WHAT IS EMBROIDERYWORKS?

Simply put, EmbroideryWorks is the big sister of Embrilliance Essentials. Essentials is exactly what it says—the essential tools every embroiderer needs. Yes, it duplicates some features your machine may have, especially the top of the line ones, but I’m much more comfortable working on my computer where I have all my designs stored.

My computer screen is much bigger than any of my sewing machines (I have a 30″ monitor on my desktop!) and I simply have more control. Plus I can easily save and find variations and/or iterations of a design as I play.

TURNING A SIMPLE DESIGN INTO A BORDER

To show you just how easy this can be, I’m going to take the October 2013 free design from Love to Sew Redworkand turn it into a border. Obviously it is possible to get MUCH more creative than this but lets start easy!

I’ve selected this design because it is already digitized as two pieces and, hey, it’s free this month!. You can easily see a right and a left half that are fully separated from each other.

This means there are (or should be!) tie stitches on each side so that we don’t have to worry about adding any afterwards. In other words, this is minor surgery.

STEP BY STEP PROCESS

1. Open the design in EmbroideryWorks. Notice in the Objects Pane that the design is one object. Even if I ungroup the design it is still one piece. To remove half of the design, I need to be able to select stitches.

2. Click on the Stitch Edit icon on the tool bar. The area below the tool bar changes to reflect edit mode and the stitch points in the design are now visible and accessible.

3. Click on the Rectangular Selection tool on the far left. You can also use the lasso tool, which is very useful in selecting irregular shapes. Here though, the rectangular selection tool works effortlessly.

4. Drag a selection around one half of the design to delete.

5. Press the delete button. Voila! You have a border section!

6. Click on the Select Objects icon (the “regular” arrow) on the toolbar to exit stitch edit mode. Save this as a new design.

7. Copy this design, create a new page and paste twice.

Note: If you have a design you want to build into a border, the rest of the steps can be done in Essentials. Simply open the design and copy and paste once then continue as follows.

In the work area it will look like only one design, however, in the Objects Pane you’ll see two objects.

Notice the last one in the Object Pane (the top most and last pasted design) is selected. It’s easy to think you only have one design when you may have a whole stack of them. The Objects Pane will keep you straight.

Note: You may want to adjust your hoop size if you have a smaller one selected. Hoops are for reference only and don’t restrict any design size, however, the program’s settings will prevent you from saving a design that is larger than the format permits.

8. With the last pasted objected still selected, mirror this design by clicking the Flip Horizontally icon on the toolbar

and then drag the design into position. You can add as many repeats as will fit the hoop you intend to use.

If you are building a border rather than a single design placement, be sure to plan the repeats correctly. In this case, we need to work in multiples of two so we don’t have to remember to mirror every other pattern at the machine.

Tip: It’s a good idea not to totally max out the sewing field of your hoop especially if you need to precisely align a design or you will have no room to adjust placement at the machine.

9. To make sure your elements are aligned and evenly spaced, Select All, then click on Align and Distribute. Select the Distribute tab and set your options as shown below and then click apply.

A FEW MORE QUICK VARIATIONS

After extracting half, think about what else you could design…

How about an arrangement for a neckline accent?

Or have a little fun with Carousel?

Playing around with your designs in software can be almost as fun as stitching them out!

TO INFINITY AND BEYOND!

This tutorial is meant to introduce you to very basic editing. Begin to look through your design stash and see what other designs and elements are “hidden” within more complex designs.

I often find I want coordinating elements from an embroidery design to use as connectors when combining multiple designs or to place in small areas like collars, cuffs, or button plackets.

With editing, you can do that. With editing, you don’t have to learn to digitize; you can simply take elements from one or more designs and combine them.

For example, on the blouse yoke here, I used a design from Floral Fantasy, sewn it mirrored horizontally and monochromatically. Because there was a “blank” space in the middle, I simply extracted one of the flower elements and used it as a connector.

Other elements were extracted and recombined for the front of the blouse. Because the floral elements are separated, this is another easy project to duplicate without having to worry about adding tie stitches to prevent raveling.

On collection used for this tutorial, Love to Sew Redwork, I’ve extracted many elements out for you and none of them were as a simple as the process we just covered. Look through the extracted elements and try recreating one from the free version.

In many cases, you’ll find the pathing (stitch sequence) needs a lot of reworking to avoid excessive jumps.

This type of work is much easier in digitizing when you have the original source file, and that simply isn’t available for these designs—even if you did use the same software I do. While you might think you can just deal with the jumps by trimming the threads, there will be no tie offs.

It is possible to do very intricate editing with EmbroideryWorks but think of it as surgery. Just as the surgeon must do something with severed muscles, tendons, nerves, and blood vessels, you must take care of any disconnected threads. Extensive repathing of a design is indeed very major surgery!

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