[Dr. Smith]

I usually don't think of this as terribly creative, as much of what I do is adapting original artwork by others into embroidry designs. I guess there's some creativity in choosing colors & fabrics, modifying the art, and some of the other fidgeting (compromises) so it digitizes properly/well (better); I just don't usually think of it that way.

This one is different; there was no suitable original art, so I had to start from scratch.

I have a technical background, so many of my quilt & embroidery designs can get... technical. I have a tendancy to push the sewing machine (and design software) to—and beyond—its limits. This doesn't always work out in practice, so I often have to go back and make compromises. This was one of those times.

I wanted something particular and as exact as I could make the software and machine do—the 4th Doctor's TARDIS. If that last phrase lost you, there's nothing wrong with you—it's Doctor Who nerd stuff.

The research was easy enough; every Doctor Who fan and his/her aunt Nelly has a website detailing every aspect of everything Whovian to the Nth degree (which relegates me to the status of rank amateur). Drawing it up in Corel was no problem; I've been drawing/working with technical drawings my whole life. Digitizing... is where the finessing came in. The digitizing software for our sewing machine can't do a fraction of what the stripped-down version of CorelDraw that comes with it can do. I had to redo the drawing a number of times because my accuracy and attention to detail were a bit too... ambitious.

The result was not what I envisioned, but the best I could push the machines to do, and better than any TARDIS embroidery designs I've seen so far. If I could afford a professional setup, I might be able to do better. The dimensions may not be perfect, but the proportions are as close as possible. As designed the embroidery is about 4 inches tall, but since it is drawn as a vector, it can be resized to (theoretically) any size.

The image was generated directly from the digitizing software; it looks much better (clearer) when seen embroidered, as do the colors.

Doc