Several Editing Questions???

[Di]

Hi everyone,

I am combining two stock designs (an outline of Texas and a 1960 Corvette). I am placing the Corvette on top of the Texas outline and would like to delete the stitches of Texas that are under the car. I have Design Shop Pro+ and I've been reading the reference book that goes with it but I just can't figure it out. Can anyone please help me and give me instructions on how to accomplish this or tell me where to look in
the DS book?

Also, I am stitching this on a pique polo and the car is a pretty dense design. I want to decrease the desity of all the stitces so I
double clicked on the screen and the Properties box appeared. Then under the Scale tab I changed the Column Density and Fill Density to
90% do decrease the number of stitches. Does that sound like I did it correctly? The car design is pretty detailed so I wanted the entire
design to be less dense.

One other question, if I'm using a 15mm round hoop and my letters are ouside of the "Sew Field" on the screen, but well within the "Inner
Hoop" line, will there be a problem when trying to stitch out the design? What I mean is when I "Trace" the design when it's on the machine (XT) will it not work?

As always, any help would be greatly appreciated! !!

[djames]

Di,
To delete the stitches under the car. 1st thing I would do is turn off all the colors on the car except the outline, if there is one, so you can see the stitches you want to delete. You need to set straight marks iside of the car outline at that point (click on it) you need to split the element (looks like a bowtie) Do this at the beginning of the stitches under the car and at the the point just before it goes out from under the car. This may have to be done several times. In the project tree you would then delete that or those objects out of the design. You would either put in a lock on both ends and a trim or put a walk stitch between the sections.

As for changing the density of the car. What you did will change all fills and all columns the same. You can also click on specific elements, right click and change the specific properties for that element, such as stitch length, fill density, column density etc.

As for sewing outside the sew field. If you are just slightly outside the field, you can go to settings and turn off the Hoop Limits.

Hope this helps,
Debbie

[Di]

Thank you Debbie for all your help, I really appreciate it. And it actually makes sense to me!!! [img]smile.gif[/img]

[cbireley]

I've wondered the same thing...I didn't understand what "need to set straight marks inside of the car outline" meant or "you need to split the element" means. I'm new to all of this. When I've tried to take stitches out under another design, I've always gone in and just deleted points until it works, but sometimes I cannot get it all b/c it's connected to something big that shows outside of the design. Sorry to be so "dense" with this one. I'm much more of a visual person...

[djames]

Cindy,
When you deleted points, you should have noticed whether they were straight (triangle) or curved (circle) points. Unless, of course, you were deleting the actual stitches.
If you are working with an OFM file or a CND you can split an element into multiple elements. This makes it easier to manipulate the design if you need to.

The following is from the help section in DS, I hope it helps:
(Available in DesignShop and higher product levels)

You have the ability to split elements using this feature. You must first select a point in your element where you would like the split to occur. Then click on the Split Element button or select Edit->Split Element. The point that you had selected will exist in both of the new elements. You can split all types of columns, complex fills, and walk stitches. The following rules apply:

You can only split on a straight point, not on a curved point, because splitting on a curved point would change the shape of the element.

You cannot split at the ends of an element.

For Column 2, you must select two points to split, one on each side. Hold down the CTRL key to select multiple points.

For Column 1, you can only select one point because column 1s have matching pairs.

For Complex Fills and Complex Columns, you must select two points to split. Hold down the CTRL key to select multiple points.

Hopefully this helps some/
Debbie