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Fun with Symbols!

The built-in Symbol designs in Inspirations Perfect Embroidery Pro are tiny and intended to be used as border accents.  But you can do so much more with symbols.  Their small stature makes them perfect candidates for stitching fields of flowers, flocks of birds and schools of fish with just a few clicks.

Open a new screen in Perfect Embroidery Pro and click on the Symbol icon. Scroll down through the menu and select the Fish. Click OK. 

In the color sequence window, change the first color to blue, same as the second color.  

Recolor the blue and white to something you’d like. I chose blue and yellow.

Select each color, click on the Command tab in the Properties Box and change the End command to trim from normal. Click Apply. Make sure you do this for all three colors.

If you don’t, you might wind up with a mess like this:

Select the fish, click on the arrow next to the Circle tool and select Scatter.

Change the Area to 100mm x 100mm.  Remove the check in the Auto Rotate box and click Apply because fish in schools all swim in the same direction.

Click Apply again if you’d like a different layout.  These layouts are random so if you see one you like, click OK.

Select the design and Ungroup.  Reposition any fish if you’d like. At this point, there are 162 colors in the design. Yikes!  That’s a nightmare but an easy fix. Select all of the fish, go to Edit and select Resequence by Color.

The design is now three colors but it appears the needle will be jumping all over the hoop. 

No worries.  Go to File, Optimize Sequence. 

Now the design will stitch logically and your one fish has multiplied into a whole school!

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8 COMMENTS

  • Judy Mayfield

    Some of the small symbols also make good designs on little boys polo shirts. My grandsons love them.

  • Maga

    Wow, awesome software – wish mine could do that!

  • Marti Morgan

    Great information. Printed and added to my PEP notebook. Eileen, I hate to ask, but could we have a tutorial on merging appliques and deleting satin stitches under overlapping areas? Trying so hard to learn this and although I am getting it done – I am led to believe there is an easier method.

    • eileenroche
      AUTHOR

      Great suggestion,Marti! Look for it in an upcoming post.

      • Marti Morgan

        Yeah – thanks so much

      • Sherlyn

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  • Bruce

    Great symbols! Its awesome. Thanks for sharing. Is there any option to import your own icon?

    Bruce, https://www.printavo.com

  • nancy maloy

    I am a new emrroider! I love all your designs but only have a brother,s machine that only takes a 4/4 hoop I do love your latest simple to chic, is thier any way I can minize the 5/7 designs to fit my hoop??? THANKS.