Digitizing Tips

This is a compilation of questions and answers from emails, visitors to Diamond Threadworks, and the embroidery lists I am on.  The information comes from many people, none of whom I have kept names for, but all of whom I am grateful for their contributions.  

Avoiding Jump Stitches

Question:
When doing outline should should you work from one end of a color segment to the end, and then start with another color segment to avoid jump stitches? 

Comments
To avoid jump stitches in your outline, look over your design, and decide on a good place to start, as that will be where your needle starts. It's a good idea to print out a copy of your picture or design, so you can practice doing it different ways with a pencil first. Where you begin and where you go all depends on the individual design. Just crawl around from place to place, weaving in and out, trying to keep the line all connected if you can. In some designs, there is just no way to avoid jump stitches. In others, you can lay them down so that they will get covered up by another color later on. I would just map a game plan out on paper first, then assign the stitches. 

Changing a TTF into a multicolored design

Here's how to change a wing ding from a true-type font into several colors, using only the PED software. 

Open your design in 3.0, save it in .dst (or another format), then import them back and save them as pes version 2.0 files. That way, they can be manipulated as a design rather than as a True Type Font. 

Pretend you have a wing-ding design of a smiley face. Open up the design, highlight it, and Stitch To Block. Click on Edit, Copy, Paste. That will paste the copy exactly over the top of the first one. If you click on duplicate, it will put the copy offset from the original, so don't do that. Change the color of the copy, so you can tell them apart if you want to. Make as many copies as you need, one for each color section. Using the mouth as an example, change the top color layer to red. Enlarge the design to fill up the page. Highlight it, and choose the point edit tool. Hold down your left click button to drag a box around several of the edit points (little boxes) that you want to get rid of, then click Delete on your keyboard. You may have to do this several times, in small sections. When everything's gone except the mouth, set the red to stitch first, so it's underneath the rest. Now, do the eyes. Change the next layer to whatever eye color you want, and delete everything except the eyes. If you don't want a line to sew between them, click edit, copy, paste, and make a second pair of eyes on top of the first. Take one copy and delete the left eye, and delete the right eye from the other copy. Move them both to the back by clicking "sew first", and go on to the next color layer. After you're done with all the layers, go back and reset the stitching order to the way you want it. Don't forget to change the name of the file when you save it, or you'll overwrite your original. 

Changing Sewing Order

Question:
How do I change sewing order?

To change sewing order, there's a couple of little yellow icons with arrows, at the top on the toolbar. The first one changes whatever you select to sew first, and the second icon sets it to sew last. Map out your game plan, and then take turns with each element in your design. Take whatever you want to sew first, and tell it to sew last. Then, take the second thing, and tell IT to sew last. Then take the 3rd, and set IT to sew last. Keep on doing this until you're done. That will move everything forward one at a time, until the first thing actually ends up being first in order. There's another icon on the right part of the toolbar, and it will show you what order things are set for, but you can't change it from there, just view it. That icon has a 1,2,3 on it. 

Combining Split Designs into One Hoop

Question:
I have some designs that were designed for the HUS 3 position hoop, but which would fit into the 5X7 hoop. Is there a way to combine them in L & E?

Comments
To combine the two halves of the design into one hoop, go to L&E, and under the file menu, click on "open" and select either half of the design. Then, under the file menu, click on "import" and bring in the other half. Line them up, change the hoop size (under "option", "design page property"), and save with a different file name.

Converting Fonts into Designs

Question:
Does anyone know if it's possible to take a true-type font in version 3.0, and change the color of only part of it. In other words, is there a way to manipulate it like a design, rather than as a font?


Comments
Here's how I did it. I saved the font in 3.0, then wrote it to my blank card. Next, I turned off version 3.0, and turned on my older 2.5 version. Then, I imported the design from the card into L&E of version 2.5. I clicked on "stitch to block", and was then able to manipulate the edit points. 

