Design creation is a two-fold learning process. First, there is the software. That is the set of buttons and sliders that make things that can be stitched. That’s pretty easy to learn, especially for anyone who understands drawing programs or even has general computer skills. Whereas digitizing software in the past had been developed in its own little world, and the graphics programs went their own ways, the two are now converging with similar tools and operations in both. Do not be misled into thinking that embroidery and graphics are at all similar though, as designers can get away with all kinds of things in graphics that are simply not possible in embroidery. The level of sophistication in an embroidery creation program is much higher than a graphics program, generally speaking.
That brings us to the second and more difficult part of the learning curve – the knowledge of embroidery itself. Embroidery involves thread and fabric. Both are by definition flexible, usually stretchy to some extent and operate differently in different combinations. In graphics you can do things however you want: In any order, at any place, or jump from point to point without regard. And the result will always look the same. With embroidery all those assumptions are false. You need to understand which stitches will go down first, and why they go there, and you need to really think about where the machine is going to go as it stitches the design. Generally there are three areas of thought that need to be part of your process when you create a design:
The material, thread and project combination. This dictates certain items such as the amount of coverage you need, the maximum number of stitches within an area that can be added to the fabric before it puckers, and how it will be stabilized so as to mitigate somewhat the inherent limits of the fabric.
The path the machine will take as it creates the design. You don’t want to leave thread trails all over, and you don’t want to have to cut those either. Even if the machine does that for you, you still have to spend the time on that process. And if a design always sews in a given direction, you wind up pushing the fabric around so much that the later stitches won’t align or ‘register’ with the earlier ones.
The types of stitches used. This is the topic that is easily understood, but can take a lifetime to master. The basic stitches are pretty obvious, but the quality of the output comes from clever usage and combinations of elements.