About

Tools for embroidery files that show their work.

Most free converters online are the same open-source library behind a form, with a queue and a watermark. We wanted the whole toolbox in one place, running on your machine, with numbers instead of promises: what a conversion drops, why a file will break needles, how far a design can be resized before it stops being the same design.

How it was checked

• Readers for 24 formats were run against pyembroidery on 226 real files from Brother, Janome, Wilcom, Hatch, Embird, PEmbroider and Ink/Stitch exports. Where the two disagreed, the same design in six other formats decided which was right (twice it was ours: VP3 from Premier+ and the compressed VIP format, which pyembroidery cannot read at all).
• Eight of the 11 writers are byte-identical to pyembroidery on a reference design that exercises trims, stops, jumps and colour changes. All 11 outputs are read back by both readers with the source geometry.
• The satin lettering density was calibrated against commercial designs in that corpus: their same-rail spacing sits at 0.40–0.41 mm, and so does ours.
• Lettering is tested on all 17 bundled fonts with a coverage check: at least 93 % of each letter's area must lie within a thread's width of a stitch, and under 3 % of stitches may fall outside the letter.

What it does not claim

The image digitiser is automatic: no person reviews the file. It is validated digitally, by the audit and by encoders checked against reference files, not by stitching every design on every fabric. A pre-flight verdict is a measurement of the file, not a guarantee about your fabric, stabiliser or thread. Resize with density correction re-spaces stitches; it cannot re-digitise underlay or pull compensation. Lettering here is built from the glyph outline; a hand-digitised font will still beat it at very small sizes.

What we do not do

Applique. Placement, tack-down, satin border and a cut file that fits is a different problem with its own product, Appliqué Maker, by the same people. Photographs. The image digitiser turns logos, clipart and bold artwork into stitches automatically and measures the result, but thread has no gradients, and a face reduced to twelve flat colours is not something we will call good.

Who

Stitch Toolbox is made by Allegro Digital. Questions, bugs, a file that surprised you: [email protected].