Using a basting frame around designs can do a great deal to help prevent fabric puckers around a design, aid in positioning multiple or split designs and it's the best way to trap the fabric and stabilizer at the start! You will need editing software for this, but for best results, resize the frames to fit as close to the design as possible. It's also possible to use a basting frame even if you don?t have embroidery software to combine the frame with a design. Just open the frame in your machine & stitch it; open the design and stitch it.

You will find basting frames that are ready for you to use by going to the Basic Embroidery tutorial page on our web site. I have provided these frames for use instead of hoops or to help secure larger, full filled designs. There are 3 sizes; 4x4, 5x7 & 6x10. If your machine has other sizes simply open the basting frame file and resize it, then Center the frame & save under a new file name [the size you changed it to]. Download, find your format & enjoy!

If you have embroidery software and only want to use the frames for making sure the design you're creating stays within your actual embroidery field size;

Open the basting frame first; if combining in software.

Import or open the artwork for your design; add to open basting frame in software.

In your software, move the frame until it's has about the same margin all around if needed.

Start digitizing using the 2nd color on your program?s Color Bar. Your design will stitch the frame first if you leave it, however you can simply edit past the first color when you're at the machine.

If you want to stitch the frame for design security & less fabric "pull", the stitches are easily removed when the design is finished by clipping the bobbin stitches about every 1.5 inches. The top thread will then pull off very easily.

If you would like to create your own basting frames:

Choose the single line stitch tool in your digitizing program.

Holding the Ctrl key down, start at the top left corner of the design area & place the 1st stitch point; move to the right corner & place the 2nd stitch point, lower right for the 3rd stitch point, lower left for the 4th stitch point and back to the top left for the last stitch point.

Go to properties; set stitch length for 4.50 to 5.0 mm; lock stitches if you have this feature.

Resize the frame to the desired measurements; remember to make this frame slightly smaller than the maximum size of your embroidery sewing field!

Save the frame file by naming the file as the size of the frame & the brand machine it's for.

Sandy Carter is the author of embroidery articles at embroidery designs by Thread Artist. She has an article about embroidery software for digitizing and lettering fonts at embroidery software. There is free embroidery digitizing Tutorial at this web address - embroidery by Thread Artists