Comments
There is an easier way to change True Type Fonts into designs, instead of fonts. Why? Well, let's say you want to digitize something with PED 3.0 or 4.0, using a TTF, and you want to send it in to the design swap. If I only have the 3.0 version, and you send it in as a 4.0 version (whether your design is TTF or manually digitized), I won't be able to even open it. I can see it in Buzztools, but when I click on it to open, I'll get a message "Can't read this file version". If I upload it to the download site, and someone else downloads it, and doesn't open it for 6 months, they may have already forgotten where I got it from, and will never be able to try out your wonderful design. Let's say you make a TTF design in 3.0, and I have 3.0, but I never downloaded the font you're using. I'll be able to see the design correctly in Buzztools, but when I go to open it up, I'll get letters from a different font, instead of the wing-ding designs you intended for me to get. So, here's all you have to do. When you're in L&E, go to "file, export", and export the design as a hus, exp, dst, or other type of format. Close L&E, click on the new format in buzztools, and reopen the design again in L&E. Now, it's a design instead of a TTF, and you can manipulate the edit points like you can with any other design. This is a good way to take wind dings apart, and color different parts of them in different colors. 



Comments
Through trial and error, I just learned a new trick! I'm sure someone else already knows this, but it feels good to figure things out. I wanted to open up the wing-ding designs that were sent to me from a TTF that I didn't have loaded. Furthermore, they were saved in PED 4.0, which I don't have yet. When I clicked on the designs in buzztools, the L&E page opened with a blank page and an error message "unexpected file format". One of the designs was saved in a lower version, and I was able to open it, but when I didn't have that font loaded, the design that opened was not at all the same as the one I saw in Buzztools. Instead of wing-ding designs, I got alphabet letters. So, I tried to open the 4.0 designs in Buzz Edit, to see what would happen. Guess what? It worked! It opened the designs as designs, not as fonts. When I saved them in Buzz Edit, overwriting the original 4.0 files, I could click on them in Buzztools, and they opened up in my PED 3.0 as designs, not as fonts. 

Additionally, there were fewer skipped stitches than when the original designs were converted from pes 4.0 to hus by exporting them from L&E as a hus file (which the original sender did for me in the original conversion). 

Editing Designs

Question:
I can't figure out how to take the designs apart & edit them. I know you go to Stitch to Block, draw a box around what you want to edit, but I can't go any further. Can anyone help? Thanks! 

Comments
After you stitch-to-block, select the color you want to edit, and enlarge it as big as you can. Choose the edit-point tool (second down on the left-hand side) and select the first option in the fly-out window. Now, that color section you chose will have all the little edit-points (boxes) shown. Use that tool to manually drag each box to where you want it. If you want to delete some of them, you can do it one at a time with your delete button, or you can draw a box around a section of them, and then hit your delete button to remove several at once. You can click on any line to add additional edit-points, then drag them into whatever position you want them to be. Be sure to save it under a different name, so you still have your original if you need it. 

Fading a Template

Question:
How do you fade a template?

Comments
To fade the template, click on "display", then "template", then "faded". If you're using a different design (or part of a design) as a template, change the color of the template design to a light color. Don't forget to delete it when you're done digitizing over it. 

Fixing Fills and Outlines When Digitizing

I have two questions, although they may be related. I digitized a flower design and used fill and programmed fill stitches for the flowers. When they stitched out, the stitches were very sparse...almost to the point where the programmed design was lost. There seemed to be bare spots. And in some areas, the color extended past the outline. My questions are: 

How do you get the stitiches to fill in and cover the area nice and full? How do you get the outline to stay on the outside as opposed to having the color extend past it? 


