This manual covers the usage of the program itself, and attempts to interject some knowledge of the embroidery process as well. However, we very much recommend the reader take educational programs on design creation from others. There are a number of wonderful educators for digitizing in the marketplace, and their fees are generally well worth the knowledge you will gain. With respect to those instructors, please humbly accept that any differences you find herein with regards to your teachings, are not intended to be the ‘only way’ someone ought to do something, nor necessarily the ‘best’ approach, but perhaps is what we ourselves are comfortable teaching. We all have our own styles, and those differ from time to time.
If you have never embroidered before, take some time to learn the use of your machine and the basics of embroidery. Your local sewing machine store will have classes that you can attend to help you get going. We must assume for the purposes of this manual that you understand the ordinary hobby aspects of embroidery – what a hoop is, what stabilizer is, what a ‘design’ is etc. Hopefully you have at least stitched something successfully.
You do not have to be an artist. Really -- let’s say it again --you do not have to be an artist.
The reason is that embroidery creation is more of a ‘color-by-numbers’ process. You may be an artist, and that’s great. You can even create your art within the program. However the process of laying stitches on top of your art or image is a mechanical, methodical and logical process, provided that the art is suitable for embroidery. And there too is a reason why we ask that you have at least done embroidery – it will provide you some insight as to what’s possible with embroidery, and what simply isn’t. Naturally an artist can alter a complex image to be more suitable for embroidery, and a person with some experience creating designs may be able to do that intuitively as they work. It all comes from the learning process and involves much trial and error along the way. You won’t learn to paint overnight, nor learn to play Chopin the first time you sit at a piano, so please don’t expect to be creating complex designs well the first time either. But with a bit of persistence, creating designs is a much faster and easier learning curve than those other endeavors. And you can begin with simple things and start sewing in practically no time.
Reminder about Levels: Illustrations in this manual are shown with Level 3 enabled unless otherwise noted. Feature differences in other levels will be discussed in the text. Some sections have information pertaining to multiple levels. We have indicated the minimum level for which the text is relevant. Where practical, we have added higher-level information toward the ends of sections.