Here's a question from one of our members about resizing designs using Embird...

"I am considering purchasing Embird I'd appreciate any input you may have--good or bad--about this software. I know it says that I can use this software to resize designs, but does that include changing the stitch density, too?"

I recommend you DO buy Embird. It's a great program!

It will do resizing and change the stitch count, However, you have no control over where the stitches are added or subtracted from the design. That means that it is a bit of a crap-shoot on how well the design will stitch out when resized. Generally a little resizing will still sew out okay but a lot of resizing will start to look bad when sewn out. The cutoff point is around 20% larger or smaller, and generally making a design smaller works better than making it larger.

If you need to change the size by more than 20%, the software will do it, but the design will be more likely to get dense clumps and empty spots in it. This problem with resizing is not unique to Embird, all resizing programs have the same problem. That's why you sometimes see a digitizer offering a design in 4x4 AND in 5x7 size. Sure, it could be resized by a program like Embird, but the designs may not sew out well. By the digitizer making the correct sizes to start with, it should sew out right.

Whenever you resize a design, test sew it before using it. Test sewing is best done on the same fabric as the final sew is going to be done on and using the same stabilizers as you are planning to use on the final project so you can see if it will work out right.

A couple of times we have had people tell us that this design or that design sewed out terribly and ruined a project they were working on. We know the design is okay because all our designs have been test sewn several times before they are offered for sale. Plus, there have been hundreds or thousands of other people sew out the same design from us before and nobody else has told us there was a problem.

The question we finally figured out to ask the customer with the problem was "How much did you resize the design?" Sure enough, one person tried to turn a 2"x2" baby design into a 4"x4" size.

If you think about it in math terms, 2"x2"=4 square inches and 4"x4"=16 square inches. So a design that needs say 4,000 stitches to cover 4 square inches, would need 16,000 stitches to cover 16 square inches with the exact same density. The larger design would require 4 times as many stitches to double the size. So even IF the software added in 12,000 stitches, how would it know where to put them? And what color to make them?

So resizing a design automatically using some software or your embroidery machine has practical limits of about 20% change. Here's a video our members can view online showing how to change a design's size and stitch count using Embird...