Embroidery Digitizing: All About Blending and Shading

Today we are taking a deep dive into blending and shading with embroidery digitizing. I'll share everything I know on the rules and theory required in order to get perfect blends and shades with thread.
00:00 - Intro
01:32 - Understanding the role stitch density plays
03:05 - How many colors should you use?
04:55 - Patience is a virtue
05:36 - The importance of stitching out your designs in "real life"
07:28 - Settings to adjust in your digitizing software
12:00 - A closer look at some test shading I did
15:38 - Explaining how I digitized my flower design
26:06 - Using reference photos from existing embroidery designs
27:13 - My recommendation on further blending & shading classes to take
29:01 - Outro
Websites I mentioned:
www.urbanthreads.com/
www.emblibrary.com/
learntodigitize.net/
Follow me on Instagram! / lashley_creations
Check out my Shop! www.lashleycreations.com

[@angellove1619]

Stunning flower and a wealth of more information. I did take balboa digitizing classes, but she is so drawn out, and I fall asleep learning from her.

[@lashleycreations]

Yes she is very knowledgeable in her lessons, but I agree her videos are so long. I don't have enough time in the day to sit through a whole video😅

[@Nclk619]

Ohhh... I was going to say that you definitely took Lee's class. She is amazing. I have every class from her. Amazing amazing

[@lashleycreations]

Yes she is amazing! I have only learned a fraction of what she teaches, but I always recommend people to take her classes, she is a treasure trove of knowledge when it comes to embroidery🤗

[@Nclk619]

@@lashleycreations , isn't she. I took 3 days class with her in Palm Springs. What an amazing sweet lady she is.

[@raufniaz9379]

Wow! Absolutely loved it. Thank you for sharing.

[@stitchn4yourkitchn729]

WOW! Thank you soOoo much!!!

[@HEIGbabe]

Best embroidery lecture I've ever seen. Waiting for the next video. Thank you.

[@pamelalewis9192]

Absolutely the best video I’ve been able to find on blending and shading! Your teaching technique was spot on! Thank you so very much!!!

[@LeonardoMacedoEMB]

Yes, love to see lots of testing just to see what will look better, specially because sometimes things look bad on screen but awesome embroidered.

[@lashleycreations]

yup when in doubt, test it!

[@motorbikeaddict]

Great video, thanks for sharing

[@rochestereyegirl]

Amazing! I just started with Hatch and appreciate all the effort this video needed.

[@hamrocksco1]

thanks for the video. these are some advance digitizing

[@KatieKagelmacher]

Wow this was such a great video. Thank you so much!!

[@svetlanasavchuk4130]

❤ Thank you so much for so wonderful detail and complete explanation. Amazing work 🥰🌹🌷👍

[@user-xl7yy2pb4w]

fantastic! Just what I needed

[@robertham3746]

Thank you for providing your insights on this. Great lesson!

[@carolcalkins5329]

This is a spectacular video!

[@jayc6159]

Very clear instructions thanks for sharing your knowledge : )

[@lashleycreations]

You are welcome and glad it was helpful for you!

[@siddharthjain2759]

Top class video ... Really appreciate the time you took to make this video. Waiting for more videos

[@lashleycreations]

Thanks! More digitizing videos coming so stay tuned!

[@ingridrautemberg]

I love your videos! Do you think Hatch is worth the money?

[@lashleycreations]

Sorry the late reply here! But YES I absolutely think Hatch is worth the money. It's been a great investment for me and I don't see myself needing to use any other software.

[@TheEmbroideryGuy]

Great video, love your sharing, What fabric is that white fabric with the speckles on it, I WANT IT!!!

[@lashleycreations]

I got it from Joann Fabric Store. Its cotton fabric with silver glitter on it. Really love how the glitter shines on embroidery projects.

[@asheryl1966]

Thank you so much for this video. I've been trying to shade a flower design that I digitized and nothing was looking good or right. I tried to do what you suggested after watching the video and now I need to see if it's going to look ok when I stitch it out. One question, did you do the petals of the flower separately or as one big flower?

[@lashleycreations]

Glad you are finding it helpful! For the flowers, I did each petal separately because I wanted each petal to have a different stitch angle

[@asheryl1966]

@@lashleycreations Thanks for letting me know.

[@mygodimbadatgames]

Hey i love your digitizing. I recently bought hatch 3 and the default tatami spacing is 0.016 is this the same setting that would afect the density?

[@lashleycreations]

Thanks for watching! And yes the tatami spacing is what controls the density. 0.016 sounds like you have your program set to display in inches vs millimeters, so you might want to switch to mm as it is easier to adjust the spacing

[@mygodimbadatgames]

@@lashleycreations thanks a million