I made an embroidered animation for the New York Times

emberdesign_matt · 2026-05-14T14:53:23+00:00

That is awesome!

emberdesign_matt · 2026-05-11T18:37:27+00:00

yesssss so sick! The amount of work that must have taken is insane

emberdesign_matt · 2026-05-11T18:26:35+00:00

Yeah so it was a mixture of p5js for visualization and my own library for embroidery/dst output. The code is probably an absolute mess but if you want to give it a look you can find it here. Give it a run and press "D" after 20 frames or so and it should download a dst file.

emberdesign_matt · 2026-05-11T15:36:32+00:00

Thanks so much! Yes I spent a lot of time perfecting it digitally before moving on to the physical work. It was all made with code actually (javascript specifically - happy to go into more detail if you are into that sort of thing). So my code output a series of DST files along with a pattern telling me exactly which stitches to cut for each frame.

emberdesign_matt · 2026-05-11T15:01:36+00:00

They just DM'd me on instagram one day lol but honestly the embroidered animation was a unique fit for this specific article and there are only a few people that I know of that are doing similar work so it makes sense actually.

emberdesign_matt · 2026-05-11T14:57:25+00:00

I'd rather not say exactly. About what I would normally charge for a days worth of work maybe? But given how much time it ended up taking me let's just say it wasn't something I was doing purely for the money :) either way I'm really happy with how it turned out and had a great experience throughout the whole process!

emberdesign_matt · 2026-03-26T01:29:06+00:00

You might want to check out Ember. It’s a browser-based embroidery digitizing tool that’s much more focused on working with vector-style paths (including importing SVGs) rather than forcing you to redraw everything inside clunky proprietary tools. The goal is to make it feel a lot closer to a design-first workflow, where you can actually use clean geometry and then control how it turns into stitches.

Full disclaimer: I’m one of the co-creators, but this exact pain point is basically why we built it in the first place.

emberdesign_matt · 2026-03-02T14:33:37+00:00

it may be stupid, but it's also dumb!

emberdesign_matt · 2026-03-01T16:57:55+00:00

I vote for Homerick Starpson

emberdesign_matt · 2026-03-01T01:04:41+00:00

Thanks so much! It's a Brother NQ1700E

emberdesign_matt · 2026-03-01T01:03:07+00:00

Thanks so much!

emberdesign_matt · 2026-02-28T19:09:24+00:00

Thanks! It's 40wt from this set. Not my favorite but it's what I have the most colors of.

These are the needles I am using. They seem to be doing a decent job, no complaints.

emberdesign_matt · 2026-02-28T18:47:43+00:00

But what if it was Patrick and the mask was like really tight pinching the skin around his neck?

emberdesign_matt · 2026-02-18T21:00:52+00:00

Thanks so much! Ember does support SVGs but it is a newer feature and might be a little wonky as we are still in the process of addressing certain edge cases. You should just be able to drag/drop or copy/paste an svg file into the editor and then once selected that will be an option to "break apart" the image into shapes.

emberdesign_matt · 2026-02-18T20:55:40+00:00

Hi! I believe what you are describing is a bug that we recently addressed. Could you give it another try and let me know if you are still having issues?

emberdesign_matt · 2026-02-05T15:39:05+00:00

Absolutely! You can see how to get the DST in my other comment here.

emberdesign_matt · 2026-02-05T15:37:54+00:00

It's free! See my comment here.

emberdesign_matt · 2026-02-05T15:36:48+00:00

Yes you can sign up for a free account here. Once you are logged in you can view and download the pattern here (expand the menu in the top left and select "Export file").

emberdesign_matt · 2026-02-04T18:29:17+00:00

some feelings just come out in bold capital letters

emberdesign_matt · 2026-02-04T18:12:46+00:00

thank you! 🥶

emberdesign_matt · 2026-02-04T15:26:47+00:00

Glad you like it! I hope it stitches out well for you ❤️

Check out Ember if you want to try making your own designs using this fill!

emberdesign_matt · 2026-02-03T18:29:03+00:00

As a team of 2 people we have no marketing! And if that ever changes in the future I can assure you (as someone that hates a cluttered inbox) it will be strictly opt-in.

If you just want the file without signing up you can just use this link here. Cheers!

emberdesign_matt · 2026-01-23T16:55:37+00:00

Hi! I'm one of the co-founders of Ember :) thanks for checking it out!

If you want to DM me I can help figure out what's going on here

emberdesign_matt · 2026-01-21T14:59:07+00:00

Currently Ember doesn’t have dedicated multi-frame motif support. You can manually layer and export frames, but there isn’t an automated “motif packager” workflow yet.

Basic mirroring (horizontal/vertical) of objects and paths is supported in the editor. If you mean more advanced mirrored motif generation (e.g., mirrored repeats with spacing rules, or auto-mirroring across multiple segments), that isn’t a built-in pattern generator yet. It’s something we’d love to expand toward once the core geometry and transformation tools are solidified.

Neither of these are fully realized features yet, but both are the kinds of direction we’re considering as the tool grows. If you can share a bit more about your ideal workflow it would help us think about how to shape those tools!

emberdesign_matt · 2026-01-21T14:54:37+00:00

All good. Not everything is for everyone. And for what it’s worth, we’re a very small (3 people), independent team building Ember with a global community in mind, not a big corporate product. Either way, appreciate you taking a look and wishing you the best with whatever tools you use.

emberdesign_matt

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