Create your first design
Follow this page once, right after you install, to see the whole path from an empty canvas to a file your machine can sew. You draw a shape, look at it as stitches, give it a thread color, save it, and export it.
- Draw a rectangle (step 2). In the Properties panel's Transform, click the padlock so width and height change separately, then type 60 in Width (mm) and 40 in Height (mm).
- With it selected, pick Tatami on the bar above the canvas (step 3).
- Click a dark thread in the color strip at the bottom left (step 4).
- Switch to Stitch to check the rows, then export it as DST (step 6).
1. Start a blank file
On the home screen, click New Design ("Start a blank file"). The editor opens with an empty canvas, a hoop drawn in the middle, and a starter palette.
Prefer to build from something instead of a blank canvas? New from Template… (File menu, or the Home screen's Templates section) opens a small public gallery of ready-made starter designs you can open and adapt. No account needed. If the design you have open has unsaved changes, Boldbobbin asks first ("Open this template?") rather than replacing it.
2. Add a shape
The tools sit in a rail down the left edge. Hover any tool to see what it does; the selected tool is highlighted.
Click Rectangle (shortcut M in the default preset), then drag on the canvas to draw a rectangle. Hold Shift while dragging to make a square. (Prefer to pick from a library of shapes: heart, star, arrow, and more? Use Add shape instead. See Add a shape.)
3. Look at it as stitches
Your rectangle starts as a vector: an editable outline. Boldbobbin turns vectors into stitches. Switch the render mode from Vector to Stitch to see the generated stitches. The switch is in the top-right of the canvas, or press Shift+S to cycle modes. See Render modes and Vectors vs. stitches.
To change how an area is stitched, select it and use the bar across the top of the canvas: pick Running, Satin, or Tatami, and the knobs for that type appear beside it. The complete set of settings is in the Properties panel on the right. See Stitch types and The workspace.
4. Give it a color
The thread colors are the strip along the bottom left. Click one to recolor what you have selected. Edit colors opens the full palette. See Match thread colors.
5. Save
Press Save (Ctrl/Cmd+S). On the web this stores the design in your account (sign-in required); on desktop, the first save asks whether to save to the cloud or to this computer, then remembers your choice. File → Save as always lets you pick explicitly, including Save to this computer (.vemb)… (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+S; "Download (.vemb)" on the web) for a project file on your own machine.
See Save to the cloud.
6. Export a machine file
When you're ready to stitch, Export embroidery… (Ctrl/Cmd+E) opens the export wizard. Pick a format your machine reads (for example DST) and save. If you are signed out, the wizard asks you to sign in first; a free account is enough. See Export an embroidery file and the full Export formats list.
The getting-started walkthrough
Boldbobbin carries this walk with you. On the home screen, and along the bottom of the editor, is a seam being sewn, with a needle at the working edge and your next objective named on it. It is the getting-started checklist, in eight steps:
- Create an account
- Open the editor
- Get something on the canvas
- Change the stitch type
- Change a color
- Preview it as thread
- Save the design
- Export a machine file
Open it and each step lists the actions to take, in order, rather than describing what the step is: "Click a shape on the canvas to select it. In the bar at the top, pick Running, Satin or Tatami." Where there is more than one route to the same thing, it offers the one that fits where you already are.
Press Show me and a cursor moves across the screen and performs the step in front of you. For a step that acts on a selected shape it sets the stage first, creating or selecting a shape as needed.
Your progress is kept with your account, so it survives a reinstall, a new device, and clearing your browser data.
When all eight are done, the finished panel opens by itself, once, and points you at the next thing rather than congratulating you and stopping: its Open the tutorial button opens the in-app tutorial, where you digitize a coffee cup in 19 guided steps. (Before v1.3.2 it sent you to the website.) The bar then reads "Getting started: done. Next, the tutorial" until you dismiss it. This documentation stays reachable from Help → Documentation.
The Tutorial button, in the editor's header and at the top right of the home screen, walks you through a whole design on screen, and its How to tiles demonstrate one task each. See Take the in-app tutorial.