Comments
As far as the density of the fill, there are two things you should check. First, highlight the design, then go to the toolbar, and click on "Sew", "sewing attributes". Click on the default settings for the stitch density. Check the design in realistic preview. If it still seems sparse, do you have areas that are okay, and spots with holes, all within the same filled area? If that's the case, you may need to work on it with the edit points, which is the second arrow from the top on the left-hand toolbar. Highlight the area, and enlarge it as big as you can. Choose your point edit tool, and then check the design area for the spots that need to be filled in. Move the edit points (little boxes) to wherever they need to go to fill in the holes. Do the same thing with the outlines to fix them. When you're done, go back to realistic preview and check it out again. If everything seems right, but the outlines are still off when you sew, then it's probably due to the fabric stretching/pulling. You might need to add understitching to the larger filled areas to reduce the pull, and also make sure you change the sewing attributes to make different areas stitch out in different diagonal directions, not all at the default 45 degrees. That way, you won't have as much pull in the same direction when you stitch it out. Most importantly, stabilize well, and hoop the stabilizer also, (unless you're using the Hoop-it-all sticky hoop). If the outlines are still off, you can either move them inwards a little with the point editing tool in L&E, or turn them off to eliminate them from sewing out if you don't really need them. You can turn the outlines or the fills on and off by clicking on the toolbar boxes next to the little "choose color" icons that look like spools of thread. If you want your outline separate from your design, so that you can stitch out all your outlines areas last, highlight your design, then click on edit, copy, paste. Don't do "duplicate" or it will make a duplicate that's in a different position. If you do "copy", "paste", it's duplicated in the exact same position. Then, you can take one copy and turn off the outline, and take the other one, and turn off the fill. Then, you'll also be able to move the outlines around if you need to with the point edit tool.

Keeping Outlines on Target

Question:
I am still learning but is there a way of checking the outline of the finished work before you sew it out...I am still trying to take some of the quess work out of density settings and directional settings to try and make sure the design sews out right without getting the outline off on my project. I know that stablizing my project correctly is a must but I am still learning and would appreciate you input or insight, maybe you'll give me the right way to look at it?

Comments
Someone once said "There are two kinds of embroiderers: those who test stitch their designs, and those who wish they had". You just can't beat test stitching, but with experience, you can learn to judge the likeliness of a design's behavior. For example, long stitches pull more than short stitches, so your outlines are more likely to be off, unless you compensate for that in some other way. Understitching helps, (unless it's a really small area), but that can make some design areas too dense, especially if you're using lightweight fabrics. Knits stretch more than cottons. Tension adjustments differ. Stabilizers differ. Hoop tensions differ. All these things will affect the final outcome of your design, so you really need to test stitch every design, preferably on the same type of fabric you intend to use for the finished product. 

When you're digitizing, here's some things you can try to help keep your outlines on target. Make the stitch directions vary from color to color, or area to area, so the design doesn't all pull in one direction. Watch the direction of the stitches for each area, and when you're outlining the sides that pull, slightly overlap the outline onto the design, so that it will fall in the right place after it's sewn. You can use permanent fabric markers to fill in missed areas in the outline if you need to, but those are only for tiny areas, so if it's anything bigger than a few stitches, you really should consider reworking the digitizing. If you have large solid areas in a design, set the color order to outline each area before you move onto the next area. That way, you'll have your outlines in place before you stretch and pull the fabric some more with your next color. It might mean more thread changes, but it will also mean a nicer finished product. That is what I did with the popcorn and tickets design on the blue background in my Movies set. 

Your designs will behave differently on different fabrics, so keep in mind what you want to put it on when you digitize it. If it's a quilt block, you probably don't have to worry about your design stretching on knits, so you can digitize it a little differently than you would for a design that's made for a knit shirt.

Stabilizing properly is crucial for your outlines, and unless you're using the hoop-it-all, you've got to hoop the stabilizer too when you're embroidering on knits. With knits, you also have to adhere the stabilizer to the fabric to stop the stretch. Whether you use sticky paper, hydrostick, or adhesive spray is your own preference, but just do whatever it takes to hold that fabric still. Some people like to baste it together in the hoop before they start, for added stability.

