Layers & sequence — Stitch-out order and organization

How do I open the Layers panel?

Tap Layers in the top bar. It’s a full-height panel, not a sheet — it stays open alongside the canvas while you keep working. Coming back to the list from an object, you find it where you were: it scrolls to the row of the object you had open, and that row is lightly tinted. Inside a collapsed group it is the group’s row.

What do the numbers next to each row mean?

The actual machine stitch order, not just the row’s position in the list. A batched group of objects that share a color can show something like “2·4” — meaning this row’s contents are stitched at positions 2 and 4 in the machine sequence, with something else in between. This matters because drawing order and stitch-out order aren’t always identical once color batching has reordered things for fewer thread changes.

When a row’s number sends the machine back to an earlier step, that number is highlighted and a short note appears under the list. You see it wherever colour batching lifts a whole colour block out of list order — the list keeps showing where an object sits in the design, the number tells you when the machine actually sews it. Drawing an object in a colour the design doesn’t use yet is the usual way to produce one: the new colour becomes its own block, and that block is sewn as a unit.

How do I reorder layers?

Long-press and drag a row — there’s no separate “edit mode” to switch into first. Swipe a row left for quick delete or duplicate — a member inside an open plain group too (not a Blend, a joined group or a section): its copy stays in the group, right after the original. A duplicate carries what the row is: a copy of a word is editable text again, a copy of a trapunto or appliqué section keeps its stops and its tackdown. Copying the 3D puff section puts the copies on the same piece of foam, because a design carries one.

Several rows at once: check them with the circles on the right, then drag one of the checked rows — all of them travel together and land next to each other where you drop, keeping their order among themselves. Dragging an unchecked row still moves that row alone, so the checkmarks never hijack a small fix. A machine stop travels with the object it belongs to.

Into a group: Drop a row between the members of an open group to add it, also as its very first member, right under the group’s row. A group’s own row moves the whole group, open or closed. A group can’t go inside another group.

Dragging rows one at a time is fine for “move this one up”. When you want several objects sewn in a particular order, use Sequence by tapping instead (below).

How do I protect a layer I’m finished with?

The padlock in the row, between the checkmark and the eye. Locked, the layer still shows on the canvas and still sews — the canvas simply can’t get hold of it any more: it won’t answer a tap, a marquee sweeps past it, it grows no move/scale/rotate handles, and its points can’t be edited. The row itself stays fully usable: drag it to a different place in the sequence, rename it, change its colour, or open it in the inspector.

Lock what is already right, then keep drawing over it without nudging it out of place. Tap the padlock again to let it go. A sashiko lattice locks together with the outline it lives in — the two are one piece, so they cannot be locked apart.

How do I set the sewing order for several objects at once?

”…” → Sequence by tapping. Then tap the objects on the canvas, in the order you want them sewn. A number appears on each one as you go. Tap a numbered object again to drop it out; the rest renumber. Apply order commits it, Cancel leaves everything as it was.

You work on the design itself rather than on a list of names — which is the point, because on the canvas you can see what you’re ordering.

Two things worth knowing:

• Objects you don’t tap don’t move. The ones you numbered are re-dealt into the positions they already occupied among themselves; everything else keeps its exact place in the sequence. So the answer to “what did that change?” is always “the objects I touched”.
• If the new order would change how the design looks, StitchPencil says so first. Stitch order is layering: two objects that overlap look different depending on which one sews second. When your order would swap such a pair, a dialog names them and asks. Reordering objects that don’t overlap changes only the machine’s route, never the picture, and applies without a prompt.

If you’re not sure what order is best, try Optimize sequence first — it works out an efficient order for you. Sequence by tapping is for when you already know.

How do I group or join objects?

Checkmark-select two or more rows to reveal a bottom bar with Group, Join and Merge (both only offered when every selected object shares the same stitch kind — see Cut, combine & convert for the difference), Paste style, and Delete.

Rows that carry their own recipe stay out of it: a word, a 3D puff, trapunto or appliqué section, and a border that follows a word. Their settings — the machine stop, the foam density, the text itself — live on the group, so pouring one into a new group would drop them. Selecting one and tapping Group says so instead of doing it; take the section apart first, or convert the text to paths, and then group what is left.

What’s in the ”…” overflow menu?

