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Multiple copies in the Hoop with Tool Shed

When you're working on small designs and would like to make more than one in one hooping, how can you do that?  Most machines will let you move the location of your next design after stitching one, so that you don't stitch the next over top of the first, so that's one way.  Embroidery software is helpful in setting up the multiples for really easy production.

Snowflake Earring 2022 On-the-HouseI started with one freestanding lace earring design, and it didn't take me long to realize I would need to stitch two of them (!).  Then of course, I thought of pre-placing designs within the hoop in my software so that I could keep making earrings while I was at it, and even do them in multiple colors. That's exciting, right?

I used the free Embroidery Tool Shed software to do this.  So I began by opening the original earring design in the software.  The default view was very zoomed in, so I used the zoom tool to change the view to suit my preference.  
Zoom Tool  in Embroidery Tool Shed

Next, I wanted my hoop to show.  See that hoop on the view menu above?  You can click on that, or on the similar icon that is usually visible on the left tool bar.  Clicking that icon gives you this window:   
Hoops Context Menu in Embroidery Tool Shed  I selected 130 x 180 for my 5"x7" hoop, clicked apply and ok, and then my hoop was showing on the screen.

Snowflake in the hoop in Embroidery Tool Shed

 Now, it's pretty easy to just move a design to the corner of the hoop to make room for more designs, but how do I copy the design?
That's also easy.  Click the design so it is selected.  You can tell it's selected because it turns blue.

Now either use keyboard commands or right-click mouse commands to copy, then paste.  The program always copies  your deisgn directly on top of the original, so it's a good thing we know 

Two rows of designs.  Second row highlighted in blue by selection

how to drag and arrange, right?  Now I have two matching earrings.  If I want to make another set, and another, I just continue this process. 

I can even use the selection tool to drag a box shape selection around a whole row of earrings and then copy and paste a whole row at a time. That's a bit of a time saver. 

Now, what if I want to cue my machine to let me change colors between earring sets?  Well, I can't do that with any of the designs that I have copied and pasted; they are all being treated by the software as one design  -- and they only have one color stop between them.  

But there IS a way to do it.  One just has to open a separate design and copy that into the window.  So I went to the File menu in the top left corner, and click ed on "Open"  and I chose another format of the snowflake file to open (I usually stitch in PES, but there were others available to me).  I chose DST.  When you open multiple designs in Tool Shed Software, you get multiple tabs along the bottom of your window, and you can switch between the designs by clicking on the tabs.  See here, I have a DST and a PES of the same design open, and there are two tabs:
Design tabs at the bottom left corner of Tool Shed softwareNow I can click on the DST tab and copy that snowflake, and then click on the PES tab and paste my that snowflake next to the others I have in the hoop.  Now I have two color stops on the bottom; this design even opened with a different color showing than the PES (that's very common, since all embroidery formats interpret colors differently from one another).  So now I can copy the pasted snowflake again and have a set of differently colored earrings.  And I can repeat these steps to make as many differently colored sets as I like.  

The colors in some formats are not always what I want to actualy stitch, and I can change the colors on screen to remind myself of the colors that I do want to stitch.  Right below the design tabs at the bottom of the window is a line of colors. Click on any one and you'll be able to change it to another one. 
Color stop bar at bottom of Embroidery Tool Shed Window.  6 colors shown. When you click on a  color stop box, you get this context window:

Thread color picker window shown with Exquisite Threads selected.

You can click on any of the color swatches shown or change the brand to select from a different list, or even search for a particular color. I kept that up until I had all the color variations that I wished:
Embroidery Tool Shed displaying a 5x7 hoop of 12 earrings, three per row. Now I should save this.  I will want to save it with a different name than the original snowflake earring design, so  as to preserve the original and also save the new one. 

To do that, I use the "save as" command from the File menu.  And I name my file.  I called mine "12 earrings 6 colors".  Last, I need to save it in a stitchable format.  The software has defaulted to .c2s format, which is not stitchable.  So I will click in the lower box and choose my .pes format. 

Whoa, there are lots of choices of PES format.  I have an older machine, so I just choose the PES v. 1-5 format, to be sure my machine will recognize the file.  Newer PES formats (with a higher version number) will save more features, with which I'm not well acquainted, since my machine is an older one.

Embroidery Tool Shed File-Save window, with .c2s format selected  List of format options in Embroidery Tool Shed, PES 1-5 selected.

Then for my next trick, I send the design to my machine, load my first thread color, and start stitching!

This "in-the-hoop" project almost doesn't qualify, it's so easy.  If you're interested in more 3-d and complicated in-the-hoop projects, you might consider joining us on January 19, 2022 for "The Scoop on In-the Hoop"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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