Stichii turns artwork into embroidery. The short version: open the editor, import an image, digitize it, check it, export it. Everything below walks through that in order. If you only read one line — the orange Import Image to Digitize button at the top of the editor is where almost every design starts.
The editor is the workspace where all the actual work happens. You can reach it from the Sign up free button in the site header, from New Design on your dashboard, or by going straight to stichii.com/editor. The editor requires an account — signing in is the first step, and it takes a moment. The free plan is enough to try the whole flow, and signing in is what lets Stichii keep your designs across devices instead of only in one browser.
The row of buttons across the top of the editor covers every way to get work in:
.sse file.New is safe to press at any time. Stichii saves whatever you were working on before it clears the canvas, so starting a new design never throws away the old one — you will find it again under My Designs.
For the best results, start from clean artwork: bold shapes, few colours, and as little blur or gradient as possible. Photographs can be digitized, but flat illustrations and logos stitch far better.
After you import an image, Stichii walks you through preparing it — choosing how many colours to keep, which regions matter, and what thread each region maps to. It then generates real stitch objects: fills for solid areas, satin columns for borders and lettering, and runs for thin lines.
The review screen is where you give each region its look before anything hits the canvas. Every fill region has a fill style picker (tatami, brick, ripple, cross-stitch, stipple and the rest of the stitch library), a ∠ angle box to set its stitch direction, and the preview updates as you choose. One picker at the top restyles every large fill at once; small lettering stays tatami so it keeps its shape.
Changed your mind after Accept? With nothing selected, the Properties panel lists every digitized region: pick a fill style there to restyle a whole region (or every region of one colour) in one go, set its stitch angle in the ∠ box, or click a row to select its objects and edit them together. Right-clicking any object also offers Select Region.
This is a starting point, not a finished design. Expect to adjust it.
Select any object on the canvas and the properties panel on the right lets you change its stitch type, density, angle, underlay and pull compensation. A few habits that pay off:
The Issues and Machine panels flag the things that actually ruin a run: stitches longer than your machine allows, densities that will punch through the fabric, designs larger than your hoop, or too many colour changes. Set your machine and hoop first so those checks are meaningful. Findings with a ⚡ fix button (density, underlay, pull compensation, stitch length, satin splitting, a design bigger than the hoop) apply the suggested value in one click and re-check; grouped findings offer fix all, and export preflight can apply every one-click fix at once. Each is a single undo step.
In the auto-digitize review, a +N mm² patched note on a region means the stitch generators left some of that colour's ink bare and the coverage check filled it with small extra objects. A little is normal at seams; a lot usually means the region wants a different stitch type (satin instead of fill, or the reverse).
Use the Export button in the top bar, or the File menu for the full list of formats. Pick the one your machine reads:
Handing a job over? File → Export All Formats gives one ZIP with every machine format; Export As PNG makes a captioned approval image (name, size, stitches, colours); and on My Designs you can select several designs and export them in one go — as machine files or PNG previews, with a run sheet for the operator.
Copy the file to a USB stick, load it on the machine, and always run a test stitch on scrap fabric of the same type before you commit to the real garment.
One design, a roster of names, one ZIP: open Team Names from the Go menu, pick the lettering object that holds the placeholder text and your machine format, paste the roster, and export. Every name becomes its own machine file, and the ZIP includes arun-sheet.csv (name, file, stitches, rough minutes) for the operator.
Save writes a .sse project file that keeps every editable object — machine formats do not. Save the .sse if you ever want to come back and change the design. Your work also autosaves in the browser, and signed-in users get their designs on the dashboard.
Stichii is built by one person, and questions genuinely help shape it. Send a message describing what you were trying to do and what happened instead.