Draw line art (Redwork)
Use line art for redwork, outline embroidery and any drawing made of lines: a heart on a tea towel, a botanical sketch on a quilt block, the outline of a badge. You draw the lines; Boldbobbin works out how the thread travels along them, which lines it sews twice and where the machine has to stop. Edit a line or resize the drawing and the route is planned again, so it always fits the drawing as it is now. New in v1.3.3.
A line-art object sews in one thread. Most of it is running stitch, and you can make any piece of a line a satin column or give it a stitch of its own (a triple run, a motif run and more), without breaking the route.
A red outline heart about 90 mm wide, with a bold satin heart and two thin tails.
- Click Line art in the tool rail. The editor opens on a heart, one line that crosses itself at the point, so it already has three pieces: the left tail, the heart, and the right tail.
- With Select, click the heart itself, the loop above the crossing. Only that piece is picked.
- Click Satin column at the top and set Width (mm) to 2.5. The tails stay Running stitch.
- Click the thread swatch on the bottom bar and pick a red.
- Switch to Stitch at the top right to see the real stitches, and press Animate on the bottom bar to watch it sew.
- Click Done. Back on the canvas, drag a corner handle until the drawing is 90 mm wide. The route is planned again at the new size.
A black-line drawing of a shield with three areas inside, to sew as a patch.
- Trace the picture with Advanced auto-digitize → Line art & Redwork, answering Already a line drawing. See Turn a picture into line art. Set the width to 80 mm and click Add to design.
- Draw a Rectangle that covers the whole shield, with a tatami fill.
- Select the rectangle and the drawing together (Shift-click), then right-click and choose Divide by drawing.
- Every area the lines close is now its own fill, in the rectangle's color and settings. Delete the piece outside the shield, and give the others their own colors.
- The fills sew first and the lines last, so the lines cover the fills' edges.
The drawing came from the AI and you didn't change its lines, so this patch exports on any plan.
Three ways to get a line drawing
Draw one: New line art
New line art makes a new drawing and opens the line art editor on it. Reach it from:
- The tool rail: Line art, in the Editor group, next to Pixel art.
- Tools → New Line Art…
- The command palette (Ctrl/Cmd+K).
The new drawing starts as a heart, sized to about half your hoop's smaller side (between 20 and 60 mm, so 50 mm in a 100 × 100 mm hoop) and centered in it. Keep it, change it, or select all of it and press Delete to start from nothing.
If you click Cancel on a new drawing, or click Done after deleting every line, the drawing is removed again, so nothing is left behind in your design.
Convert paths: Convert to → Line art
Already have the lines as paths (pen paths, freehand strokes, an imported SVG)? Select them and choose Convert to… → Line art in the floating action bar. It works on one object or on several at once: all their lines become one drawing, sewn as one route. The first of them in the sewing order becomes the drawing and keeps its place, name and thread. The toast reads "Converted to line art: its lines are now sewn as one route."
Any object drawn as lines or outlines can join. Text, pixel art, and an object that is already line art can't: the option isn't offered for one of those, and is grayed out when a selection mixes them in.
To go back, choose Convert to… → Curve on a drawing. You get the route as plain paths, and the stitches don't change ("Converted to paths. The stitches are unchanged, but editing a line no longer re-routes the drawing."). Satin and styled pieces come out as paths of their own, with their own settings, in the order they sewed.
Let the AI draw it
The Line art & Redwork method of advanced auto-digitize now places a line-art object, so everything on this page applies to its result. It can redraw a photo as lines, or trace a picture that already is a line drawing. See Turn a picture into line art.
Open the editor
To edit a drawing that is already in your design, do any of these:
- Double-click it on the canvas.
- Select it and click Edit line art in the floating action bar, on the top bar, or in Properties.
- Select it and press the Edit shape key (A in the default preset, N in the Inkscape preset).
The line art editor is a full-screen mode with its own undo history. Nothing reaches your design until you save:
- Save puts the drawing in the design as it stands, and keeps the editor open.
- Done saves and closes.
- Cancel drops whatever you have not saved.
Opening the editor and closing it without a change changes nothing.
