaves first, the wordmark last. Drag the thread and watch.

Drag to sew.

26,35073,525Stitches

Block 01 / 18Block 18 / 18KhakiWhite

Page Up and Page Down move one colour block. The arrow keys move one step.

JavaScript is off, so the rose is shown finished.

A simplified drawing of the production needle path, 18 colour blocks in the order the machine ran them. It keeps one stitch in three so it runs on a phone. The file draws 73,200 stitches and the production sheet counts 73,525.

The thread

Six colours build the rose: the deep red of the outer petals, two lighter reds and a white highlight in the bloom, and two greens in the stem and leaves. LOOMÉ is stitched under the stem in the lightest of them.

6 thread colours

420 metres of thread

Total thread from the production sheet of 21 December 2024: 1,380 feet, about 420 metres, bobbin thread not included.

The 18 colour blocks, in sewing order

Block	Thread	Hex	Stitches	Starts at
01	Khaki	#74744E	26,369	1
02	Black	#000000	4,957	26,370
03	Khaki	#74744E	6,480	31,327
04	Red	#AA0000	11,029	37,807
05	Dark Red	#4A0000	1,828	48,836
06	Black	#000000	3,226	50,664
07	Red	#AA0000	2,346	53,890
08	Dark Red	#4A0000	453	56,236
09	Black	#000000	539	56,689
10	Red	#AA0000	4,564	57,228
11	Dark Red	#4A0000	1,094	61,792
12	Black	#000000	1,229	62,886
13	Pink	#DF5E4F	2,086	64,115
14	Red	#AA0000	2,561	66,201
15	Dark Red	#4A0000	623	68,762
16	Black	#000000	1,226	69,385
17	Pink	#DF5E4F	1,665	70,611
18	White	#FFFFFF	925	72,276
Total			73,200

Thread names are the manufacturer’s, printed as they appear on the production sheet.

Indices are read from the stitch file, which draws 73,200 stitch-to-stitch moves. The production sheet counts 73,525, including the ties the file does not draw.

PLATE 04 The wordmark in White, the last block in the file, drawn stitch by stitch.

The backing

Heavy jersey moves under a needle, so a stabiliser is held behind the panel while the machine works and the excess is cut away afterwards. That is why the rose sits flat instead of pulling the cloth into a bubble.

The silhouette

Very oversized, with the shoulder seam dropped down the arm and a balloon through the sleeve. The body is cut wide and left alone: no pouch to break the front, no drawcord to break the neckline.

The fabric

100% cotton at 600 gsm. Heavy cloth is harder to sew and harder to ship, and it is the only reason a garment this wide keeps a shape instead of hanging like a sheet.

600 gsm

The rib

The hem and the cuffs are a tight rib. They are what turn width into volume: the cloth gathers hard into the rib, the sleeve balloons above the wrist, the body blouses above the hip.

The hood

The hood is double layer, so it stands on its own behind the neck rather than folding flat. The body and the sleeves are a single layer of the same cloth.

The origin

Made in Guangzhou by the factory that sewed the samples. Photographed in Paris. Written, priced and packed from Berlin.

The care

Cold water, inside out, dried flat, iron kept off the rose. Heat and friction are what damage embroidery, and both are avoidable.