Your design library, and letting buyers pick from it

The Designs page is your library of stitch files. Each design holds its file, a photo or a preview of how it stitches, its true stitched size, and your notes about which thread colors you used last time. That alone makes a reorder six months later a quick lookup instead of a hunt through folders.

If a design is cut from fabric and sewn on, open it and check "This design is appliqué". A buyer who picks it is charged the appliqué fee from your rate card, the same as appliqué lettering.

The library also does a second job that is easy to miss. Designs from it show up in the "Design it" step of your order form, so a buyer picks a design they like, picks a product, and orders the combination — without you drawing up a new product for every possible pairing.

If a design is appliqué — cut from fabric rather than filled with thread — say so on the design itself. Open the design and check "This design is appliqué" under "How this design is made." From then on your appliqué fee is added to every order that uses that design, the same way it is added when a buyer picks appliqué lettering. Leave it unchecked and the design is priced as plain embroidery, which is what it was before you marked it.

Check your appliqué fee is a real number on your Pricing page before you rely on this. A fee sitting at $0 charges nothing no matter how the design is marked.

Where the stitch file goes

Your designs live on the Designs page, not on Supplies. Supplies holds your blanks, thread, and stock. The Designs page holds every stitch file.

To bring files in, use the "⬆ Import machine files" button at the top of the Designs page. Drag a ZIP or the stitch files themselves straight onto that button, or click it and drop them in the panel that opens. Broidry reads each file, groups the formats of one design together, and shows you the names to check. Click the Save button at the bottom of that panel and they are in your library.

To add a file to a design that is already in the library, open the design. On its page there is a card called "Machine files". Drag the stitch file onto that card, or click "＋ Upload files" and pick it. Broidry reads the real stitched size and stitch count out of the file and fills them in for you.

The photo spots only take pictures. If you drop a stitch file on one, Broidry tells you so and points you to Machine files. Broidry stores the file in the format your machine already reads and hands that same file back when you download it.

Why a design is not showing up for buyers

This is the most common question about the library, and the answer is always one of two things. A design is only offered to buyers when both are true.

First, it needs something to show. That means either a photo you uploaded of the design stitched out, or a rendered preview of the stitch file. A buyer will not order a design they cannot see.

Second, its true stitched size has to be filled in — the real width and height it sews at. Without the size, Broidry cannot tell whether the design physically fits where the buyer wants to put it, so the design is not offered until the size is filled in. That check is what prevents someone ordering a five-inch design for a spot that holds three.

You almost never have to measure that yourself. Upload the design's stitch file and Broidry reads the real size and stitch count straight out of it and fills both in. That works for Brother (.pes), Tajima (.dst), Melco and Bernina (.exp), Janome (.jef), and Husqvarna Viking and Pfaff (.vp3 and .hus) — so whatever machine you run, the file you already send to it is the file that answers this. If you have typed a size in yourself, uploading a file never overwrites it; it only fills in what is blank.

Selling one design in more than one size

A patch is its design, so your customer picks the design and the size in one breath. Open the design, scroll to "Sizes this design comes in", and click "+ Add a size" for each size you have digitized. Give each one a name your customer will understand, like 2 inch or 3 inch, the inches it really sews at, its stitch count, what it adds to the price, and the machine file you run for that size.

If you have already uploaded a stitch file for each size, do not type any of that. Broidry reads the real size and the stitch count out of every machine file you give it, so the design shows a button called "Read the sizes from my stitch files". Press it, the rows fill themselves in, and all you type is the prices. Two files of one size, a .pes for one machine and a .dst for another, arrive as one size and not two. Pressing it again after you add another file keeps every price and every name you typed.

The first size in the list is normally the one your product price already covers, so leave its price at 0 and give each bigger size what it adds. A 3 inch patch at +$2 on a $8 product is $10.

Your customer sees the sizes as buttons under the design they picked, each showing its real inches and what it adds. When the order comes in, the order page names the size they chose, its inches, its stitch count, and the file to stitch, so you are never guessing which of your three files this one is.

Leave the size list empty and nothing changes: the design is sold at the one size on the design itself, and your customer is never asked.

Which products a design can go on

Each design carries a list of the products it may be ordered on, which you set on the design itself. Everything except hats is allowed to start with, because most library designs are too large or sit wrong on a hat front. If a design does work on a hat, check the hat yourself.

Product types you made yourself, like a patch or an apron, are in that list too, and they start checked. When you add a new product type, every design in your library is allowed on it right away, so a new patch type can sell the designs you already have. The one exception is a type you based on a hat, which starts unchecked like the hat does.

To sell your designs as their own product — patches are the usual case — make the product type first (Products page, "Your own product types", "Add a product type"), then add a product of that type. Open it, and under Item options set "Who picks the design?" to "Your customer picks from your design library". The order form for that product then shows every design in your library that has a picture and a stitched size, and your customer picks one.

When you have more than eight designs, the order form puts a search box above them, and your tags show up as buttons your customer can press to narrow the list, so a library of hundreds is never a wall of tiles. The tags are the same words you type on each design under Tags, so "dog", "school", or "floral" on your designs become the buttons your customer sees. The list shows 24 at a time with a "Show more" button under it.

A design that comes in more than one size asks your customer which size they want, right under the design they just picked, with the price of each size next to it. Add a choice list to the product for anything else you need to know, like which backing they want, and put a price on the answers that cost more.

On top of your list, Broidry runs its own size check. When a buyer picks a design, any garment whose stitchable area cannot hold that design at its true size is switched off in front of them. So a design that is genuinely too big for a spot can never be ordered onto it, even if you left the product checked.