On Sat, 27 Nov 2010 19:07:12 -0500, Ms.Goody2Shoes
<nunyabeezwax@thehive.com> wrote:
>I would like to know from those of you who digitize, and those who are
>proficient using embroidery software,... Can these two attached designs be
>made smaller? One is freestanding lace, and I have read that those type
>cannot be altered. But I thought I'd ask.
>
Hey Goody :-)
Big weekend, haven't been online.
Digitisers do not favour resizing their designs (ESPECIALLY lace)
simply because it is not always successful. Those that try to sell top
quality designs aren't so keen to see how the home sewer resized and
trashed it!!
Not all embroidery software do/does it in the same fashion and how
much you resize it and in what increments, matters.
By that I mean don't enlarge/decrease something by 50% in one hit.
There will be tears! When I have to do it, I creep up on it in 10%
increments and see how it is handling it on the way.
I rarely do it and when I do, I'm aware that I am doing the driving.
There is no "free lunch" in resizing something. Regardless of what it
says on the side of the software box!
>The other clockworks snowflake
>is a regular embroidery file. I do have an old version of embird, but I
>wasn't sure if I could reduce a design size.
> I haven't played much with
>sizing, and I didn't know what happened to the density.
>
A clue with whether the software is recalibrating the stitch amount
(creating/deleting stitches or just making the same stitches bigger or
smaller) is to make the adjustment and check the stitch count. If that
changes, then the software is adding or deleting stitches.
This is ideal, but doesn't always give you what you want either.
Especially wtih things like eyes (the small detail stuff). It can make
your soft eyed project suddenly look crosseyed!
Something else to watch out for is resizing in the right proportions.
So you don't end up with one side longer and out of whack, simply
because you pulled the design more to the right than you did to the
bottom of screen> You don't want it to look "warped".
>I didn't want to
>end up with something so thick that it wouldn't sew out. I was hoping to
>make each design about 2.5 x 2.5 inches. I don't mind having a go at it
>myself with a little advice.
>
That's a big reduction for lace (proportionally, it's about a third.
So you are taking a third of the guts of it out).
Lace is constructed differently to ordinary embroidery. When resizing
lace to a smaller size, you can't always be sure that the essential
construction stitches that keep it from falling apart in places are
going to stay in place. Making lace bigger is only marginally less
stressful because it is (usually) creating more stitches. The danger
with this is you often get a more "stretched" looking design because
not enough stitches are created to fill the new area. That is why
doing small increments works better. Don't do the whole resize in one
hit if it is a big resize. Do a little at a time.
> Do the embroidery software programs actually
>reduce the number of stitches when you reduce the size? Or do they just
>make the stitches smaller?
>
Depends on your software and the version you are up to. You will have
to check in your Help section and if that still doesn't clear it up,
do a few samples and be critical of it.
I say be critical because I have seen a few resizes from Ladies who
thought it was wonderful (in real life too!) and I've just thought
/blachk!
In the end, it's up to your eye.
- Do your resizing, either up or down, in smal increments so as to
allow the software to do the best job it can.
- Remember with lace when resizing down (if the software recalibrates
stitch amount) then you will be deleting stitches. And you may end up
deleting the very stitches that hold it together. Programs do not say
to themselves "this is lace" and be more careful. It has no idea.
- Be realistic at how much you want to resize something. Think like a
graphic designer and what happens when you resize a picture. Smooth,
even designs resize better than fiddly, lacy or detailed designs.
- Be aware if the design "warps". Not all software keeps the ratio.
On a positve??!!
A good design WILL give a better result. Designs with LESS fiddly
detail will give a better result. The less a program has to think
about detail, the better.
With lace, you are more likely to lose the important groundwork
stitches, and on the steampunk snowflake, the gears/cogs may be
compromised.
It's only because of the detail and you want to make it smaller, so
small detail either becomes so small it's useless, or the program
deletes it altogether.
Have a crack at it!! You are the only judge of what your program can
do for you.
Just do the resizing in increments would be my first advice and go
from there.
Check your Help section to see just how your particular program
handles resizing and if you have options. Eg, mine has options for
pattern sensitivity, stitch lengths and to recalibrate stitches (or
not) in the Preferences. There is a Tab for Resizing.
>Thanks so much for any advice,
>
Hope you have a go at it. You'll never, never know if you never have a
go!
>Goody
>
Pixie :-))
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