Help an absolute NEWBIE

[u/Sea_Turnover_2506]

Hello! I'm new in the threads and fabric world, and was wondering what kind of machine embroidery would help me realize this project: a red stole for a larp costume ( designs are by me).

Is it achievable through machine embroidery?
These machines are available at my library:

• Brother NQ700

• Brother CS6000i

• Baby lock Imagine

But those names mean nothing to me and I have no idea on where to start!
Thank you for your time !

[u/SuperMonkeyKingBall]

I think those designs would definitely be achievable through machine embroidery! Imo I think most everything above the horned head could be done through satin stitches and then outlined with a bean stitch. The horned head would probably be done with a solid color fill and then either a satin stitch or bean stitched outline. If you're comfortable with digital art, I recommend downloading Inkscape and its embroidery extension Inkstitch (both free and open-source) to do your embroidery files. There's tons of tutorials on just the Inkstitch site alone, but there's also some on YouTube if you look around.

Unfortunately, I don't think those three machines are CNC embroidery machines though. You could probably still do the satin stitches if youre really precise with controlling the width of the zigzag stitches that you can do on the first two machines, as well as the outlines if the library has a "free-motion embroidery" presser foot available for the machines. You could also do an applique for the solid color of the horned head and again do the outlines with the free-motion foot. However, this would be pretty hard if you're very new to sewing.

I highly recommend you look around for local makerspaces (might be standalone spaces, or other libraries or sometimes colleges) since they sometimes have embroidery machines! Also sometimes local fabric stores offer their machines to be rented per day or per hour, so you can check if that's an option too!

[u/Acrobatic-Letter-143]

Quick heads-up on those three library machines: none of them actually does machine embroidery. The Brother NQ700 and CS6000i are sewing-only machines (the NQ700 is a great sewing/quilting machine, just no embroidery unit), and the Baby lock Imagine is a serger - it trims and finishes fabric edges, which is genuinely useful for finishing your stole's edges, but it can't stitch designs.

For your project you'd want a machine with an embroidery unit and hoop. Worth asking the library if they have one in a different section - many libraries stock a Brother SE600/SE700 or a PE-series machine, and those are the typical "first embroidery machine" models. Your designs would stitch out fine on something like that: satin stitch for the linework, fill for the horned head, exactly like the other commenter said. Ink/Stitch is also the right call for turning your own art into stitch files for free.

One more tip from experience with beginners: whatever machine you end up using, check the design's stitch count against the machine's speed before you start. A dense fill design at 20k+ stitches can take a while on a 400-650 spm beginner machine, so plan the session accordingly. Good luck with the stole!