Last week I posted about using placement lines to embroider perfectly on your projects, and showed you how I embroidered a ribbon bookmark as an example. As promised, here's how to use the Designer Plus V5 software to make the placement lines.

Begin with a new, blank design in the software.  To figure out where to place your lines, you can measure the project carefully and follow the grid in the software as you draw, or you can scan the project and import the image directly into the software to trace around.

In this picture, I am measuring my ribbon with the gridded template for the large oval hoop. The ribbon measures four squares across.

And in this picture,  I scanned the ribbon and imported the image into the software. The ribbon fits into four squares across on the grid.

To draw the placement lines, I select the Open Object tool, making sure that the Single stitch is selected. Then, using left mouse clicks, I draw a line on each side of the ribbon, making sure to stay inside the hoop, and press the Enter key after each line that I draw. Pressing the Enter key is like telling the software, "Okay, I've finished drawing this line, you can turn it into stitches now!" When I've finished drawing, there are stitching outlines on each side of the ribbon inside the hoop.

(You will notice in these pictures that I removed the grid on the screen so you can see better; in the software, right click on the Show Grid button to take the grid away or bring it back.)

Next, I import the other design elements, using the placement lines as a guide to arrange the designs. I make sure that the designs are exactly where I want them inside those placement lines, keeping in mind that they represent my actual project.

The final step in the software is to make sure that the placement lines stitch out very first thing in your design. Use the Slow Redraw tool to watch how the design will stitch out in the software. If your placement lines are not stitching out first, move them to the beginning of the design by selecting the placement lines, and choosing Sequence to Start from the Arrange menu.

And that's all there is too it! Don't forget to use a practice stitch out with your placement lines to see how the design fits within the lines. Also, you can hold your project up to the stitch out to see how your placement lines match up to your project. Make any adjustments needed before stitching out the real thing. Check back with my last post to see how I hooped and stitched out this project with the placement lines.