Making Outlines

Someone asked a question on one of the lists about using the templates in Layout and Editing, and I thought I'd share with you the series of letters that ensued, so more people could benefit from it. I've only been digitizing for a few months, but here's 
some of the things I've learned from Ka Ron, my instructor. At the end of the letters is a place to ask your own questions, or help answer someone else's questions. 


Q: I am just learning the software and I am getting very frustrated using
the book as a reference. Here are my questions - when doing the drawing
do you place the edit points close together or does it matter at this
point? Also, when tracing a curve is it best to place the edit points
close together to get a nice smooth curve?

Q: If you're in L&E and using the template and go round the outline, how do you make it not sew once you have done this? What if I just want some of the outlines, as I only use the outline as a guide till I have finished the design,
or would you just do the lines you want left in and then color?
I have been playing with this all last night and this morning, and every time I find something new to do with it. I hope you understand what I mean. It's a pity that they don't have the template thing in DC so that you can really do the drawing as a drawing and start in DC, and then you can do your outlines and turn them off etc. At the moment, I find it better in DC than L&E because I don't understand it.

A: When I'm first drawing the outline, I just do a rough outline with the line
drawing tool. You can even just draw a circle around the whole thing (don't use the circle drawing tool) if you want to, just something to get a closed line. Then, turn off the fill pattern, so you can see the template underneath. That's when I start adding edit points and moving my line into position. I definitely add lots of points around the curves to smooth them out, but you only need one at each end of a straight line. Extra ones won't add extra stitches. When you're done with the outline, if you want it to fill in, turn the fill back on by clicking the button on the toolbar again. If nothing happens, then you've got a line somewhere that's crossing over itself. Your original line is your outline, so when you put all the parts back together, you will have
your outline. 

When "Optimize Hoop Change" Won't Work

Question:
I have ver 2.5 and 3. I can see the "Optimize Hoop change" under sew, but how do I get it highlighted so I can go into it? It is faded out. I have tried it with a design on the screen and without. 

Comments
The "Optimize hoop change" option only works for the multi-position jumbo hoop. The purpose is to optimize the way the design is split between the three hoop positions. If you have a smaller sized design area selected, that choice will be grayed out. 

Saving Large Designs

Question:
How do I save large designs?

Comments
To save large designs, set your hoop size to the large one. You have to have the 2.5 upgrade or 3.0 to be able to use it. Go to "Sew", and click on "Optimize Hoop Change". That will separate your design into the 3 hoop positions. Save as you normally do. Sometimes, only 1 part of your design will show up in buzztools, but when you click on it from there, it will all show up when it opens up in L&E. Note: When you save, the design must be able to break up into separate sections for each hoop position. A design that runs over into the next section won't work. In order to make this type of design work, save it whole, then delete part of the design. Import the whole design back on top of it, and delete the other half of the design. Line up the two halves (or three thirds), and then save. 

Tricks with Wing Dings from True Type Fonts

Here's some neat tricks that Ka Ron Barton showed me for the PE Design 3.0. Start in Layout & Editing. 

1) Pick a wingding font. Pick one character (for example, airplanes) and make seven of them in a row. Do this all together, not as separate designs. Close the alphabet screen, and choose the second from the top left arrow, the point editing tool. Highlight the airplanes by clicking on them. You'll see a little box just to the left and underneath each one. Click on the first, fourth, and sixth ones to make the little boxes turn black. Hold down the shift key while you do this, or it will only select one block at a time. Go up to the color selection, and change the color. Every other airplane will change colors. Move it up to the top of the screen for now. 

2) Unselect the top buttons for outlines and fills. Choose the circle drawing tool, and draw a circle. If you hold down the shift key while you draw it, it will be a perfect circle, not an oval. The circle won't really stitch, because you just unselected the outline drawing. Change back to the top left arrow selection tool. Draw a box around everything to select it all. (You could also do this by going to edit, select all). Then go to the top bar (right of center) and click on "fit text to path". A window will pop up with three choices. Choose the first one, "horizontal alignment", and a drop-down box gives you more choices. Choose the 4th one, that has the arrows pointing away from the ABC. Your planes should now be in a circle, perfectly spaced. (Do this with 12 planes, and a clock face is digitized!) 

