Quality Embroidery Since 1958
Experience an Old-School Digitizing Lesson From One of the Last Schiffli Masters
This lesson is a true testament to John’s old-school digitizing roots. Being the last Schiffli Master Digitizer still alive and teaching in North America, in this lesson, John takes you by the hand and teaches you how to manually digitize freestanding lace.
That’s right, in this lesson, you will be turning off your software’s “autopilot” and literally be manually digitizing all the foundational underlay stitches and controlling all the start and stop positions for every object you create.
This class will teach you the theory of knowing where you are within the design while considering where you’ve been and where you are going. This is the ultimate mapping exercise that will replicate the tools and thought process of how true freestanding lace was mechanically digitized decades ago.
In this lesson, you’ll learn:
- How to create your own elegant freestanding lace designs
- How to use underlay and top stitches to hold threads together without fabric
- How to effectively map a complex design with advanced pathing/mapping theory
- How to manually build a foundation of underlay within the stitches you don’t see to hold freestanding embroidery together
Please Note: This is an Advanced Digitizing Lesson
Even if you consider yourself an advanced digitizer, we do highly recommend our Digitizer’s Dream Course as a prerequisite before taking this advanced lesson. It covers much of the foundational theory and rules you’ll be using and building upon within this lesson. All sales on this lesson are final, so please first complete our Digitizer’s Dream Course (which we do have a money-back guarantee on) to ensure you have the necessary knowledge required.
Haven’t yet heard of the Digitizer’s Dream Course? Click here to learn more
“Having completed this advanced digitizing lesson the only regret is that I haven’t done it sooner. It has taken my digitizing and creativity to the next level.”
Thank you for sharing your life long expertise in making Freestanding Lace. If you are interested in learning to make Freestanding Lace, this is definitely the course for you. It is well set out from beginning to end and I am now confident to make my own Freestanding Lace design from scratch. Thank you once more for making my dream come true.”
– Laetitia C
Advanced Freestanding Lace Lesson Overview
Using our proven hands-on approach of learning how to digitize (which we first introduced with the Digitizer’s Dream Course), this lesson will have you digitize a freestanding lace design right alongside John.
Please note that this lesson is taught in Hatch Digitizer software (If you’d like to download a free 30-day trial of Hatch to take this lesson in, click here). You can try to recreate the theory & techniques taught in this lesson in a different software brand. However, we don’t have follow up support for other software brands, and can’t guarantee the same results.
In this lesson, John will walk you through digitizing an elegant freestanding lace design from start to finish while incorporating both advanced mapping and freestanding underlay techniques. It includes:
- 2.5 hours of interactive video. This video never expires and can be streamed on any computer, tablet, or mobile device.
- Digitize a beautiful freestanding masquerade mask design yourself using artwork we supply.
“I have never come across a lesson for this type of digitizing, and have been searching for years! Love it!
I am VERY happy to have purchased the Lace Mask class! It opens so many avenues for creating designs. I love digitizing, and plan to combine lace structures in my other designs. It is very well explained, and it shows you the entire mask being done, so even if it seems difficult at first, it starts to flow easily.“
– Joan B
About Your Instructor
John Deer has been the most awarded embroidery digitizer in the world for over 20 years now. As a 4th generation embroiderer, John has an incredibly unique history in the embroidery digitizing industry as he is the last remaining Schiffli Master Digitizer still alive & teaching in North America. John learned and apprenticed under Swiss Schiffli Master Digitizers (then known as “punchers”) over 35 years ago in his grandparent’s factory, before computers even entered the digitizing world.
In the 1990’s-2000s John owned & ran one of North America’s largest commercial digitizing house, where he did the digitizing for many large corporations including: Disney, Coca-Cola, GM, the NFL, & the NBA. John has personally won 30 separate digitizing awards in the commercial industry and wrote the book on digitizing called “Digitizing Made Easy” which has sold over 51,000 copies & is used in Universities across the United States to teach those studying textile.
“John is truly a master digitizer like no other! I highly recommend this course!
I loved the Classic Freestanding Lace Digitizing Lesson! I made a freestanding lace doll-sized mask and necklace and both stitched out beautifully with no jumps!“
– Peggy C
“John is truly a master digitizer like no other! I highly recommend this course! 
The Advanced Digitizing Lesson: Freestanding Lace was just mind boggling good at teaching me proper pathing and why I have always wanted to try digitizing lace and now I can.“
– Teresa W
Frequently Asked Questions