Machine embroidery for beginners: the complete starter guide

Machine embroidery means a computerized machine stitches a design file for you, moving the hooped fabric under the needle. To start, you need an embroidery machine, a design in your machine's file format, stabilizer, embroidery thread, needles and a hoop. Make your first project a simple design on stable woven cotton, after a test stitch-out.

How does machine embroidery work?

An embroidery machine reads a design file, a list of stitches made by digitizing a picture, and moves the hoop under the needle to place each stitch. The design is sewn one colour at a time. On a single-needle machine it stops after each colour so you can change the thread; Brother's PE900 manual describes it simply: "Embroidery patterns are embroidered with a change of thread after each color."

The design file decides how the embroidery looks: which parts are smooth satin, which are filled, how dense the stitches are and in which order they sew. If you're curious how that works, the digitizing guide explains it. For a beginner, it's enough to know that a good file and good preparation together give a good result.

Which kind of machine do you need?

There are three kinds of machine, and they differ in how they handle colours and how big a design they can stitch. These are examples of current models with their manufacturers' published specifications, not recommendations:

The biggest practical difference for a beginner is the embroidery field: it decides the largest design you can stitch in one hooping. A 4x4 field (100 × 100 mm) suits small motifs, names and baby clothes; a 5x7 field (130 × 180 mm) opens up most T-shirt and tote designs. The hoop sizes guide lists the fields by brand and model.

What supplies do you need?

BERNINA's educators name four basics of machine embroidery: "Stabilizers/Materials, Needles, Threads, Hooping." Everything else is convenience. A practical starter kit:

The supply guides go deeper: stabilizers by fabric, and embroidery thread for weights, polyester versus rayon and needles. A BERNINA blogger's account of her first week sums up the two lessons almost everyone learns: "the more dense the design, the more stabilizer I needed," and "fabrics with any texture need a top stabilizer."

Embroidery designs and file formats

Your machine needs designs in a format it reads. Each brand has its own:

Many home machines read DST as well, but DST stores no thread colours. The model matters too: some entry-level machines read only one format. The file formats guide has the full picture.

Two more things are worth knowing before you download anything:

• Size. A stitch file can only be resized a little before it sews badly: Hatch advises no more than ±10% for machine files. Download the size that fits your hoop rather than scaling. Our designs come in four natively digitized sizes: 50 mm (the default), 70 mm and 95 mm for a 4x4 hoop and 125 mm for a 5x7.
• Licence. Downloading a design gives you permission to stitch it, usually including gifts and often selling the finished items, but not sharing the file. The licence guide explains the usual terms.

Our free embroidery designs come in every format we offer, with a thread chart, so you can practise without buying anything.

Reading a design's specs before you stitch

Every design comes with a few numbers, and each one tells you something practical before you hoop:

• Size in mm and inches decides the hoop. The design must fit inside the field with a little room to spare.
• Stitch count tells you how long it takes and how much support it needs. As Hatch notes, "The more stitches a design has, the heavier the backing required."
• Colours and colour changes tell you how often a single-needle machine will stop for a new thread.
• Trims are the places where the thread is cut between separate parts. Brother's PR680W manual notes that trimming saves clean-up afterwards but adds sewing time; on machines that don't trim automatically, you snip those threads yourself.
• The thread chart lists the colours in sewing order, which matters most for formats like DST that store no colours.

On our design pages these appear in the specs table, and for any other file the viewer shows the same information.

Hooping basics

The hoop holds fabric and stabilizer together while the machine stitches. Three rules cover most of it:

1. Use the smallest hoop that fits the design. BERNINA's beginner guide explains that a hoop's size means "the area that can be embroidered, not the actual size of the hoop," and recommends the one closest in size to the design.
2. Cut the stabilizer larger than the hoop, as Brother and Janome both instruct, so it is clamped all round.
3. Make it taut, not stretched. Brother's manual says to "gently stretch the fabric taut in the frame" on a level surface. Knits are the exception: hoop them relaxed.

Temporary spray, tape or a fusible stabilizer helps keep the layers together, BERNINA's guide adds. Getting the design onto the machine is a separate step, covered in transferring designs to your machine.

Choosing a stabilizer

The beginner's rule comes from all the major brands: tear-away for stable woven fabrics, cut-away for knits and anything stretchy, wash-away for sheer fabrics, and a water-soluble topping on top of towels and other napped fabrics. Brother's manual is blunt about why it matters: "For best results in your embroidery projects, always use stabilizer material for embroidery." Without it, the needle may even break on stretch or lightweight fabrics.

Hatch, the embroidery software maker, puts the professional habit in one sentence: "Professional embroiderers use tear-away stabilizers for woven fabrics and cut-away stabilizers for knits." The stabilizer guide has a fabric-by-fabric chart for everything else.

Your first project, step by step

A BERNINA blogger describing her first stitch-out chose quilting cotton and "a single-color design" so she wouldn't have to change thread. It's the best possible start.

1. Pick a simple design with one or two colours. A small motif from the animal designs or flowers is ideal.
2. Choose stable woven fabric: quilting cotton, a cotton tea towel or a canvas tote.
3. Cut a medium tear-away stabilizer larger than the hoop.
4. Hoop fabric and stabilizer together, smooth and taut, with the fabric's grain straight.
5. Check the bobbin. Brother's manuals advise checking there is enough bobbin thread before you start.
6. Thread the first colour and load the design. Check its size and position on the machine's screen.
7. Make a test stitch-out. Brother recommends a trial "on the same type of fabric as your final material" with the same needle and thread.
8. Start, then stop after 5 to 6 stitches and trim the thread tail, as Brother's PE900 manual describes, so the tail isn't stitched over.
9. Change thread when the machine stops after each colour, and trim jump threads within the colour.
10. Finish: take the fabric out of the hoop, support the stitches while you tear away the stabilizer, trim any remaining threads and press.

Hatch's rules of good embroidery make a good checklist for the result: the design "sews efficiently," the fabric "does not pucker around stitched areas," and it is "free of loose ends."

Good first projects

All four are stable, flat and forgiving. Terry towels, T-shirts and caps come next, once a few stitch-outs on cotton look right.

How long does a design take to stitch?

Roughly the stitch count divided by the machine's speed. A 10,000-stitch design at 650 stitches per minute needs about 15 minutes of stitching. Add time for each colour change, and a few seconds per trim: Wilcom's blog puts each trim at about 3 to 4 seconds. Machines don't always run at full speed either; Brother's manuals advise slowing down for thin, thick or heavy fabrics and for metallic thread.

Our design pages show the stitch count and an estimated sewing time at 700 stitches per minute, and the embroidery file viewer shows the stitch count of any file.

Common beginner mistakes

BERNINA's educators give 6 to 8 hours as the time embroidery needles stay at their sharpest, and Schmetz recommends a new needle after about 8 hours. When something goes wrong, check the setup before blaming the design: Hatch notes that even a perfect file isn't enough "if you do not use the correct fabric, threads, backings, tension."

Where to go next

Once your first stitch-outs look good, each guide below covers one step in depth:

• Files and machines: file formats, opening embroidery files, getting designs onto your machine and hoop sizes.
• Materials: stabilizers and embroidery thread.
• Projects: T-shirts and knits, towels and monograms, which the monogram maker turns into stitch files.
• How designs are made: digitizing and resizing.
• Selling your work: design licences.