• Copy layer / Copy N layers — puts the marked rows on the clipboard (see below).
• Paste layer / Paste N layers — brings them back, here or in another design. Greyed out while nothing is copied.
• Optimize sequence — reorders stitching for fewer thread trims and color changes; if the reordering would be aggressive enough to visibly change how the design looks stitched (not just its efficiency), it shows a confirmation dialog first rather than silently changing your design’s appearance.
• Sequence by tapping — set the order yourself by tapping objects on the canvas (see above).
• Add machine stop — inserts a draggable command row into the sequence, e.g. to pause for a manual step. Quicker: swipe a layer row to the left and tap Stop after — the stop lands right after that layer (after a group: after its last member); the same swipe removes it again. Machines react differently to a stop, so the exported file also changes color there when the thread would otherwise stay the same — in PES, JEF and VP3 to a shade close to your thread, so the machine keeps showing the color that is threaded. The worksheet lists that block as “stop only”; there is no need to re-thread.
• Reset opacities — clears any canvas-only opacity overrides back to fully solid.

Can I copy layers into another design?

Yes. Mark what should travel — one row, a whole group, or several rows at once — then open the Layers panel’s ”…” menu and choose Copy layer (it says Copy 3 layers when three are marked). Open the other design and choose Paste 3 layers from the same menu. The action bar’s Copy and ⌘C / ⌘V on a keyboard do the same. The copies land on top of the sequence, at the same spot in the hoop they came from, and are selected so you can drag them into place right away.

What travels is what the row is: a copied word is still an editable word, a group keeps its members and its settings, and the thread colours come along — a colour the other design doesn’t have yet is added to its palette. A copied 3D puff section joins the puff section the other design already has, because a design carries one piece of foam. Pasting a second time gives a second, independent copy. The copy stays on the clipboard until you copy something else, so you can paste it into several designs in a row.

Can I watch the design stitch out before sending it to the machine?

Yes — the Player button at the bottom of the Layers panel, on the same line as the colour summary, opens the Stitch player. It stays there whatever you have selected, so you never have to deselect to get to it.

It answers the questions a still picture can’t: where the needle travels for nothing, how often you have to walk to the machine, and whether anything ends up sewn over in the wrong order. Nothing you do in the player changes the design — it only reads the finished stitch plan.

The header tells you where you are: stitches sewn so far out of the total (the same number the top bar shows — jumps aren’t counted as stitches in either place), which color you’re on when there’s more than one, and the name of the object currently under the needle. That last one is the part a machine file could never tell you; StitchPencil knows it because it generated the plan itself.

How do I read the player’s scrubber?

The bar under the preview is not a progress bar. Its blocks are the color blocks of your design, sized by how many stitches each one takes. So at a glance you can see that one block eats most of the run while the sliver next to it is a whole rethread for eighty stitches — which is usually the moment you go back and think about color batching or the sequence.

Thin light marks across the bar are trims — where the machine cuts the thread. Drag anywhere on the bar to scrub; the preview redraws to that point, and the small ring shows where the needle is.

Can I zoom into the player?

Yes — pinch to zoom up to 8× and drag to pan; a chip in the corner shows the factor and puts you back to 1× when you tap it. The preview is redrawn at that zoom rather than blown up, so detail actually appears: individual penetrations, the tips of a satin corner, and the tinted dots of a carved groove.

What do the player’s controls do?

From left to right: back to the start, one stitch back, play/pause, one stitch forward, and jump to the next color change. The last one is the one you’ll actually use — nobody hunts for stitch 12,273, they look for the next stop.

The slider on the right is speed, tortoise to hare, in five steps with no number. The second step is roughly a real machine (about 800 stitches a minute) — slow enough to watch a single seam form. Above that, the exact figure stops meaning anything, which is why none is shown; you’re just getting through the design.

Does the player remember where I was?

Roughly, yes. Close it, change something, reopen it, and you land near the same place. It’s stored as a position through the design, not a stitch number, on purpose — after an edit, stitch 4,000 would point somewhere else entirely, while “about 70 % of the way in” still means what you meant.

What do reference images look like in the Layers list?

Pinned at the top of the panel. The eye icon next to a reference row is the only way to select and unlock it for on-canvas move/scale/rotate — while locked (the default), it stays out of the way so you don’t accidentally drag your traced photo instead of your stitch object.

A reference lies under the stitches, which is right for tracing an outline and wrong the moment a finished fill covers the part you want to draw details onto. Rather than dimming the fill, open the reference and switch on Show above the stitches: the image now lies on top at its own opacity, the stitches show through, and the row says so (“Reference · 50 % · above the stitches”). Switch it off to put it back underneath. Either way it is a guide — never stitched, never exported.

What is the plus in the header for?

It brings things into the design from outside. Under Image, any artwork: SVG files and photos alike — it only asks where from, Photo Library or Files. A vector file opens the import assistant, a pixel image becomes a tracing template. See Import for the rest. Under Cross stitch, a cross stitch design from the gallery or a new one painted in place — see Cross stitch. Under Design, From the gallery… brings another of your designs in as a copy: every layer comes along — text stays editable text, a border keeps following its word; tracing images stay with the original — its threads join this design’s palette, and it lands at the end of the sequence, selected, where it lay in its own hoop. Change it freely; the original in the gallery stays as it is. A design from a bigger hoop that sticks out is framed for you and says so.

