You can start with digital or scanned, hand-drawn artwork and create a digitized embroidery design in StitchArtist. This FAQ shows, with video and text, how to do that.
Setting up your workspace 1. Choose measurement units (metric or inches) in the upper left corner.
Choose your hoop. (Preferences-Hoops-select-Apply)
Click the Create icon (looks like a curved roller coaster track
Opening your background image
Click the “Image” button in the upper left corner - where you found the metric/inches option above
Navigate to the image you want and click “open”
Click on the image, and use sizing handles to set the size you would like the finished embroidery to be.
Choose the disk icon near the top right, and save your work.
Creating applique
Choose the “draw with points” tool (looks like a slanted line with three points on it).
Left click along the lines in your background image.
Right click to end your shape
Click the “close outline” icon (looks like a red tomato)
Add stitches: for applique choose the icon that looks like the right half of a ladder.
Choose the stitch type you want by clicking applique in the pan on the right while your object is selected
From the drop down for “border” choose they type of stitch
Set density , width, fabric preview, and position and material stitch.
Choose the color style (multi-needle, PES, or user defined)
Click the bow tie icon
Set tie at entry and tie at exit
Repeat steps for other sections of your design.
Hold the shift key to use straight lines,
or to change the type of nodes after drawing, right click on a node (or lasso a group of nodes as Lisa demonstrates) and choose the node type.
In the second part, Lisa covers
The object Pane
From the “Create” menu, choose “begin new design”
In the object pane at right, select the object names and give them descriptive names.
Zoom in on your image.
Freehand Drawing & Editing
Select the freehand draw tool (looks like a fountain pen tip)
Click, hold, and drag to draw the shape.
Release the mouse and click again to draw in segments.
Choose the “close” button (looks like a red tomato) to end and close the object.
Select and move nodes to re-shape your line.
Remove nodes by double clicking on them.
Switch to bezier mode if you prefer to shape your line in that way. Use the bezier button in the draw toolbar (looks like a bridge) to toggle to bezier mode.
Choose applique from the stitch types (button looks like the right hand side of a ladder).
Click the color swatch in the color pane in the bottom right and choose the color for your object.
Move your objects by clicking on the green dot in the center of your object, and dragging it into place.
Remember to save your work (use the floppy disk icon near the upper right corner)
Repeat the drawing steps for other design elements.
The software creates the same stitch type that you selected for the previous design element.
You can re-shape your object without changing back to artwork mode.
You can change the stitch type of your object at any time. With the object selected, click the stitch type you want from the stitch type toolbar.
In the objects pane, Right click to re-order any of your objects.
Only digitize the parts of the objects that you want to stitch. If elements overlap, don’t digitize the parts that won’t show. Unless you have Essentials… If you do, you can use the Remove Hidden Stitches feature to automatically remove overlapped stitches.
Using Remove Hidden Stitches (if you also have Essentials installed)
Leave create mode by clicking the ordinary mouse pointer near the create button.
Click the Remove Hidden Stitches preview button (looks like a pair of scissors under a red line).
