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Image to SEW

Turn any image into a SEW file for older Janome machines — Memory Craft 5700, 8000 and 9000 — free, in the browser, nothing to install.

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How to convert Image to SEW

  1. Upload your image. PNG, JPG and SVG all work; a PNG or SVG will give you cleaner edges than a JPEG of the same artwork.
  2. Set the finished size. Work in millimetres and set it before you judge anything else — every decision about detail depends on how big the design will be. Detail that survives at 150mm disappears at 60mm.
  3. Reduce the colours. Each colour is a thread change on the machine. Pick the fewest that still read as your artwork.
  4. Check the preview, then export as SEW. The stitch preview plays the design in the order the machine will sew it, so you can catch problems before there is thread in the hoop.

About the SEW format

SEW is the native format for older Janome machines — Memory Craft 5700, 8000 and 9000. SEW is the format those machines used before JEF. It stores colours, but its colour table is a fixed twelve slots, so a design has to come in at twelve threads or fewer. If your machine reads JEF, use JEF instead — it has no such limit.

Twelve colours, maximum. SEW's colour table is twelve fixed slots, so a design with more than twelve threads cannot be written at all. Reduce the colours first, or export JEF — every Janome that reads SEW-era files has a JEF-capable successor, and JEF has no limit.

What makes the difference to the result

Digitizing is not tracing. The converter decides how each region gets filled, which direction the stitches run, where the underlay goes and how much to compensate for the fabric pulling the design in as it sews. Those decisions are what separate a design that stitches cleanly from one that puckers, gaps at the edges or takes twice as long as it should.

  • Size before everything. A shape narrower than about 1.2mm cannot be stitched as its own satin column; it has to be widened or dropped.
  • Fewer colours, better result. Every extra colour is a thread change, a trim and a chance for registration to drift.
  • Flat beats subtle. Gradients, glows and soft shadows have no equivalent in thread and become banding.
  • Check the stitch order. The simulator plays it back so you can see the sequence before you sew it.

Related converters

PNG to SEW

Already have an embroidery file in the wrong format? That is a different job — no digitizing needed, just a re-encode. Use the embroidery file converter. Working with text rather than artwork? Browse the embroidery fonts.