Draw lines
The tools sit in a row over the canvas:
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| Select | Pick pieces of a line, or whole lines. See Pick pieces of a line. |
| Pan | Drag to move around. |
| Freehand | Drag to draw a line. A stroke that starts where another line ends continues it. |
| Pen | Click to drop anchors, drag to shape curves. Double-click to finish. |
| Rectangle, Ellipse, Star | Drag to draw the shape as a line. |
| Separator | Click a line to divide it there. See Separators. |
| Add shape | Add a shape from the shape library at the middle of the view, as a line or as a satin line. |
Lines join up the way you would expect:
- Points snap onto lines. A point you place near a line lands on it, and a ring shows where before you click. The loose end of a finished stroke is put on a line it stops near, so a junction you meant to make is a real junction.
- A line continues a line. Start a stroke on the end of another line and the two become one line, so a line drawn in several goes is still one line.
- Lines that touch or cross are joined when the drawing is routed, and small gaps between separate pieces are bridged, so the drawing sews with as few thread stops as possible.
To reshape a line, select it and use Edit shape, as on the design canvas. See Edit nodes.
See how it will sew
The Route panel beside the canvas shows the drawing as it will be sewn, updated as you draw:
- Visualize thread stops (on by default) marks every place the machine stops.
- Visualize connected components shows each connected piece in its own color, so you can see what sews as one continuous run.
- thread stops and mm stitched: the two figures to watch. Fewer stops means a quicker, tidier stitch-out.
The view switch at the top right of the canvas works as in the design:
- Vector: the lines, drawn in the canvas ink.
- Stitch: the real stitches, in the drawing's thread, over the lines.
- Realistic: the thread as it will look on fabric. It needs WebGPU; without it the editor goes back to Stitch. See Realistic mode unavailable.
In every view you can still hover, pick and draw lines. Animate on the bottom bar sews the drawing stitch by stitch, as in Animating the stitch-out. The bottom bar also shows the stitch count and the Thread color swatch. A new thread takes effect at once.
Stitch parameters
The same four settings as the AI review, under Stitch parameters in the panel. You also find them on a selected drawing in Properties, and behind the Route button on the top bar.
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Stitch type | Double run | Double run sews every line twice, there and back, so every line has the same weight. Single run sews a line once wherever it can: faster, but the lines it has to sew twice look heavier than the rest. |
| At thread stops | Trim | Trim cuts the thread at every stop. Jump carries it across, for you to cut later by hand. |
| Drop pieces under (mm) | 1 (0 to 50) | A separate piece shorter than this in total is left out. A drawing from the AI starts at the 3 mm its review used. |
| Close gaps up to (mm) | 2.5 (0 to 20) | Separate pieces this close together are joined, so the machine sews from one to the next without stopping. Every gap closed is one thread stop fewer. |
A drawing shows no Bean passes in Properties: the route already decides how many times each line is sewn.
Import a drawing
Import a drawing at the top of the editor (or a picture dropped on the canvas) takes a picture and gives you two ways to use it:
- Trace for 10 credits: the picture is traced into lines you can edit here. It works best on dark lines on a light background. You need to be signed in, and the price is on the button. "Tracing sends your picture to our server."
- Draw over it: the picture goes under the canvas as a locked guide, for you to draw over by hand. It is free, needs no account, and "stays on this device."
Both land at the same size and place, so a picture you drew over and then traced lines up. The guide is only there while you draw: Remove picture takes it away, and Done keeps your lines, not the picture. Traced lines are added to what is already in the drawing.
If a trace fails because the picture is not a line drawing, or has too much detail, the dialog says what to change, and your credits come back.
Satin and styled lines
Any piece of a line can be sewn its own way: a bold satin outline with thin running details, or a triple run that stands out from the rest. The route stays the same; only how that piece is sewn changes.
Pick pieces of a line
A line is divided into pieces wherever another line crosses it or ends on it, and wherever you put a separator. With Select:
- Click a line to pick the piece between two crossings or separators. The picked pieces are marked on the canvas.
- Shift-click to pick more pieces.
- Cmd/Ctrl-click or right-click takes the whole line.
- Drag a marquee to take whole lines.
- Delete removes the picked pieces, and the lines around them stay as they are.
Choose the stitch
The Stitch type at the top applies to whatever is picked:
- Running stitch: a plain line of stitches, run twice by default. Picking it on a satin line puts it back to running.
- Satin column: a column of satin along the piece. Set its Width (mm) beside it (0.5 to 12). A new drawing starts at 2, and the width you set also applies to the next lines you make satin. The satin is sewn on the thread's last pass over the line, and the earlier pass is its underlay.
