Digitizing Fundamentals IV Embroidery Project

Stitch lengths are of extreme importance and can be a major limiting factor for sewing. It takes two needle penetrations to create one stitch. If the penetrations are too close together, the result is a hole instead of a stitch, which leads to poor quality sewing and numerous thread breaks. 1mm is the shortest stitch you can sew.

On the other hand, stitches that are too long tend to be fragile and weak. They are easy to “snag” and pullout of the finished embroidery. In addition, long stitches don’t sew well and tend to pull the bobbin thread to the top.

Normal Stitch Length Range

2mm to 12mm
20 to 120 points
.08 to 0.50 inches

NOTE: These numbers are acceptable for most modern commercial machines. However, each digitizer has his own preference for dealing with stitch lengths and some prefer to keep maximum lengths below the values listed above.

It is normal to vary stitch lengths within a design in order to seek a balance between stitch count and sewing quality. For example, you can reduce stitch count by increasing run segment stitch lengths. However, this can affect the appearance of certain design details. A curved run stitch with a stitch length setting too long, will not appear as a true curve, but rather a series of straight lines. Thus, you should keep stitch lengths shorter on curved segments and longer on straight segments.