3) Select all, then click on "fit text to path" again. Go to the one on the right (text orientation) and change it to the bottom one on the drop-down box. Now all the planes are right-side up. Click on the point edit tool (second one on left bar) and highlighted the box on one plane on the right. Then, using the text size number box, enlarge just that one plane. It makes it look like they are flying in formation with the big one in front. You can use this technique to make a center monogram be larger than the outer letters. 

4) Select "release text from path". Delete the circle. Select "transform text" and choose the fifth one down on the left side. Now the planes are following each other in a curvy path. Highlight the planes, and you'll see a box come up on the right that says 50%. Change that number to change the "bend" of the curve. A bigger number will flatten out the planes a bit, making them look like they're in a turn. 

Turning Running Stitches into Jump Stitches

Question:
How do you remove the jump stitches from a design made in the Viking cross-stitch program?

Comments
I was having the same problem with a design I digitized with Uli's beta cross stitch program. My jump stitches turned into running stitches that ran right over my design. I think it has something to do with having to convert it to dst so I could see it in buzztools, then to pes for my format. If you only have the PED to work with, here's how you can get rid of the running stitches that were supposed to be jump stitches. 

Highlight your design, select stitch to block, then duplicate each color for the number of areas it fell in. Like if there was a black section in the top, left, and bottom, then copy and paste to make 3 black sections directly on top of each other. Don't select "duplicate" to do that, or they'll be offset from the original instead of exactly on top. Next, highlight the top one and turn it red or some other color so you can tell them apart. Then use the point edit tool, so all the little boxes show up, and delete all the ones in the top and left, leaving only the bottom ones. Now, highlight the next black layer, place it on top, turn it blue or some other color, and do the same thing, leaving only the left section. Do the same with the last layer, leaving only the top portion, then turn them all black again. 

If you have Buzz Edit, you can open the design in Buzz Edit, and select each stitch individually or in groups, and choose the stitch type, so you can change running stitches to jump stitches easily.  Also, you can delete or add individual stitches, so if you have a design with the type of running stitch that makes a series of stitches across the face of your design as it moves to the next area, you can delete those stitches individually.   

"Unexpected File Format" or "Unexpected Version" messages

If you download a design that has been saved with 3.0, and you still have the 2.0 version, when you try to open the file, you will get a message that says "unexpected file format". To get around this, go to buzztools, save the design as an .exp file (or another format), then rename it and open it as a .pes file in L&E. 

If you have buzz edit, you can open 4.0 files there, then save them into a lower version and then be able to open them in the PED.

Comments
I just realized that I never mentioned that there is an easier way to change True Type Fonts into designs, instead of fonts. Why? Well, let's say you want to digitize something with PED 3.0 or 4.0, using a TTF, and you want to send it in to the design swap. If I only have the 3.0 version, and you send it in as a 4.0 version (whether your design is TTF or manually digitized), I won't be able to even open it. I can see it in Buzztools, but when I click on it to open, I'll get a message "Can't read this file version". If I upload it to the download site, and someone else downloads it, and doesn't open it for 6 months, they may have already forgotten where I got it from, and will never be able to try out your wonderful design. Let's say you make a TTF design in 3.0, and I have 3.0, but I never downloaded the font you're using. I'll be able to see the design correctly in Buzztools, but when I go to open it up, I'll get letters from a different font, instead of the wing-ding designs you intended for me to get. So, here's all you have to do. When you're in L&E, go to "file, export", and export the design as a hus, exp, dst, or other type of format. Close L&E, click on the new format in buzztools, and reopen the design again in L&E. Now, it's a design instead of a TTF, and you can manipulate the edit points like you can with any other design. This is a good way to take wind dings apart, and color different parts of them in different colors. 



