BusiEmbroidery

Drop in the logo and pick where it goes: left chest, back, cap front or sleeve. A flat logo with solid colours works best. A photo or a gradient does not, and that is not a limitation of this tool: embroidery has no halftone, only thread that is there or is not.

Set how many thread colours. Every colour costs a thread change, and a thread change costs time on the machine. Four is plenty for most logos; above six you are usually paying for detail nobody sees from a metre away. The tool picks the colours the same way every time, so yesterday’s quote still matches today’s.

Now the stitch spacing and the thread angle. Zero point four to zero point five millimetres is standard on cotton: tighter and you punch so many holes that the fabric puckers or the needle breaks; looser and the fabric shows through between the threads. The angle decides how the light catches the thread, so the same shape goes from matte to shiny as you turn it.

The first four fill the shape completely; the pattern lies in where the needle goes in, and the fabric stays hidden. The last two are open: you deliberately see the fabric through them, which makes a shape lighter. An open fill always gets a satin border, because nothing else holds the loose ends down.

This is what separates a real embroidery file from a coloured-in shape. The satin border is a dense zigzag ACROSS the outline: it makes the edge sharp and pins down the loose ends of the fill. Without it a filled area frays and the fabric shows through at the edge. The underlay goes underneath and holds the fabric, otherwise the top layer sinks into the weave and the whole patch pulls crooked.

A DST file holds no absolute position at all, only moves from wherever the needle stands when you press start. So this point is where the needle begins. Almost every machine parks the needle in the middle of the hoop, which is why the centre is the usual choice.

The order shown here is the order the machine will work in: colour by colour, and inside a colour first the underlay, then the fill, then the satin border. Where the thread jumps, the needle is up and no thread is laid down.

These are the published colour charts of the machines themselves. The number next to each colour is the closest thread on that chart, not an exact match: hold the cone you have against the real card before you order. No number here is invented.

Then the check, and this is where print and embroidery part ways. A needle makes a hole of about half a millimetre, so anything under a millimetre wide sinks into the fabric and you see nothing. The tool measures the thickness of every part and tells you how much of the design falls below your minimum. Text under about six millimetres high closes up, because the counters of an a and an e end up narrower than the thread.

Last, the DST file for the machine, and the worksheet as PDF. The DST is not a picture: it is the needle movements, stitch by stitch, with the colour changes and the jumps in it. Be clear about what this is: automatic digitising does not reach the level of a puncher. For a flat logo with solid colours it is fine; for a gradient or a photo it is not. Always stitch a test piece before you run the order.

The price works itself out while you design. You can change the rates yourself.

Pro members unlock the tool once through the shop. After that it works offline too.

Put your own prices and payment details in the shop, and share your shop link with customers.

Done, or something went wrong? Open the dashboard and start over with a clean sheet.