- Stitch, for running pieces: Run, Triple run, Sculpture run, Backstitch, Stemstitch or Motif run. The style goes on the last pass over the line, with a plain run under it, so the route stays the same. See Running stitch styles.
Per-piece settings
Each satin line keeps its own settings. Select one or more satin lines and the Satin lines section of the panel shows their settings (spacing, underlay, compensation and the rest), and the top bar shows Spacing, Underlay, Compensation and Advanced, as for a satin column in the design (see Satin column). A new satin line starts with the last settings you used.
The Running lines section shows the settings of a styled run, such as a motif's size or a sculpture run's lengths. A Run and a Triple run have no settings of their own: their stitch length is the drawing's.
For example, to give a botanical drawing a bold stem and fine leaves: pick the stem's pieces, choose Satin column at 3 mm, then pick the leaf veins and set Stitch to Triple run.
Separators
A separator divides a line where nothing crosses it, so each side can be sewn its own way: satin on one side of a curve and a running line on the other.
- Put one: with the Separator tool, click the line where you want it.
- Slide it: drag it with the Separator tool. It moves along its two pieces, up to the next crossing or separator on each side. Or click it with Select and choose Edit separator (in the panel or the floating action bar), drag, then confirm with the ✓ or Enter. The ✗ or Esc puts it back.
- Remove it: click it and press Delete, or choose Remove separator. The two sides become one line again. If they are sewn differently, a dialog ("Remove the separator?") asks which side's stitch the joined line keeps.
A selected separator shows its two sides in the panel, each with its stitch and its length, for example "Satin column, 2 mm wide, 12.5 mm" and "Running stitch, 14.2 mm".
When you reshape one side of a separator in Edit shape, the other side follows, so the line stays joined and smooth there.
Set where the thread starts
Choose where the machine starts sewing the drawing, for example next to the object sewn before it:
- Select the drawing on the design canvas and switch to Stitch view.
- Drag the green diamond. It slides along the drawing's lines, never off them, and the thread goes in where you leave it.
In a double run, the drawing ends where it starts, so one diamond marks both. A drawing in several separate parts ends in the last part it sews, and that end is marked too; you can't pin it.
Optimize entry/exit in the Layers panel sets the start for you, along with the other objects. See Entry and exit.
A start in the middle of a satin line is sewn with the two columns overlapping, so no gap shows where they meet.
Divide by drawing
Turn a line drawing into colored areas: every area its lines close inside a shape becomes a fill of its own, ready for appliqué-style patches, a colored-in coloring page, or a stained-glass look. The lines then sew over the fills' edges.
- Select one or more filled shapes (closed and unlocked, such as a rectangle, a circle or a pen shape) and one or more line drawings, and nothing else.
- Choose Divide by drawing: right-click it among the path operations, click it on the top bar, or find it in the command palette.
What you get:
- Every closed area becomes its own shape, with the original's color, thread and fill settings. The new pieces are selected, so you can recolor them.
- The pieces are sewn before the drawing, so its lines cover their edges.
- One undo puts everything back.
- The drawing itself is not changed. The pieces are plain shapes: editing the lines later does not move them.
A line must cross the shape from edge to edge, or close an area inside it, to divide anything. If nothing divides, the toast says "The drawing didn't divide the selected shapes. Its lines must cross a shape from edge to edge, or close an area inside it." Text, satin columns, pixel art and locked shapes can't be divided.
Divide by drawing is free: its pieces are ordinary fills.
What needs Pro
- Drawing and previewing line art is free on every plan.
- Exporting a design with line art you drew or edited needs Pro. That covers a drawing made with New line art or Convert to → Line art, and a drawing whose lines you changed in the editor. Converting it back to Curve keeps it Pro.
- A drawing the AI made exports on any plan, as long as you don't change its lines in the editor. Its credits paid for it. Tracing a picture into it from Import a drawing doesn't count as a change by hand.
- On a free plan, the editor shows a Pro badge by its title and says so each time it opens ("Pro to export"), with See Pro plan and Got it.
See What counts as Pro content.
Learn it in the editor
The editor's own Tutorial button offers a tour ("Watch a drawing get drawn, picked, sewn as satin and divided, then sewn on screen.") and short How-tos for each thing it does: draw a line, pick a piece, make a satin column, divide a line, and more. The demos draw on a drawing of their own, and yours comes back exactly as it was. See Take the tutorial.