Comments
Through trial and error, I just learned a new trick! I'm sure someone else already knows this, but it feels good to figure things out. I wanted to open up the wing-ding designs that were sent to me from a TTF that I didn't have loaded. Furthermore, they were saved in PED 4.0, which I don't have yet. When I clicked on the designs in buzztools, the L&E page opened with a blank page and an error message "unexpected file format". One of the designs was saved in a lower version, and I was able to open it, but when I didn't have that font loaded, the design that opened was not at all the same as the one I saw in Buzztools. Instead of wing-ding designs, I got alphabet letters. So, I tried to open the 4.0 designs in Buzz Edit, to see what would happen. Guess what? It worked! It opened the designs as designs, not as fonts. When I saved them in Buzz Edit, overwriting the original 4.0 files, I could click on them in Buzztools, and they opened up in my PED 3.0 as designs, not as fonts. 

Additionally, there were fewer skipped stitches than when the original designs were converted from pes 4.0 to hus by exporting them from L&E as a hus file (which the original sender did for me in the original conversion). 

Using a Template

Q: I have PE Design.
Could some one give me a little help understanding how to use the template and what is it's used for? From what I can make out, is that it's some type of
back ground thing, so that you can work on a design but the back ground is not really there, is it? I don't know how to even make it work.
Thank you for any help.

A: Templates are WONDERFUL!!!!! Once you use them, you'll never use the
designs center again! Here's what you do. Take your picture, and save it
as a bitmap, no more than 16 bit. It doesn't matter too much if the colors
are all screwy, as long as you have an idea of where the outlines should be.
Let's use a person as an example. Go to layout & editing, and click
template, and then , in the window that pops up, click on the file that has
your bitmap in it. Now your bitmap is a template. Pretend it is just a
picture that is slid down behind your computer screen for you to trace. You
can't change the size of it or anything in "template", because it's "behind
the glass". It won't save with your design either, because it's not part of
the design layer. Use the line drawing tool to trace the bitmap, and draw
your outline. Each time you click the mouse, it lays down a new "edit
point" (little square box), but you won't see these just yet. Having
trouble seeing your line while you do this? Go to the toolbar, and change
your template to "faded". Now go back to drawing your picture. Just trace
a rough outline around it, then double click when you're done. With the
line drawing tool, the preset values are "closed path, black zig-zag
outline, black fill". You can't change the closed path part to open path at
this point, you would have had to do that before you started drawing. You
can, though, change the line and the fill. At this point, click on the
little toolbar box next to the black spool of thread to turn off the fill.
(You can turn the outline off this way too, but don't do that right now).
Now, change your outline to running stitch. Next, change that running
stitch to a different color that will be easy to see on top of your
template. Now, choose a section to start, and enlarge your picture as big
as you can. Click on the "edit point" tool (2nd one on the left), and start
dragging the little boxes to move your outline into precise place over your
template. You can click on the outline at any place to add additional edit
points (boxes) as you need them. If your finished line crosses over itself
at any spot, you won't be able to use the fill color with it. Not a
problem, we'll get to that in a minute. Now, this outline is the hardest
part of the whole design, but it's still easier than cleaning up that image
in design center (in my opinion anyway), and it's easier to edit later on.
It also gets easier with each new design. When you get to parts of the
design that aren't part of the outer border, like the lips on a face, just
drag a piece of the line in to the inner corner of the mouth, then have the
line double back over itself as it goes back towards the outer border of the
face again. Do that for all the other places in the design, like the line
that separates the arm from the body, and the line between the legs. In
essence, your one outline will also become your inner detail lines, so long
as they can connect to the outer border of the outline and still look right.
Separate unattached lines, like the eyes, can be added separately later on.
Okay, you've spent an hour or four and you've finally got your outline just
perfect, Now what? Save that, and then do the next step, then save it again
under a different name. Let's say you want the shirt to be red. You can
take your outline, and delete all the edit points except for the shirt.
Change the thread color to something else. Save it under a different name.
Get rid of your template, and import the first outline on top of it. Put
the first outline in the back (set it to stitch first). Now, pretend the
first outline is a template, and use your edit points to make sure it
matches the other outline exactly, except leave out the "detail stitches",
and only match up the outer border of the shirt. Now, highlight the first
outline, and delete it from the screen. Take your shirt outline, and turn
the fill pattern back on, and change it to red. Now, turn off the outline
of the shirt, and save it. Now you have two saved files. One for the
complete outline, and one for the shirt fill with no outline. Now, do the
pants and other parts the same way you did the shirt, saving each part
separately. When you're done, put them all together, set the colors, sewing
order and stitch directions, and understitching if you want it. Save it,
and you're done. The hardest part is the first outline, and planning the
order of things. When you start to draw your line, your needle position
will begin wherever you started. Keep this in mind when you go from one
portion to the next, because it will affect where your jump stitches end up.
With the manual punch tool, you can make a single one-color line that
alternates between fill stitches, running stitches, and jump stitches, and
you can switch back and forth during the middle of that line. For this
example let's use a bitmap template of a hat with a band. Select your
manual punch tool, and select the first box in the "flyout window". This is
your fill stitch. Start with the top part of the hat, and begin clicking
over your template in a zig-zag motion to lay down edit points. Click from
top to bottom, as you move across the top part of the hat from left to
right. It doesn't have to be exact, because you can clean that up later.
When you get to the right part of the hat, go to the manual punch tool
again, and click on the second box in the flyout window. This is your
running stitch. Click a line to go down past the band portion of the hat.
Switch back to the first tool you used, and make your zig-zag fill stitches
for the bottom of the hat, as you move across from right to left. When you
get to the left end, double click to finish. Now, change thread colors, and
start at the left side of the hatband, and make zig-zag fill stitches for
the hat band, and double click to quit. Next, enlarge it as big as you can,
and fine-tune it with the edit points. You can add additional edit points by
clicking on the "zig" spot you want them to be, and it will automatically
add the "zag" point across from it. You can also delete just one, and it
will also delete the one that's opposite of it. You can't have a zig
without a zag. Now, you have a two-color hat with no outline. Save it, and
the template will not save with it. The third flyout window, if you want to
use it, is a jump stitch. 

