As you can see this is a nice piece of clipart of bread and other good foods arranged in a typical Thanksgiving scene. (Be sure to use royalty free clipart when punching designs. Copyright laws apply to any work not expressly free for distribution by owner)

The first thing we need to do is identify the basic shapes and elements of this design. Breaking it up into shapes will make the design more easy to navigate and planning it out ahead is a key to good execution.

the easiest way to break most designs up is by colors. Now keep in mind that the majority of machines out there have 9-12 needles. This means we ALWAYS try to make a design 9 or less colors or if that is not possible then 12 or less. Anything over that number will require a rethreading of the machine and on multihead machines that can be a real hassle.

(If a rethreading is necessary then it is our job as digitizers to make that change over as convenient as possible by planning the stop in the middle of the design. This means we have to plan out the first 9 colors then a stop where the machine operator can make all the color changes at one time.  This requires forethought and planning. )

So I identify all the main colors in the design and then I figure out which of my main colors can create a blend to become another color. See diagram below.

This reduces the colors needed but also, when done properly, adds a realism to the design and a sense of depth. I start thinking about stitch directions here and which directions will add more depth to the design.

Next I figure out the color order in my mind. This is critical since I am a firm believer that you should never have a trim in the middle of a color run unless you have elements sitting out by themselves. I believe that if you plan a design out in advance you can use pathing and running stitches to get everywhere in the design. This makes a MUCH better running design and reduces potential thread breaks by a ton.

So, fiuguring out the color order lets me know where to start. Below is how i have broken down this design.

Now it is time to start the digitizing. Color by color I look at the path that makes the most sense. Do you remember those maze games when you were a kid? I do. I use to love them. Well I really think about this process like that. Each color presents a problem to solve. If I start here , then where do I go from there? How can I make it from point A to point B without ending up in a corner. On and on.

Once you have a feel for that kind of thinking then you apply some basic rules of physics to the pathing such as: 1. Starting in the center and working outwards helps reduce wrinkles and secures the design better. 2. Trying to make your stitching go from bottom to top increases the versatility of the design. etc.  There are alot more but these we will go over in future tutorials.

Below are the individual elements as I punched them.

As you can see it really is like a jigsaw puzzle. Get comfortable with thinking along those lines and then start adding artistic rules of shading and lighting to the design (I will cover them in the future too) and your design should really start to take shape.

This is where I will go back and look at all my overlapping fills. I will make sure they run the same directions so the stitches fall into each other and I will fine tune the densities to show more of one color over the other. There are alot of tricks to these blending methods that I will cover in the future.

Now for the final element. The details! This step can take many forms. Sometimes really bold lines are needed so a satin stitch is in order, other times NO details are needed and the design looks best in it’s raw colors. I often use running stitches to create my details. It takes longer but you can really get the subtle nuances of the artwork. Again here you should keep in mind that when done right there should never be a stop, trim and move command. If you take a few liberties with the design you can usually complete the entire detail with one thread run.

Below you will see I broke the details in to two sections. I find it easier to think about fine details then borders. Please note that there is no thread trim between these sections. They are one long stitchout.

One final look at the design to see how it all blends and looks and I run a sample on one of my embroidery machines. If it looks and runs good then it is off to the customer.

Hope you found this walkthrough helpful. I will break these elements down in the future and cover more and details. As usual please let me know if you have questions or would like to see anything in particular.

This design is available in our online store.