Embroidery Design Using Hatch Software and Janome Machine
This software runs on the PC Laptop dedicated to embroidery.
Open Hatch Embroidery Software:
Click New button:
The size of your embroidery is determined by the Hoop you will use. They are stored in a drawer under the embroidery machine and each have a name on them. Select a hoop you want to use and find that hoop name in the drop down to the right of Janome MB-7. In this example, we are using MB2:
Insert your Artwork:
The black rectangle is the size of your embroidery hoop. This owl is far too large to fit into that hoop.
First Zoom Out to see the whole design:
Next hold down SHIFT key and drag a corner to scale it down to fit inside. Zoom in to check your work:
Once the size is right, you are ready to Artwork -> Prepare Artwork for Embroidery. Our embroidery has 7 colors of thread so your design is limited to at most 7 colors. At this stage we try to limit the colors used in the design.
Int his example it is showing 31 colors. We can drag the details and colors sliders at the bottom to change the design. With each slider change the image on the right will show you the effects on the design. 31 colors is far too many. I decided to go with a lot less detail and that helped get my colors down to 13, which is closer to what we need. I will combine more in the following steps.
Be sure you are happy with the results on the right before clicking OK:
Now, Auto-digitize Embroidery... (the third optoin, not the second one!)
Under Sequence, There are Objects and Colors. Click on Colors. You need to combine colors to see at most 7 listed along the bottom. To combine colors:
1) click on the eye dropper at the bottom left
2) click on the color you want to use
3) click on the bucket at the bottom left
4) click on the location in your design that you want to apply that color.
In this example, I combined a few yellows that were very close, and combined a few oranges that were very close. The result is 7 colors along the bottom.
If you see other colors on the bottom row that don't have blue dots in the top-corner, they are colors that are not being used. You can click on Hide in the bottom-right to hide the unused colors.
You will save the file in two formats. One format that Hatch uses and another that the embroidery machine uses. The first is File -> Save As to save the Hatch format (.EMB). Save this on the desktop of the laptop so that you can edit it again if need be.
After you save it, confirm you can find it on the desktop:
Insert the USB stick from the Embroidery Machine into the Laptop.
Click Export Design button on the top row to export the file as a JEF format onto the USB drive. Give it a SIMPLE SHORT NAME for the EXPORT, ie Owl.
(It should automatically go into a specific folder on the USB stick called D:/EMB/Embf. The embroidery machine won't see it if you don't have those folders on the USB stick.)
Now you're ready to remove the USB stick from the laptop and embroider using the machine.