Using Fill Stitches

Q: I'm still trying to figure out how to do the fill stitches. Is there a way of just clicking on a part and it fill, or do you have to redraw the shape and then it fills it in? I still trying to figure out manual punch and because I seem to 
use MP in L&E it seems twice as hard to understand. I would like to do animals and make it look like fur. You wouldn't happen to know how to do this at all? If you do know how to do this would you be kind enough to explain
this to me?
any help at this point would be greatly appreciate.

A: You have to draw an outline with the line drawing tool to get a filled area, but you can turn that outline off after you've drawn it if you want. I haven't tried fur yet, but I think I'd probably take the line drawing tool, set it for "open path", and just start laying down lines of different colors on top of each other. Another way you could do it is to set the line for "closed path", draw the outline, and set the fill with a programmed fill pattern. Then, you could just highlight a few areas with some extra splotches of color to simulate the fur and shading and stuff. I'd probably turn off the understitching though, or it'd get too dense. The first design is the hardest, because you're learning, but it definitely gets easier. I'm still a newbie at this myself, and it's challenging for me to decide where to start with my needle placement and what order to do things in. I just have to plan it out ahead of time, or I'll end up redoing things. 

Writing Several Designs to the Card

Question:
I have PED 3.0. How do I write several designs to the card at once?

Comments
To save several designs onto a card, go to the top toolbar, and click on "options", then "file utility". Write to card from the screen that pops up from there, instead of from your "file" menu, and you can put several designs on the card at once.