How does converted text appear in Layers?

Each letter collapses into its own row after Convert to paths, with a small chevron to disclose the individual node-editable path underneath — easy to miss if you don’t know it’s there.

What does layer opacity actually affect?

It’s a canvas display setting only — a caption in the inspector says so directly: it never changes what’s actually sewn. The exported stitch file always sews at full, solid thread regardless of what opacity you’ve set for previewing.

What’s “Thread to next object”?

A per-object setting — Auto / Trim / Jump / Run — controlling how the machine gets from the end of this object to the start of the next: cut the thread, jump without cutting, or lay a connecting run stitch. “Auto” lets StitchPencil decide based on distance and color.

Below the picker, Connection as path turns the way to the next object — exactly as it is sewn now — into a run stitch of its own, inserted right after the object. From then on it is an object like any other: move its nodes, lay it under a fill where it hides, or delete it to get the automatic route back. A connection that was cut becomes a straight line. Move one of the two neighbours afterwards and the path stays where it was; Undo takes it back.

How is the thread secured at the start and end?

With Lock stitches, in the same Machine section of the inspector, and in the Stitch editor for everything you draw with a Stitch:

• Fine — one short stitch back. Barely visible, for outlines and fine lines.
• Firm — three needle holes. For stretch fabrics such as jersey; this is the default.
• Off — no lock. Only where the next object sews over the end.

One choice covers both ends; Start and end apart sets them separately.

A closed line — a rectangle, a circle — begins in the middle of an edge, never on a corner, and ends by sewing on over its first two stitches. The lock at the end lies on that overlap, in the line’s own direction. With Fine, a closed line has no lock at its start at all: the overlap holds its beginning. A start you placed yourself stays where you put it.

What the machine actually sews

A lock is a few extra needle holes on the thread itself, so the stitches cannot pull out once the thread is cut.

	At the start	At the end	Where you see it
Fine	one stitch of 0.7 mm forward, back to the start	one stitch of 0.7 mm back, forward to the end	barely — two holes on the line
Firm	three holes along the line: 0.7 mm, 1.4 mm, back to 0.7 mm, back to the start	the same, backwards from the end	on fine lines as a small knot at the end
Off	nothing	nothing	not at all — the thread is held only by what is sewn over it

The locks run along the stitches they secure, so they lie in the line rather than beside it.

What the lock is not: the small lump at the very start of a line, which appears with every setting, Off included. That is the machine beginning — the thread end you hold or the machine cuts. It is not in the design file.

Which one? Firm on stretch fabrics and anything that is washed often. Fine for outlines, backstitch and lettering on woven fabrics, where a knot at every end would show. Off only where the next object covers the end.

Can I set it for a whole group?

Yes. Open the group — a word, say — and scroll to Machine in the inspector. The choice there applies to every part of the group: from each part to the next, and from the last part to what follows the group. For jump stitches between all letters that you clip by hand after sewing, choose Jump.

Where the parts of the group are set differently, none of the four values is marked. The next choice then applies to all of them. A single part is still set in its own inspector.

Live text keeps the choice when you edit it. The section is missing on groups that handle the thread themselves: joined groups (there it is the Hide travels switch), Blends, sections on embroidery foam, trapunto or appliqué, and ready-stitched fonts.

And for several layers that are not a group?

Select them — with the marquee on the canvas or the checkmarks in the layer panel — and open More → Thread to next object in the bar. In the footer of the layer panel it is the Thread to next tile. The menu shows the four values. The value everything in the selection shares is ticked; where they are set differently, none is. Your choice applies to everything in the selection, in one step for Undo.

The same rule applies as for the group. If the selection holds something that handles the thread itself (a joined group, a Blend, a section, finished stitches) or a locked layer, it keeps its thread, and the message says how many those are. Where nothing in the selection has a thread to set, the entry is missing.

A pasted style, too, leaves the thread alone where the group handles it itself. The rest of the style arrives, and the message says how many parts kept their thread.

Run means “do not cut”, not “show the thread”. So the connection looks for a way under what is still to be sewn, even if that is a little longer than the straight line: on a striped candy cane along the cane, under the red stripes that follow, instead of across the open inside of the hook. Only where no such way exists — to a part standing on its own, say — does the thread cross the fabric, and then over the shortest open stretch. The Check names such places as “Thread lies on the fabric” once they are long enough to notice; whether you leave them, clip them by hand or switch to Trim after all is your call.