iPad Art into Embroidery

Designing Your Own Embroidery Patterns

There’s something magical about watching a sketch you drew come to life as thread. Designing your own embroidery pieces might sound intimidating, but with a few digital tools, it’s surprisingly doable (and so much fun).

Here’s how I create custom designs using my Apple iPad Pro with the Procreate app, and stitch them out on my Brother PE570 embroidery machine.

Step 1

Sketch on Your iPad

Open Procreate and create a 5x5 inch canvas at 300 dpi. This gives you plenty of clarity while keeping your design comfortably within the PE570’s 4-inch stitch area.

A few helpful tips:

• Keep lines clean and bold — embroidery machines prefer simple, defined shapes.

• Use layers to separate different colors or parts of your design.

• If your design is larger than 4 inches, split it visually into sections that you can stitch separately later.

Step 2

Prep Your File for Digitizing

Once your sketch is ready, export it as a PNG (transparent background helps).
This is your “blueprint” for stitching — you’ll feed it into the digitizing app next.

Step 3

Digitize with Artspira

Open Artspira, the companion app for your embroidery machine.
Import your PNG file and use the built-in tools to convert it into stitch data.

Here’s what to focus on:

• Assign stitch types (satin, fill, running stitch) to each shape

• Adjust stitch order to make sure colors and layers build correctly

• Keep the design size at or below 4 inches — resize if needed

Step 4

Stitch It Out

Send your finished design to your PE570 and watch your art become real.
If your design has sections, re-hoop between each part and line them up carefully. It takes patience, but the results are worth it.

It’s endlessly customizable, wildly satisfying, and gives your projects that “one of a kind” feeling no store-bought design ever could.

So grab your iPad, fire up Procreate, and let your imagination run wild. Your next favorite embroidery piece is waiting for you to draw it.