Lazy Sew - Geometry Nodes Sewing Setup

Task Description

This project involved building a Geometry Nodes setup in Blender to automate sewing balloon-like objects. Traditionally, sewing in Blender requires tedious manual edge stitching, especially with complex or dense geometry. My setup simplifies this by allowing users to mark edges as sharp for automated sewing, which then configures the stitches and prepares the object for simulation. After that, users can apply a cloth modifier with pressure and run the simulation, making the process fast and non-destructive.

In addition, I created a post-processing node setup that adds visible seams where the balloon edges were sewn. This setup also cleans up any artifacts from sewing, making the seams look neat with minimal input and adding to the model’s realism.

Thought Process

My goal was to create a quick, Blender-native sewing solution that would make sewing abstract objects intuitive and flexible. For the original project outline (first image), I used Marvelous Designer, the but import/export time and limited flexibility led me to focus on a fully integrated Blender workflow.

Challenges

The main challenge was figuring out how to align vectors for instancing the sewing edges. After testing different approaches, I solved this by storing the original location attribute, which keeps the sewing geometry aligned with the original point positions. Since the edges are instanced all at once, rather than each individually, the process is highly efficient and parallelized. I then resampled the edges to contain three or fewer points, optimizing the mesh for simulation.

Workflow Process

Tools Used

- Blender: Modeling, lighting, final adjustments, and compositing.
- Geometry Nodes: Designed the sewing setup to automate edge instancing based on marked attributes.

Project Files

Github