Welcome to Lilo

Lilo turns a picture, a word or your own drawing into stitches, the tiny thread moves an embroidery machine sews. Then it sends the design to your machine.

Say you want your logo on the inside of a suit jacket. You open Lilo, drop in the logo, press one button and watch it sew itself on screen. Then you send it to the machine over Wi-Fi.

You do not need an account. Lilo does not upload your designs anywhere.

What you can make#

• A picture stitched from a logo or sketch. Read Turn a picture into stitches.
• A monogram, like "JK" on a suit lining. Read Lettering.
• A crest or patch drawn from scratch. Read Drawing tools.
• Pixel art in a cross-stitch style. Read Pixel art.
• A converted file. Read The converter.

How this guide works#

• New here? Start with Your first design in five minutes.
• Stuck on a button? Look for the small round ? next to it. It tells you what the control does, when to change it and a typical value. It also links to the full page.
• Looking for something? Open Help with the Help button at the top, or press ⌘? (Ctrl+? on Windows and Linux). Type a word and the pages filter as you type.
• Something sewed badly? Go to Fixing sew-out problems.

Four helpers inside the app#

• The workflow strip at the top of the editor shows five steps and ticks them off for you. Read Helpers inside Lilo.
• The tour walks you through your first design. You can replay it from Help.
• Hints are the ? buttons.
• The warnings tray tells you, calmly, when something might sew badly, and offers a fix.

Words you do not know#

Embroidery has its own words. Each one is explained the first time it appears. You can also look any word up in the Glossary.