How-To Guides | Boldbobbin Docs

📄️Design with Bobby, the assistant

Chat with Bobby to turn a logo or a photo into stitches, build a design from a description, check and fix it, or be shown how to do something on your own screen.

Draw a path with the Pen

Use the Pen tool to place anchors and curves, and the Freehand variant to draw freely.

📄️Edit nodes

Node-edit mode: select one node or many, move, slide, rotate and scale them, nudge with the arrow keys, and fill holes.

Add a shape

Draw rectangles, ellipses, polygons and stars, or pick from the shape library.

Add text

Add lettering with the Text tool, and choose how it stitches.

Import a font

Bring in your own TTF or OTF and let Boldbobbin digitize it for stitching.

Edit a font

Open a font in the glyph editor and redraw how any letter stitches.

Create a satin column

Draw a satin column for borders and lettering, fill a closed shape with inner satin, or turn a path you drew into satin.

📄️Draw line art (Redwork)

Draw, import or convert a line drawing that sews as one thread, re-planned every time you edit or resize it, with satin and styled lines, separators, a start point, and Divide by drawing.

Fill an area

Turn a closed shape into a tatami fill and adjust its angle and density.

📄️Stitch styles and decorative fills

The Stitch and Fill choices inside running, tatami and satin: triple run, backstitch, stemstitch, sculpture run, motif run, stipple, spiral, offset, maze, radial, motif fill, appliqué, contour satin, motif column, Flexi Split, hand stitch, and which of them need Pro.

📄️Add a pattern to a fill

Tile a motif through a tatami fill so the shape reads as a relief in the stitching.

📄️Add a gradient to a fill

Fade a tatami fill across a shape, from one thread into another or out to the fabric, by opening up the rows.

📄️Create an appliqué

Fill: Appliqué turns a closed shape into a patch of fabric under a border: a guide run, a tack-down and a cover, with machine stops to lay and trim the fabric, a cut file, and the stops on the run sheet.

📄️Create pixel art

Paint a sprite on a grid in the pixel editor, and stitch it as cross-stitch or mini-satin.

📄️Move, resize, and rotate

Position, size and rotation, and the anchor point those numbers describe.

Import an SVG, PDF, or Illustrator file

Bring vector artwork in as editable vector objects that become stitches.

Import an embroidery file

Open an existing stitch file (DST, PES, and more) back into Boldbobbin.

Import a reference image

Place a raster image on the canvas to trace over by hand.

Import as cross-stitch

Turn pixel art into a cross-stitch design, from the Auto-digitize chooser.

Auto-digitize a photo (Photostitch)

Turn a photo into tonal stitches automatically, then add it to your design.

Auto-Trace an image (logo or clip art)

Trace a logo, icon, or simple picture into clean vector shapes that become stitches.

📄️Digitize part of a picture with the Magic wand

Click a region of a reference picture and it becomes a stitched shape in its own thread: Tolerance, Stitch type, Shift-click to add, one undo per click, and what needs Pro.

📄️Advanced auto-digitize (credits)

The three digitizing methods that run on Boldbobbin's servers, what they cost in credits, and where your picture goes.

📄️Turn a picture into pixel art

The Pixel art advanced method: a picture becomes a low-resolution pixel grid you can stitch as cross-stitch.

📄️Turn a picture into line art (Redwork)

The Line art & Redwork advanced method: a photo is redrawn as lines, or a line drawing is traced as it is, and placed as line art you can keep editing.